We have identified our 3 sites for river pollution monitoring on the Lyne Burn - which is impacted by sewage, run off. The funding and this project has helped us bring together volunteers in our group who have always been concerned about the river, the sewage etc and now have given us a way to do something about it through citizen science. Especially as several of us are scientists and value data!
We have done our first pollution monitoring on the 1st site, using the kit given to us by Earthwatch, on the 10th September 2023 (data uploaded) and will be visiting the 2nd site for the first time on Sunday 24th September.
Kim McKissock, one of our FW Charlestown group members, has volunteered to co-ordinate and upload the data from the volunteers to Earthwatch/ArcGis.
Our 3rd site will be visited in October which is in the urban end of the river.
We are also collecting Buglife Riverfly invertebrate monitoring data too at the same time and have been trained by a local Buglife coordinator on this.
As a result of this funding and the project, we have had an increase in volunteers wanting to be involved, with another 3 signed up to the project and actively involved.
Our plans, once we are up and running with all 3 sites and have a few months data is to share what we have found with the children of the school and the community (e.g. at community council meeting) and continue open dialogue with Scottish Water, SEPA and Fife Council about our findings.
We also hope our continual monitoring will flag up pollution incidents which we can raise with SEPA and highlight the need for investment locally in monitoring and infrastructure around CSO's as an example.
Thanks, Jo. The sooner STEM recognition and involvement starts, the better!