December 2007

In 2007 JRWA completed its fifth year of sampling Kingston/Duxbury/Plymouth bays in cooperation with MADEPs Estuaries Project (MEP) and UMass Dartmouth School for Marine Science Technology (SMAST). Volunteers caught the outgoing tide every two weeks throughout the summer and sampled water quality of the bay water in six stations from the mouth of the river to Bug Light and the Plymouth Cordage Channel. Besides the bay, water quality samples were taken from the Jones River and results indicate high levels of nitrogen spilling into the estuary from nearby land use.

JRWA is establishing a long term water quality and habitat monitoring program for the estuary and Jones River to supplement existing nutrient monitoring under the MEP program and bacterial monitoring in conjunction with shellfish regulations by DMF. In 2006 JRWA took the first step in developing this program by establishing a continuous monitoring station and monthly sampling at more than 19 sites on the river. The instrumentation used for this program was purchased with funds provided by Massachusetts Coastal Zone Management under their Coastal Monitoring Grant Program, that was later supplemented late in the year by the addition of a chlorophyll probe by EPA. The instrumentation is comprised of a Yellow Springs Instruments 6600 Extended Deployment System (YSI 6600-EDS) equipped with sensors to measure Conductivity, Temperature, Depth, Salinity (calculated), pH, Turbidity, Dissolved Oxygen, and Chlorophyll. The program is focused on: 1) establishing current (baseline) conditions, and 2) increasing the temporal and spatial resolution of water quality data in the Jones River. Volunteers of JRL and JRWA conduct the water quality monitoring.

For detailed results from the 2006 sampling please follow this link to the report (coming soon). See here for a snapshot of river conditions in the fall of 2007 (coming soon).

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