Keeping Clear Water

SEELEY LAKE – One of the goals of the Clearwater Resource Council (CRC) is to protect and sustain the waters of the Clearwater River drainage system. To this end, CRC has a number of projects in place that have gathered a large amount of scientific data.

"There's a lot of good stuff going on that we're very happy about and that is really remarkable but nobody really knows about it," said Bruce Rieman, CRC Outreach Committee member

The Outreach Committee decided to resolve that problem by creating the video "Keeping Clearwater." Rieman said they considered creating a brochure or report but felt a video would have a longer life and be more effective in connecting with people.

Rohrer Film and Video was chosen not only because producer/director Jenny Rohrer is a Seeley Lake resident but also because of the business' reputation as a leading producer of award-winning informational and motivational videos for non-profits as well as other groups.

About the making of the film Rieman said, "It was challenging. It was really fun. It was really interesting as things started to come together. But it was a huge amount of work."

Funding and support for the project came from a number of sources including the Seeley Lake Community Foundation, private donors, the Southwestern Crown Collaborative and the Bonneville Environmental Foundation (BEF). The last two organizations stress community involvement and citizen science-based approaches to solving environmental issues. BEF, in particular, urged CRC to implement a stronger outreach to the community.

"Keeping Clearwater" focuses on the on-going water monitoring being done by Seeley Lake Junior High students, Seeley-Swan High School (SSHS) students and local volunteer citizen scientists. The film interviews a number of people, among them SLE math and science teacher Patti Bartlett. Bartlett started the Morrell Creek Riparian Classroom in 2009 and each year teaches her seventh and eighth grade students the rudiments of monitoring the creek, assessing the health of its waters, and keeping statistics on fish populations.

In 2011, SSHS science teacher Tonya Smith initiated the Students in Action Morrell Creek Monitoring Project. The work the high school students do includes monitoring stream flow, tracking water temperature and analyzing nutrients in the water. CRC Outreach member Joann Wallenburn, who helped set up the program and continues to assist with it, said the students perform extremely sensitive tests on the water samples and the results are sent to the Flathead Lake Biological Station. She related the reaction of a Plum Creek Timber Company hydrologist when she solicited funding to help underwrite the cost of the equipment needed for the project.

The hydrologist said, "Wow, that's university grade research science."

Wallenburn said, "The students are doing the full complement of measuring at the creek and the accuracy of their work has now culminated in an indefinite MOU [Memorandum of Understanding, i.e., a formal agreement] with the sewer board who is paying them to continue to pull samples and have them tested at the bio-station at very sensitive levels because they're providing a baseline for the proposed sewer system."

The citizen science aspect of "Keeping Clearwater" emphasizes CRC's Adopt-a-Lake Program. Since 2009 volunteers have chosen a specific lake they monitor for water clarity and temperature from May to October.

Coordinator for the program, Cathy Harrits said, "I'm an English teacher, not a science teacher, yet here I am doing real science. It's fun and it's interesting and you learn things that you've never even thought about before. I really enjoy that part of it. I think that's true for some of the other volunteers as well."

Harrits said her monitoring work has had unexpected applications. She lives on Big Sky Lake and there is growing concern about erosion of the shorelines. She said, "I've provided information that I learned in the Adopt-A-Lake program to the committee that is dealing with the erosion issue and they've found that data very helpful."

In 2013, CRC initiated an Adopt-a-Stream program which extended monitoring to 22 streams. This year ten volunteers are collecting stream data.

About extending observation to the additional streams, Rieman said, "It's made possible because we have baseline information at Morrell Creek. So that actually gives us a calibration point – ground truth if you will – that allows us to branch out and get not as intensive information but really useful information on streams all over the valley."

Technical reports of each year's monitoring results can be accessed on the CRC website (crcmt.org). The film "Keeping Clearwater" has a broader vision. It was designed to spread the word throughout the community that, thanks to the quiet efforts of their citizen scientist neighbors and students, scientific information is being amassed about the health of the rivers and lakes that are the source of the community's drinking water, the playground for its recreation activities and a major enticement bringing tourists to the area.

Wallenburn said, "One of the values of citizen science is just spreading the awareness among the general population of these issues, these threats, these risks and what needs to be done to mitigate them."

Harrits added, "Our lakes are not in crisis. But only by watching them can we be sure they're not going to be in crisis."