Back by popular demand is the quarterly publication of the
Volunteer Lake Monitoring Program Newsletter. Recently,
volunteer-related information and issues have been pub-lished
in another Illinois EPA publication called “Water
Watch” in a section called the “Volunteer Vibe.” However,
due to the popularity of the VLMP Newsletter and the volume
of volunteer issues and articles available, we are bringing
back the volunteer newsletter.
So, I’ve dusted off my keyboard and pulled down the ar-chived
stack of cobweb-laden newsletters to assist me in
writing my very first edition. I think this issue has many inter-esting
articles that I hope all of you will enjoy.
Be sure to check out this issue of the VLMP Newsletter for
upcoming dates of conferences and how our very own pro-gram
is helping to initiate volunteer monitoring programs
overseas in Amy Walkenbach’s article on her trip to Latvia.
If you have any comments or questions regarding this news-letter
and/or the Volunteer Lake Monitoring Program, please
feel free to contact me, Sandy Nickel, by phone at 217-782-
3362 or by E-mail: sandy.nickel@epa.state.il.us.
Notes from the Statewide Coordinator
and January 31 each year.
To learn more about the Lakes Education As-sistance
Program or to receive an application,
contact Steve Kolsto in the Illinois EPA’s Bu-reau
of Water at 217-782-3362 or log onto
www.epa.state.il.us/water/conservation-2000.
The “Lakes Education Assistance Pro-gram”
(LEAP) is leaping into action and seeing
positive results. The program provides funding
(up to $500) for “Teacher/Youth” and “Not-For-
Profit” group’s participation in lake/watershed-related
field trips, activities, teacher seminars
and workshops or used to purchase equipment
and materials pertaining to lake/watershed
study. Application deadlines are September 30
“LEAP” into Illinois Lakes
“Illinois lakes
can be
compared to
lakes all over
the world.”
individuals from around the globe to have viewing
access to Illinois volunteer lake data. One of the
benefits to this is that Illinois lakes can be com-pared
to lakes all over the world.
We have modeled our web-based volunteer data
entry form from the Minnesota Pollution Control
Agency’s Citizen Lake Monitoring Program’s web
site. You can view their website and lake informa-tion
at http://www.pca.state.mn.us/water/
clmp.html.
The database is scheduled for completion in early
August 2001 while the web component is sched-uled
to be finished at the end of August 2001.
Web-based Volunteer Database
We have been in the process of developing a new
volunteer database for the purposes of housing all
volunteer data, simplifying report writing and allow-ing
data to be entered online with the incorpora-tion
of a web component.
As mentioned above, one of the outstanding at-tributes
of this new database is that volunteers
and coordinators will have the capability of enter-ing
and viewing their data online. This will not be a
requirement for volunteers, but merely a “perk” of
viewing lake transparency data trends instantane-ously.
We will still need paper copies of the Secchi
data forms to be sent to your areawide coordina-tor.
In addition, this new web component will allow
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