Citizen's Monitoring Program

Citizen’s Monitoring Program

Once a week, the Center for the Inland Bays aids the University of Delaware’s Citizen Monitoring Program to assess the water quality of our tidal waters. This program specifically targets dissolved oxygen levels, harmful algae blooms, nuisance aquatic vegetation, and bacterial concentrations.

Monitoring sites for the Citizen's Monitoring Program around the bays and Broadkill River.

Each Tuesday morning I have gone to the James Farm Ecological Preserve to take water samples and record physical water characteristics. I’ve learned that it’s important to take these measurements in the morning because the dissolved oxygen values are at the lowest in their daily cycle. Using an electronic instrument called a YSI, dissolved oxygen, temperature, salinity, and pH can be recorded. It is also important to the program to report macro-algae (visible algae as opposed to invisible to the naked eye microalgae). Finally, two water samples are placed in containers and must be kept cool so that true bacterial and algal concentrations are recorded when analyzed in the lab. Overall, it’s pretty simple. However, with the input of many volunteers and study sites around the bays, scientists can assess the safety and quality of our bays.

The YSI model we have at the Center for the Inland Bays. Used to calculate dissolved oxygen, temperature, and salinity.

This water quality monitoring program has helped Delaware beaches receive a 5 star national by the National Resources Defense Council. Find out how you can join the effort to protect Delaware's water quality at http://www.citizen-monitoring.udel.edu/

Inland Bays Clean up

They’ve kept me busy here at the CIB lately, but I’ve finally gotten a chance to update you all on what has been going on in the past week. The subject I’ll be highlighting on in this entry is one of the most rewarding projects I’ve experienced as an intern here—The Inland Bays Clean up.

The Center for the Inland Bays organizes an annual clean up of the bays in cooperation with state and local employees such as the Division of Fish and Wildlife and Delmarva Paddlesports. Community organizations like the Dewey Beach Lion's Club and Delaware Surf Fishing were also there. This event not only improves the quality of the bays, but brings people of all types in the community together. Help with the project ranged from teenagers to seniors, fishermen to scientists, locals to tourists.

Some of the 2012 Clean Up Crew

The day started with gathering at Massey’s landing in Long Neck, DE, a crowded boat launching/pier fishing spot. I dragged my girlfriend along with me at 9 a.m to set up with CIB staff. The event needed a “refueling station” stocked with hotdogs, chips, redbull, and water. Once everyone was there, boats began zipping off in all directions on a mission to gather garbage.

(Left) Refuse from the bays after the first trip. (Right) Most of my crew with the industrial size chain found.

The boat I was on visited and Island on the north side of Indian River Bay. We came back with a boat load (literally speaking) of treated wood, cans, trash, metal, and crab pots. We also had some odd finds such as a golf bag and a giant version of a rusty bicycle chain. By the day’s end we almost had a full dumpster full of refuse on its way to a healthier disposal.

A trapped terrapin in an abandoned crab pot. Volunteer for future events so things like this don't happen!

The Center for the Inland Bays will be conducting another bay clean up of the Little Assawoman Bay later in the season. Frequent http://www.inlandbays.org/ to be updated on our events. Also, I will put something on here when a date, time, and place is set.

Banding Baby Ospreys

This guy's feathers are getting ruffled in the wind

The crew- CIB's Dennis Bartow, the interns, and volunteers

Three chicks surprised to see us

Caitlin holding a six-week-old Osprey

Two curious Ospreys on the lookout

This baby osprey is holding down the fort

A beautiful Opsrey landing on his nest

Two week-old siblings look hungry

Marine Eelgrass

What eelgrass typically looks
like when found in nature.

Down in the Sinepuxent Bay, a little north of Assateague Island, Maryland, a crew from the Center for Inland Bays traveled north to pick eelgrass seeds. For four days straight, in very chilly water, we boated over to an area of the bay where the bottom was densely covered in eelgrass. In our wetsuits we would jump in the water and blindly grab for strands that felt more bumpy than the rest. This indicated that these strands had eelgrass seeds embedded into them, similar to a peapod.

A seemingly slow process ended up surprising me in the end. We had filled up close to a large cooler each day, so after our four day harvest, a lot had accumulated.

This strand of eelgrass is filled with seeds.

At the end of the week, we had driven all of what we had collected up to Lewes to place it in a tank with flowing water. The eelgrass has been there for over a month now. The strands of grass decompose and the seeds inside sink to the bottom.

Every few weeks, Nick and I will travel up to Lewes to weed out the strands with no seeds in them to keep the tank clean and so we can have as much pure eelgrass seeds as possible. By the end of the season, all of our hard work, collecting, cleaning and maintaining the seeds all summer will be scattered in the Inland Bays, where they will hopefully start to grow.

Background On Eelgrass:

Zostera is a small genus of widely distributed seagrass, commonly called marine eelgrass. This is different from the freshwater plant genus Vallisneria which is also called "eelgrass".

This is the Center's eelgrass tank up in Lewes, DE.
The tank is much bigger looking in person!

Zostera can be found in a variety of marine coasts, including brackish bays. They can withstand a wide tidal range. Zostera beds are important for sediment deposition, substrate stabilization, and as nursery grounds for many species of economically important fish and shellfish. Eelgrass houses an extremely biodiverse range of marine life. Zostera often forms beds in bay mud in the estuarine setting. It is an important food for Brant Geese and Wigeons, and even (occasionally) caterpillars of the grass moth Dolicharthria punctalis.