Citizen scientist volunteers are needed on Stream Teams to adopt sampling sites along the Yampa River and help keep watch over the health of the watershed.

The Stream Teams are part of an expanded River Watch program locally now under the supervision of nonprofit Friends of the Yampa.

“FOTY is excited to integrate River Watch into our Yampa River Scorecard Project efforts, especially because we already utilize many of the River Watch sampling protocols such as the macroinvertebrate collection procedure for the scorecard project,” said Conservation Program Manager Emily Burke at Friends of the Yampa.

River Watch of Colorado is a 30-year-old, statewide, volunteer water quality monitoring program operated in partnership between River Science and Colorado Parks and Wildlife, primarily funded by CPW through a mix of federal funds and Colorado Lottery funds, according to CPW.

River Watch Program Director Michaela Taylor said some level of River Watch sampling has been happening in Routt County since the program started in the 1990s with a varied number of active sites each year.

Through Friends of the Yampa, the local River Watch plans to expand its reach to adopt sampling sites in each of the five segments of the Yampa River including in Steamboat Springs, Elk River and upper, middle and lower Yampa, Burke said.

Teams of volunteers adopt a site and sample each month for metals, dissolved oxygen, temperature, pH, alkalinity and hardness. In addition, nutrient samples are taken twice a year, once at high flows and once at low flows. Macroinvertebrate samples will be conducted once a year at low flows.

“River Watch data is one of the main sources of data that gets used by the state to set water quality standards and ensure that standards are being met,” Burke explained.

Once collected, some of the samples such as metals, nutrients and macroinvertebrates are sent to a lab in Fort Collins to be analyzed, while some samples such as dissolved oxygen, pH, alkalinity, hardness and temperature are analyzed and recorded by the volunteer teams using equipment provided by River Watch.

Currently two River Watch sampling sites are active at the tailwaters of Stagecoach Reservoir and at Fifth Street Bridge in Steamboat.

Individuals or groups that would like to be part of or form a Stream Team can contact Burke at emily@friendsoftheyampa.com. More information on the program is available at CPW.state.co.us/river-watch and River.science/river-watch.

While actively recruiting volunteers and engaging the community in stewardship of the Yampa River, the nonprofit also will continue to work with nonprofit Yampatika, which formerly managed River Watch locally, to integrate the project into environmental education efforts, Burke said.