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California Coastwide Snapshot Day
Coastwide Snapshot Day, May 7, 2005
Snapshot Day volunteers monitor water quality and collect samples to assess the health of as many streams as possible. Information on trainings for volunteers. (PDF) (1 page, 59K About PDF)
Resources
- California Coastal Commission Coastwide Snapshot Day 2004
- California Coastal Commission's Coastwide Snapshot Day 2003 Final Report
- About Monterey Bay: Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary
Volunteers testing water samples from Calera Creek, Pacifica, CA, just upstream of its confluence with the ocean
The annual Coastwide Snapshot Day is a water monitoring partnership lead by EPA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the California Coastal Commission. Volunteers analyze water samples for temperature, pH, conductivity, turbidity (cloudiness) and dissolved oxygen, and forward samples to labs for nutrient and bacteria tests.
Snapshot Day started in 1999 as a local event on the central California coast, involving the Monterey Bay Sanctuary Citizen Watershed Monitoring Network, the Coastal Watershed Council, and local communities. This effort, repeated in 2000, 2001, and 2002, demonstrated the value of getting many volunteers to test water quality simultaneously. In 2003, U.S. EPA provided $180,000 in funding to expand Snapshot Day to California’s entire coastline, including the EPA-funded National Estuary Programs at:
- San Francisco Bay
- Santa Monica Bay
- and Morro Bay .
These programs used their existing volunteer monitoring groups.
The 2003 event involved 637 trained volunteers sampling 300 rivers and streams at 550 sites. It was the first to cover California's entire coastline, providing public agencies with a "snapshot" of coastal water quality. Results in 2004 showed that 27% of the samples failed to meet water quality standards for bacteria, 24% failed to meet standards for oxygen-depleting nutrients, and 18% failed for turbidity. The year-to-year data will help agencies decide where to focus efforts to reduce pollution.
Rockaway Beach, Pacifica, CA More information
Cheryl McGovern (mcgovern.cheryl@epa.govern)
(415) 972-3415.