Welcome to the Water Wellness Toolbox Community Science Bin

Involving community members in tracking the health of local watersheds accomplishes the dual purpose of generating needed environmental health data while also involving the public and creating community around local watersheds and stewards that advocate for local stream health. Vashon Nature Center involves ages from 5th grade to adult in our community science programs that monitor 3 key vital signs in our watersheds: Stream Invertebrates, Stormwater pollutants, and Salmon populations. Each of these parameters contain important information about watershed health and are also easy to measure with the help of public volunteers. If you live on Vashon give us an email if you'd like to be involved in any of these programs: info@vashonnaturecenter.org

The community science bin contains protocols, datasheets, equipment lists and lab recommendations for the following watershed health-based community science studies: Salmonwatchers, Stream Invertebrate sampling, and Stormwater sampling. All information should be here to enable you to launch your own community science project in these focus areas. As more community science protocols are developed, tested, and refined from some of our pilot programs we will list them here as well including: eDNA, fin clip DNA.

Community Science Protocols

Stream Invertebrate Monitoring

Standard EPA protocol for B-IBI sampling

Vashon Nature Center Field Protocol based on EPA standards

Example field datasheet with recommended parameters to measure:

Lab recommendation for stream invertebrate processing: Vashon Nature Center uses Rhithron Labs which is the same lab used by King County and various other municipalities in the Puget Sound region.

Puget Sound Stream Benthos Database: This database is a central storage for stream invertebrate data and Benthic Index of Biotic Integrity (B-IBI) scores of thousands of creeks entered by multiple organizations and agencies around Washington State, including Vashon Nature Center.

Stormwater Testing

Protocol for getting water samples during storm events

List of labs local to the PNW that we have used and recommend: Spectra Labs, Pacific Agricultural laboratory

List of suggested metrics to test for is provided in the sample test form below. This includes standard metals and nutrients plus a full PAH (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon) stormwater panel recommended to us by WSU stormwater lab:

Salmon Population monitoring

Each fall 40-50 adults or families are assigned spots on our local creeks to visit twice a week for 15 minutes to record salmon returns between the months of October-December. Below we provide a Salmonwatcher training slideshow and protocols. Our datasheets are on-line google forms and are available to view upon request (info@vashonnaturecenter.org)

Salmonwatcher training slideshow: this is given in-person to new volunteers. Return volunteers can view it on-line as a refresher each year in our volunteer portal.

Field sampling protocols: we have 2 levels of salmonwatch volunteer. Most volunteers are assigned either a sit spot or a furthest limit spot. A few experienced volunteers (3+ years in the program) are assigned reach walks where they identify and count redds. Sit spots and furthest limit spots give us data on salmon presence and absence. Furthest limit spots allow us to know how far up salmon migrate in our creeks and are only monitored after storm events. Sit spots are monitored twice a week. Reach walks allow us to get quantitative data on salmon spawning numbers that is more standardized from year to year and allows us to make some inferences on salmon spawning population trends.

Reach walk volunteers are piloting a new DNA testing program for us. When they see dead salmon on their reach they take a clip of the fin. This is then stored for later analysis by the WDFW fish DNA lab. From this data we hope to understand better which populations of chum and coho salmon are using our creeks and identify if we ever get Chinook use of our creeks (historic records exist).

More information on using eDNA to identify what types of fish are using each creek will be forthcoming after a stronger pilot program has been completed. In the meantime feel free to contact us if you are interested in starting an eDNA community science project for your streams and we will do our best to help!