Once
a month from May to October, Laura and Bryan Emerson squeeze into
their blue tandem kayak surrounded by $4600 worth of scientific
equipment and paddle out to the deepest section of their remote lake
to measure water quality. An hour or so later, they fly the samples
and notes via their 1954 Piper PA-20 to a staff member of the Mat-Su Borough Volunteer Lake Monitoring program, who meets them at a
roadside lake in order to whisk the time sensitive samples to a lab
near Palmer.
Kayaking out to test the lake water photo by Howard Feldman |
To date, the Emersons are the only volunteers monitoring an off-road lake, and the program coordinator, Melanie Trost, would like to recruit additional flyers for the summer of 2015. “Even people who cannot do monthly water sampling can help with occasional observations,” says Melanie. “We welcome reports of dumping, pollution, and invasive plants in our lakes and rivers. One concern is old polystyrene docks, which beavers and muskrats chew and burrow into, and the sun deteriorates, releasing the little foam beads into the watershed where it looks like food to birds, fish, and mammals. Pilots can tell us what they see on a particular time and day at a lake they visit.”