September 2009
<PDF version - for downloading and distribution>
Monitoring Water Quality in the Merrimack River
Playing Hooky for Work
By Tracie Sales
While most people think of playing hooky as a way to escape work or school, for Lewis Zediana, Chief Operating Engineer at the Tewksbury Water Treatment Plant, playing hooky can actually make his job easier. Once a month between May and October, Lewis takes a morning off from work and volunteers as a boat operator for the Merrimack River Watershed Council’s (MRWC) Merrimack River Water Quality Monitoring Program. He even brings his own boat. For Lewis, as long as it is not raining, volunteering is like playing hooky, but with the benefit of working toward cleaning up the river from which his treatment plant withdraws its water.
When asked why he joined the program, Lewis stated “I am a boater and I believed this was a good cause and I thought I could help out.” He also commented that “Knowing the rivers which supply water to the Town of Tewksbury helps tremendously when there are issues with the river.”
Early in 2007, MRWC contacted Lewis about its new water quality monitoring program, explaining that no one had been collecting consistent, long term data along the length of the Merrimack in Massachusetts and asked him if he wanted to help the organization learn more about the health of the river. He did, and nearly three years later he remains a dedicated volunteer boater.
The MRWC conducts river water monitoring as part of its volunteer Merrimack River Water Quality Monitoring, Analyzing, Protecting and Promoting Program (MAPP). For the last three years, the MRWC volunteers have been monitoring the 50-mile length of the Merrimack River in Massachusetts about twice a month by motor boat during the spring, summer, and fall seasons. The data collected include water temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen, conductivity, total dissolved solids, salinity and clarity. Samples gathered during monitoring trips are also analyzed for bacteria by the EPA.
Like a number of rivers in Massachusetts, the Merrimack suffers from combined sewer overflows as well as non-point source pollution. Bacteria data collected by Lewis and other volunteers showed that, based on accepted watershed association standards, the Merrimack River is unsafe for swimming on wet weather days almost half the time (47%) in 2008. On dry weather days, it was unsafe to swim 10% of the time. In addition, the river was found to be unsafe for boating almost 20% of the time on wet weather days, where the standards for boating are five times more lenient than for swimming.
Results are revealing. “Even boaters like Lewis are at risk,” notes MRWC Executive Director Christine Tabak. “It’s not hard to imagine the level of pollution when in almost 1 of 5 rainy days it could be hazardous to even venture out on the river in a boat!”
As Lewis states, “We all live and work in the same small puddle of water. It is our responsibility to use the resource wisely.”
