The Synoptic Sampling partnership is CSI’s longest-running volunteer water monitoring program, beginning in 2002 in the Fall and Virgil Creek watersheds.
The goal is twofold: produce ongoing data that informs water resource management decisions by local government while simultaneously educating and empowering citizens to become stewards of their local environment.
CSI’s synoptic sampling volunteers are active in the Cayuga Lake and Seneca Lake watersheds.
Groups of volunteers are organized into teams that collect stream samples several times a year at fixed locations within a single watershed. These samples are collected “synoptically.” The term “synoptic monitoring” means that data gathered during these efforts is collected on the same day, within a few hours, to ensure that stream flow and meteorological conditions are consistent across all locations. This approach provides a comprehensive yet succinct understanding of the waterbody being sampled. Volunteers collect samples, measure water temperature on-site, complete chain-of-custody sheets, and transport samples on ice to the CSI lab for certified chemical and bacteriological analyses.
Synoptic sampling volunteer groups sample 3 times per year. CSI aims to arrange two base flow events and one storm water event for each watershed. The time commitment involved is 2-3 hours per monitoring event. The time commitment involved is 2-3 hours per monitoring event.
Our synoptic stream volunteers are a hardy crew, monitoring their assigned stream sites from March-November in potentially all kinds of weather conditions. Safety is paramount though, and if conditions are unsafe, we do not expect anyone to collect samples until conditions improve.
Sediment entering Cayuga Lake after a rain storm. Photo by Bill Hecht
The synoptic sampling partnership is a traditional water monitoring program that includes a number of indicators of agricultural and residential development impacts, including: pH, alkalinity, turbidity, inorganic and organic nitrogen, phosphorus (both dissolved and total), E. coli (indicator for pathogenic bacteria), chlorides, total suspended solids, specific conductance, and total hardness. The photo to the left shows sediment plumes going into Cayuga Lake after a heavy rain. Monitoring after rain storms helps us learn about how much sediment is traveling into Cayuga Lake and where it is coming from.
Many of the aforementioned parameters double as indicators of contamination from shale gas wells. In an effort to establish more comprehensive baseline data for watersheds that may be affected by hydrofracking, CSI’s synoptic partnership added the following hydrofracking indicators at selected locations from 2012 – 2014: total dissolved solids, chemical oxygen demand, MBAS (surfactants), barium, strontium and gross alpha and beta radioactivity. CSI stopped monitoring the “hydrofracking indicators” following the implementation of New York State’s hydrofracking moratorium in 2015. The baseline dataset is still publicly available in CSI’s database.
Currently, the vast majority of CSI’s synoptic sampling partnerships are in the Cayuga Lake and Seneca Lake watersheds. Volunteers monitor Fall Creek, Virgil Creek, Six Mile Creek, Salmon Creek, Trumansburg Creek, Taughannock Creek, the Cayuga Inlet (including Enfield, Buttermilk and Cascadilla Creeks), as well as several small streams that flow directly to Cayuga Lake including Yawger Creek and Great Gully. In the Seneca Lake watershed, volunteers monitor Catherine Creek, Big Stream, Kashong Creek, Keuka Outlet, and Reeder Creek.
All locations can be viewed in the CSI Streams & Lakes Database, along with data going back to 2002 – over 87,000 certified data items to date. Click on the site map to enlarge.
If you’re interested in volunteering with CSI’s Synoptic Sampling program, email us at info@communityscience.org.
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