Utah Water Watch of the Utah State University Water Quality Extension will unveil the first of its new series of interpretive signs on Saturday at the Stokes Nature Center in Logan.
The signs are being funded through a grant from the iUTAH project. According to Brian Greene, Utah Water Watch Program Coordinator, the signs’ locations could expand statewide.
“There’s high recreation usage along there. People are walking, biking, taking their dogs along there all the time and so, we thought, what a great opportunity to help educate them about the watershed. We’re trying to increase their awareness of the importance of the water and especially the water quality,” Greene said. “This is the first of three signs that we’re going to put in. We’re going to put another one in at Red Butte Creek and another along the Provo River. These are the three focus watersheds for the iUTAH program and we’ve even had discussions about expanding it to other places across the state.”
Utah Water Watch runs a citizen science program that allows anyone to collect water quality data and report the findings online. The idea for the signs came when the volunteers were approached by curious passersby, said Greene.
“Often times, the volunteers will tell me that when they are out there monitoring, that people come up to them and they’re like, ‘what are you doing in the river with these funny-looking tubes and other types of equipment?’ And, they use that as a teaching moment,” he said. “So, I thought, well, the chances that you’re going to go out there and see one of our volunteer’s doing it are pretty small. So, why not put a sign out there at these places where our volunteers are monitoring. It’ll explain about the watershed that there in and provide a place where we can update the data.”
Anyone that is interested in volunteering with Utah Water Watch can go to this link.
This article has been updated to correct the name of Red Butte Creek.
