GARWOOD – On April 20, eight Garwood Lincoln Middle School students and Morgan Crouch, the AmeriCorps NJ Watershed Ambassador for Garwood’s region, with field assistance from the Garwood Green Team’s Andrea Castro, conducted a stream assessment of Orchard Creek, a Rahway River Tributary also known as the Garwood Brook. Daylighting (making itself visible above ground) just west of Garwood along South Avenue in Westfield, Orchard Creek carries stormwater from Westfield, Garwood, and Cranford to the Rahway River just east of Orchard Street in Cranford. The purpose of this assessment was to determine how clean or polluted the brook water is.
The team jumped down into the brook itself and, utilizing sieves, nets, and microscopes, identified and counted the benthic macroinvertebrates (small animals such as insects, crayfish, and snails) that live in the creek. The existence (or absence) of these organisms tells the water quality team how clean or polluted the water is because some of these creatures can only live in very clean water, others can tolerate some pollution, and still others are not picky at all. The students had learned how to identify macroinvertebrates on April 16th when Morgan presented classes to all six Lincoln School middle school science classes taught by Mrs. KC Bree to prepare them for this field experience.
During the biological stream assessment, the team located nine of the 22 types of benthic macroinvertebrates counted for New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) data collection methods. They found a few pollution-sensitive organisms, however, the most abundant organisms found were pollution-tolerant. That told the group that while the creek water quality is certainly not healthy, the waters can and do support some creatures that require pollution free waters to survive. Based on the pollution tolerance of the organisms found, the stream was determined to be in the “17 undetermined” category for health (where 1- 12 is “stressed”, 13 19 is undetermined, and 20 53 is healthy). This data will be reported to the NJDEP who may respond with further analysis. An und etermined classification means that more information such as chemical testing by the NJDEP is needed to determine the health of the waterbody and what factors may be driving macroinvertebrate numbers. These are preliminary findings, yet to go through quality control and analysis.
The Garwood Green Team and Watershed Ambassador will be hosting a brook cleanup on Saturday, June 15 adjacent to the LIDL store. All are welcome to walk the brook and do your part to improve Orchard Brook’s water quality and appearance. LIDL provided the stream assessment team with baked goods and drinks on April 20, and will also assist once again in the June 15 cleanup. Please contact Green Team members Jeff Jotz or Bill Nierstedt w-nierstedt@garwood.org to participate.
For more information about The New Jersey Watershed Ambassadors Program is an AmeriCorps visit www.nj.gov/dep/wms/bears/ recruitment. htm. For more inforamtion about water quality visit dep.nj.gov/wms/bears/wat e r- quality- assessment/ integrated- report/
