Sentinels Rios de Taos met with Regional Grassroots Organizer and National Training Director Tim Guilfoile at Eric and Nora Pattersons’ home in Valdez on November 13 for a day of water monitoring training. Sierra Club activists Gloria Guilfoile, Jeanne Green, Annouk Ellis, Judy Liles, Mary Pickett, Gary Grief, Dorothy Wells and hosts Eric and Nora Patterson attended, along with Roberta Salazar and Elsbeth Atencio of the environmental education group Rivers and Birds. Rachel Conn of Amigos Bravos spoke with the group by phone. A coalition of the three organizations, Rivers and Birds, Amigos Bravos, and Sierra Club Water Sentinels, are working together to monitor water quality in the Rio Hondo, the Rio Pueblo, and the Rio Fernando – three key rivers that flow in and around Taos.
Tim Guilfoile gave an excellent background of the Clean Water Act as a prelude to explaining why we monitor water quality and what we are looking for. Tim, who is the President of Northern Kentucky Flyfishers, pointed out a fact that all Sierra Club members should keep in mind – there are 800,000 Sierra Club members, but there are 3,000,000 members of Trout Unlimited.
Those fishermen are out there in the rivers, and our two groups should be natural allies in the effort to keep our waterways clean. After discussing the legal ramifications of chain of custody of water samples, he then explained and demonstrated how to perform specific water testing analyses.
After a brief lunch, our group went streamside to the Rio Hondo, where Mr. Guilfoile demonstrated water sampling techniques. The Sentinels then
practiced doing pH and dissolved oxygen analyses at streamside.
Conducting a colorimetric dissolved oxygen analysis by the
Rio Hondo: pictured from left to right are Gary Grief, Nora
Patterson, Eric Patterson, Dorothy Welles, and Tim Guilfoile.
(Photo by Gloria Guilfoile)
In addition to pH and dissolved oxygen, the coalition plans to measure electrical conductivity and to collect samples to be analyzed by an EPA certified laboratory for other parameters, including bacteria, nitrates, and phosphates. The data that Sentinels Rios de Taos obtains will be used by the State of New Mexico Environmental Department to assess stream quality of the three rivers, and by Amigos Bravos to report and prosecute any violations of the Clean Water Act.
For further information or to join our coalition, please contact Eric Patterson