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The Lake Michigan coastal community of Portage, Indiana is an especially incentivized region for fresh, surface water protection and effective water-quality monitoring, due to the geographic location, demographics, and economics of the area. The reported watershed project, made possible through an EPA EE grant, represents a creative and needed collaborative program between universities, local schools, government agencies, and nonprofits to provide science-based monitoring and heightened awareness and understanding of local and emerging threats to surface water. As a result of the collaborations, the acquisition of critical water-quality data was demonstrated. In addition, procedures to study microplastics, an emerging water pollution problem, were initiated. For localities where no long-term, consistent programs exist, the model described in this chapter can be a solution for scientifically rigorous water-quality monitoring. Additional benefits of these types of programs include heightened awareness and stewardship and ultimately, an ability to promote informed decisions and actions for communities committed to protecting freshwater. A significant database of water-quality values is now available for two sites in the Salt Creek watershed, and methods for microfiber detection and quantification were developed to add to future data collections. The watershed monitoring for these sites in Salt Creek is now sustainable and is expected to lead to long-term data acquisitions. |
