A Stream Runs Through It

Photograph by MICHAEL TONY

Several times a year, some 200 volunteers fan out across metropolitan Washington, D.C., carrying buckets, vials, dip nets, pocket magnifying lenses, and other equipment for testing water quality.

Their mission: to record information about a particular site at one of 45 streams in the area. Data collected by the stream monitors — including the temperature, clarity, and acidity of the water and the presence or absence of insect larvae, crustaceans, and other inhabitants — help alert government agencies to any degradation in water quality or in the aquatic ecosystem.

The goal of the project, which was started six years ago by the Audubon Naturalist Society in Chevy Chase, Md., is to educate the public about the need to protect urban watersheds and about how their local waterways affect the Chesapeake Bay. The monitors range in age from 10 to over 70 and include students, teachers, homemakers, and environmental activists.

The society, which has just completed its centennial year, was founded in 1897 to protest the killing of plumed birds for the millinery trade. The oldest and largest conservation group in metropolitan Washington, it now focuses on conservation and environmental education.