The next meeting of the TLGV Water Advisory Committee will be held on Tuesday, August 8, 2017 from 9 – 11:30 am at Roseland Park, 205 Roseland Park Road, Woodstock, CT.

After the normal WAC meeting business, Jeff Hollister of the US EPA will give a special presentation about the Cyanobacteria Monitoring Collaborative. This is a program for citizen scientists, water professionals and the general public to find and study cyanobacteria (blue green algae) in water bodies. The program consists of multiple opportunities for people to get involved in water quality monitoring with different levels of time commitment. The BloomWatch program utilizes a smart phone app for reporting the location and photo-documenting algae blooms. A more involved program uses a Cyanoscope – a digital microscope that is used to help identify cyanobacteria genera, and a third, more involved program uses a fluorometer.

After Jeff’s intro to the Cyanobacteria Monitoring Collaborative, we will conclude the WAC meeting and break for lunch.  Please provide your own lunch.

At approximately 12:30, Jeff will conduct an actual training on how to use the BloomWatch App, followed by a demonstration on how to collect an algae sample from the lake and prepare slides for the Cyanoscope.  Those that are interested in participating in this training are welcome to stay.

The EPA has assembled kits for this program that can be purchased (smart phones not included).  If there is enough interest in this program, The Last Green Valley may be able to obtain a kit to share with our monitoring teams. Jean is interested in starting a pilot program for this type of monitoring in The Last Green Valley. Whether TLGV obtains a kit will depend on the level of interest in our water quality monitoring community.  High school teachers and drinking water staff are welcome to participate.

VERY IMPORTANT! Please RSVP to Jean Pillo  at 860-928-4948 x 605 or email jean.pillo@comcast.net to let her know if you will be attending the TLGV WAC meeting and if also you plan to stay for the afternoon cyanobacteria monitoring training.  If you only wish to attend the training portion of the program, please arrive by 10 am to also hear the introduction to the program.

Please share this information with anyone you think may be interested in participating.  This may be the only formal training this year that TLGV will be hosting for the cyanobacteria monitoring program.  Let’s get all our lake lovers out there to this training.