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Cache la Poudre monitoring ceremony to be held today

Release Date: 10/19/2007
Contact Information: George Parrish, 303-312-7027, parrish.george@epa.gov Frank Montarelli, 303-312-6780, montarelli.frank@epa.gov

Groups celebrate water quality monitoring agreement

(Denver, Colo., Oct. 19, 2007) A ceremonial signing of the Cache la Poudre Water Quality Monitoring Agreement will be held at 1:30 p.m. today, Oct. 19 at the Poudre Learning Center, 8313 F St., Greeley.

The signing ceremony celebrates the stakeholders’ award-winning collaborative efforts to monitor water quality in the lower Cache la Poudre River. The six signatories to the monitoring agreement are: Kodak Colorado Division; City of Fort Collins; South Fort Collins Sanitation District; Boxelder Sanitation District; Town of Windsor; and City of Greeley. Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment officials and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency representatives from Washington, D.C. and EPA’s Regional office in Denver will also participate.

The ceremony will include poster displays, a presentation by Dr. Douglas Rice of Colorado State University’s Environmental Health Services Department, and other speakers.

The integrated monitoring program supports 10 sampling sites on the Cache la Poudre River between Fort Collins and Greeley. Colorado State University provides expertise in field sampling and data collection for fish and macroinvertebrates -- crustaceans such as clams, crayfish, mollusks and snails, and certain aquatic worms and insects.

Kodak, a Performance Track member since 2004, became interested in coordinating its effluent and ambient water quality monitoring through its involvement in Performance Track, and it led the effort to organize the effort to work together. The group’s experience can serve as a model for similar groups of watershed stakeholders and relationships in other watersheds.

CDPHE’s Water Quality Control Division won an EPA Performance Track award of special recognition for supporting EPA’s Performance Track program for the Cache la Poudre River stakeholders. Performance Track recognizes and drives environmental excellence by encouraging facilities with strong environmental records to go above and beyond their legal requirements. Members set four public, measurable goals to improve the quality of our nation's air, water and land. Members include major corporations, small businesses and public facilities.

Scientists and public officials continually seek more water quality data when making decisions concerning this precious natural resource. The lack of water quality data presents a growing need, as collecting reliable data is difficult and expensive work. To address this, the Poudre River stakeholders came together, forming an integrated monitoring program that effectively coordinates and combines their efforts and resources. This endeavor shares the data collected via the Web at the Colorado Data Sharing Network, maintaining a cost-effective, high-quality source of data for use in protecting the ecosystem’s health. The coordinated collection and reporting of effluent and ambient data will efficiently provide all parties with more useful data and a better understanding of the health of the watershed.