A huge shoutout to all volunteers for another successful stream monitoring season! Thank you for going out month after month to collect water data. Your work will help assess the overall health of our state’s waters and guide water protection and restoration decision-making.

Now it's time for us to celebrate you! 

There's still time to submit a WI Stream Monitoring Award nomination!

The Wisconsin Stream Monitoring Awards recognize individual volunteers, volunteer teams, and our volunteer coordinators for their exemplary efforts in volunteer stream monitoring and related activities, such as their support of stream stewardship, commitment to developing partnerships, and/or sharing their skills and water quality data to benefit Wisconsin streams and rivers.

Each award recipient will receive a locally handmade pottery award tile, presented to them at the 2026 WI Lakes and Rivers Convention Awards Banquet on April 16. 

Submit your nomination by December 1!

Submit data to SWIMS by December 1st. Use your new MyWisconsinID to log in to SWIMS. 

*Remember, WAV staff will no longer collect volunteers' baseline datasheets! We encourage volunteers or coordinators to keep datasheets for your own records.

Questions? Email the Water Action Volunteers Program at wav@extension.wisc.edu.

Bundle up, grab your favorite hot drink, and join us on Dec. 18th for a broad overview into the world of ice fishing, offering insights that will enhance your time on the ice and foster a greater appreciation for ice-covered lakes.

Stephanie Boismenue (Oneida County Land & Water Conservation) and John Heusinkveld (Northwoods Land Trust) will cover the basics of tackle, technique, technologies, where to find fish in the cold water, staying warm and safe on frozen water, connecting with the elements, aquatic invasive species, and stewardship efforts to protect our frozen habitats.

This month's Volunteer Spotlight is the awesome Otter Creek monitoring team!

Read below to learn about this team's efforts in Iowa County and what they are learning from their baseline stream data. 

Swallow nests at Otter Creek monitoring site near a bridge on Highway 130.

Submitted by Joe Brusca and Sally Leong for the Otter Creek monitoring team. 

We are a group of 7 WAV volunteers sampling Otter Creek in Iowa County, where we all live. Otter Creek is a large creek that feeds into the Wisconsin River. It is largely impaired along much of the creek, caused by stream bank erosion and run-off.

We hope to use our baseline data to justify efforts to reduce erosion caused by high velocity water in the creek, by creating some new shallow flood plains with deep-rooted native plants that will hold the soil. Currently, there are many areas of cropland that can be flooded in high rain events of 4 inches or more. There is also shallow-rooted, invasive reed canary grass that is endemic along the high banks of the creek. 

This year, two of us, Joe Brusca and Sally Leong, observed swallows in June at our sampling site near a bridge on Highway 130. Normally we see nests, but never any swallows, so this was a treat! 

         — Otter Creek Monitoring Team in Iowa County

Acidimeter at the Museum of Badger Army Ammunition. Photos by Emily Heald.

Hundreds of years ago, measuring acidity was done with methods like litmus paper, which you may be familiar with from high school chemistry classes. While this method works well for some uses, it is unsuitable for many industrial uses, such as testing the acidity (pH) of citrus juices. In the 1930s, a chemistry professor named Arnold Beckman was asked to invent a better way to test pH of citrus juice.

Beckman created a revolutionary design initially called an “acidimeter” that utilized electrodes, amplifiers, vacuum tubes, and other chemistry components that we won’t get into here. Scientific explanation of how the meter works aside, the unit was compact, rugged, and portable. The meter appealed to labs beyond the citrus industry, and Beckman eventually left academia to form a company that mass produced pH meters, and eventually other scientific instruments.

Imagine having to haul one of these acidimeters out to your stream site every month!

         — Emily Heald, Extension Rivers Educator

Water Action Volunteers Program (WAV)

Phone: (608) 331-0173

Email: wav@extension.wisc.edu

wateractionvolunteers.org

The Water Action Volunteers (WAV) stream monitoring program is an ongoing partnership between the University of Wisconsin–Madison Division of Extension, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, and nearly 50 local partner groups and organizations.