Friends has been monitoring water quality in the Mad River since 1985 and has the longest continuous volunteer water quality monitoring dataset in the country. The work of our volunteers drives important conversations about water quality, the health of our watershed, climate resilience, and the stewardship of our natural resources. 
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A Note About 2022
First of all, we want to offer a huge thank you to our 2021 Mad River Watch volunteers. By field testing the new program last year, our volunteers taught us important lessons about the methods, tools, and data we can collect from our field sites.
  • We learned about the limitations of the nitrite/nitrate and phosphate test strips given the historically low levels of these nutrients in the watershed. 
  • We learned a lot about the quirks and pitfalls of Fulcrum (the app we used last year). 
  • Feedback throughout the season and from survey responses this winter encouraged us to explore the possibility of adding new parameters to the field site visit.
  • The conductivity data collected allowed us to start to understand the normal range we expect to see. This baseline data helps us figure out how to use the conductivity measurements as an indicator for more targeted investigation. 
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Developing Mad River Watch 2.0 was always intended to be a multi-year project, and our volunteers play the central role in building a program that will serve this community for decades to come. In 2022, our volunteers will continue to play a key role as we make changes and fine-tune Mad River Watch 2.0. Our goals with these changes include:
  • improving the usefulness of the data we collect to inform stewardship action; 
  • tracking change over time; 
  • providing more opportunities for volunteers to meaningfully engage with the intangible beauty and peace that comes when we spend time at the River we love; 
  • and sharing what we all learn with the community.​​​​
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Big or small, we all have an important perspective on the watershed.
​Questions? Want to be a Mad River Watch Volunteer?
​Please get in touch with us at ira@friendsofthemadriver.org or call ​(802) 496-9127​​
 Thank you, Lawson's Finest Liquids, for sponsoring
Mad River Watch 2.0!
The Lawson’s Finest Social Impact Program helps support thriving communities, including protecting our natural environment for generations to come.
"Lawson’s Finest is thrilled to partner with Friends of the Mad River. A healthy watershed starts with clean water in our streams and rivers, which in turn provides pristine ground water. We rely on Waitsfield's town water source on Scrag Mountain to make great beer, making it our most important resource to protect.”
-Sean Lawson, CEO and Founding Brewer at Lawson’s Finest Liquids
The Mad River Watch Program is grounded in decades of water quality monitoring along the Mad River and its tributaries. The program connects community members to our watershed through the collection of high quality information at key monitoring sites throughout the valley. The work of our volunteers helps;
  • To build public support for clean water
  • To establish and maintain a long-term valley wide information base to help us evaluate the long-term health of the river and to take actions to improve and maintain it.
  • To provide an enriching educational and practical experience for junior and senior high school students which integrates and applies several sciences and social studies.
  • To increase public awareness of the connection between land use and water quality.
Photos by Kinny Perot, Shelby Semmes, Tyne Pike-Sprenger

Want to be a Mad River Watch Volunteer?

Please contact us at ira@friendsofthemadriver.org or call ​(802) 496-9127​​