The Voinovich School has made an invaluable contribution to the improvement of Ohio water quality with the development of the Non-point Source (NPS) Monitoring Project, an on-line reporting system used to track environmental changes in four watersheds: Raccoon Creek, Monday Creek, Sunday Creek and Huff Run.
The project, which was funded by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Division of Mineral Resources Management (ODNR-MRM), was created with the intent of achieving goals for Abandoned Mine Drainage (AMD) contained in Ohio’s NPS Management Plan 2005-2010. The plan lists AMD as one of six key problems to address in order to improve water quality in Ohio streams.
The ODNR has spent $11.7 million thus far on AMD reclamation in these four watersheds and the NPS Monitoring Project constitutes an attempt to develop an evaluation and reporting system for these projects.
The Web site provides access to a database that allows those working on the watershed projects to login and input or download data and information for different watershed monitoring stations. Members of the watershed groups can input project status details, maps, graphs, charts, photographs and printable reports. These features allow for the tracking of water-quality and biology changes, such as pH, acidity, fish abundance and diversity and acid load reduction, at the four watersheds.
According to project manager Jen Bowman, one purpose of the Web site is to take scientific data and make it understandable for the general public and the EPA so that they can see how the money was spent.
Voinovich School students have been involved in several aspects of the project, including data collection and entry, the designing of report templates, Web layout and the creation of a Web tutorial for the watershed scorecards.
The NPS Management Plan has set forth the goal of bringing 102 stream miles of the 341 stream miles impaired by AMD into full attainment with Warmwater Habitat status. As of 2007, 23.3 stream miles have achieved full attainment.
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