Montgomery County Senior Environment Corps volunteers, in cooperation with the North Penn Water Authority, recently conducted eight Nonpoint Source Pollution/Source Water Protection education sessions for youth and adult organizations.

Using PowerPoint slides, the EnviroScape surface water simulator, enVision groundwater simulator and simple experiments to demonstrate causes, effects, and solutions to nonpoint source pollution, the sessions explored the ways everyone can protect and conserve water.

The program gave the over 126 attendees a firm understanding of nonpoint source pollution, water conservation, the earth's water supply, the water cycle, watersheds, surface water principles, benefits of clean water and defined things the attendee can do to help reduce pollution and conserve resources.

Montgomery County Senior Environment Corps volunteers also conducted two streamside Water Quality Monitoring Testing and Macroinvertebrate Identification education sessions for Junior Girl Scouts, Brownies and their parents at the Hatfield Township Scout cabin facility.

The program gave the attendees hands-on experience in basic water related environmental activities and provided a look at the impact nonpoint source pollution and point source pollution has on their environment. It reinforced the nonpoint source pollution and water conservation presentation and gave the attendees a better understanding of a watershed and why it is important to protect it.

Volunteers view these educational programs as a way to inform the public about the importance of water as a valuable resource that not only needs to be protected, but also conserved for use by future generations.

They feel that their programs make people aware of the need to look at water as a natural resource, not something that comes out of their faucet when they want it. And, that if that resource is not protected and conserved, there will be devastating impacts to this and future generations.

The Montgomery County Senior Environment Corps is a part of a statewide program created by DEP’s Citizens’ Volunteer Monitoring Program and the Environmental Alliance for Senior Involvement.

The PaSEC uses standardized protocols to assess physical, chemical, and biological indicators in streams. This data can be used as a screening tool to determine where further study is needed and the success or failure of restoration efforts.

The data is housed in a database that includes an open component with fields for a limited number of parameters and can be used by other volunteer monitoring groups not following the PaSEC's standardized protocols.

For more information on the PA Senior Environment Corps, visit the Environmental Alliance for Senior Involvement webpage.

3/3/2006