In Washington state, citizen science is everywhere, including wherever it is that I'm pointing!

Having just returned from a vacation to one my favorite cities of all time, Seattle, I thought I would highlight some of the amazing citizen science projects taking place in Washington state. Below, I’ve provided just a quick sampling of some the projects we’ve added to our Project Finder.

Do you know of any other projects in the state of Washington? If so, leave a comment or add them to the Project Finder yourself!

• Beach Environmental Assessment, Communication, and Health (BEACH) volunteers monitor high-risk Washington state beaches for bacteria called “enterococci”. The presence of this bacteria at elevated levels means there is a potential for disease-causing bacteria and viruses to also be present. BEACH is intended to reduce the risk of disease for people who play in saltwater.

• State of the Oyster volunteers help monitor bacterial contamination levels in edible shellfish collected from privately owned Washington state beaches in Hood Canal and throughout Puget Sound

• The Salish Sea Hydrophone Network needs volunteers to help monitor the critical habitat of endangered Pacific Northwest killer whales by detecting orca sounds and measuring ambient noise levels. Volunteers are especially needed in 2010 to help notify researchers when orcas are in the Salish Sea, which encompasses the waters of Puget Sound and the surrounding area.

• Seward Park has gone bonkers for citizen science. They need volunteers for a wide range of cool projects, including hemlock tree monitoring, plankton sampling, bat surveys, water chemistry, phenology, eagle and raptor DNA fingerprinting, and even coyote tracking with the help of Twitter. That’s enough citizen science to last a lifetime!

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  A happy fun western gray squirrel (Photo: Pacific Biodiversity Institute)

  The Pacific Biodiversity Institute offers two surveying projects: the Harbor Porpoise Monitoring Project at locations near Anacortes, Whidbey Island, and San Juan Island, and the Western Gray Squirrel Project in the Methow Watershed.

• Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team (COASST) is a network of citizen scientists that monitor marine resources and ecosystem health at 300 beaches across northern California, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska. Team volunteers pledge to survey their beach every month, and, in return, the COASST office gives that information back out to volunteers and the communities.

• SoundCitizen is a community-based water sampling network in the Puget Sound area of Washington state. Staffed by undergraduate students at the University of Washington, the project needs citizen volunteers and school groups, who voluntarily collect water samples from aquatic systems, perform a series of simple chemical tests, and then mail samples to the lab to be analyzed for cooking spices and emerging pollutants.

Sara Gluckman of Vermont Lay Monitoring collects a sample. (photo: Amy Picotte)

You might say this post misses the boat. It’s about citizen scientists who monitor water quality—and World Water Day was last week. But  the remarkable thing about these volunteers is that they never stop. They work all year round and nearly around the clock to keep our rivers, streams, and lakes healthy.

Now I know that there are a lot of citizen scientists who are dedicated to what they do. But these people are seriously pushing the envelope.

They’re out there, sometimes hip-deep in chilly waters, dutifully taking samples week after week. They build their own monitoring equipment: siphoning systems, extendable sampling rods, and turbidity-measuring tools called Secchi disks, to name a few. A group in northern California just published The Bug Book, a 200-page guide to identifying “macroinvertebrates,” microscopic animals that reflect the fitness of a waterway. It’s packed with more than 200 photos and 75 detailed  illustrations of the little critters!

I recently read about these and many more accomplishments in the Volunteer Monitor, a national newsletter. Editor Eleanor Ely, whose 20 years working on the newsletter mirrors the commitment of the volunteers themselves, estimates that there are hundreds of thousands of citizen water monitors in the U.S. alone. They safeguard their local neighborhood watersheds by sharing their data and observations with local and federal agencies and environmental researchers; in addition they often conduct clean-up and maintenance campaigns.

Ralph Vogel, a volunteer for 36 years, with one of 300 Secchi disks he made. (photo: Sarah Vogel)

Ellie kindly agreed to let us excerpt some photos and tidbits from her latest issue, which celebrates the accomplishments of what she calls “amazing volunteers.” For all the details, you can download a PDF version of the full issue.

Many local water monitoring groups recently have submitted their programs to our Project Finder (see the list below). We’re delighted to be able to help promote their work and pull in more volunteers—and we hope that lots more will join us. Welcome aboard!

Matthew Evans, 15, practicing oxygen tests at a workshop. (photo: Kate Young)

• Willamette Riverkeeper Volunteer Water Quality Monitoring
• Contra Costa Volunteer Creek Monitoring Program
• Lakes of Missouri Volunteer Program
• Yreka Creek Citizen Monitoring Project
• West Virginia Save Our Streams Program
• Missouri Stream Team Program
• Shermans Creek Watershed Monitoring Program