Water Quality

The Montana Watercourse has been helping teacher and citizen volunteers monitor Montana's waters since November 1996. Our goal is to promote knowledge and stewardship of aquatic resources by teaching local volunteers the skills needed to gather accurate, non-biased water quality information. Grants from the Montana Department of Environmental Quality and the Environmental Protection Agency helped to launch these efforts and continue to keep them running. A few resources and guides for monitoring are listed here.

The Montana Watercourse is currently restructuring our Volunteer Water Monitoring program for watershed groups and educators. Advice is available by contacting us at 994-6671.

As we develop our program, please check for continued water quality information on this page.

LINKS

For more resources on water quality, see these sites:

Montana State University Water Quality Page
General information and specialized coal-bed methane information

Montana Water Center - Topics - Water Quality Page
Links provided by Montana Water Center

Montana Department of Environmental Quality 303(d) list
Section 303(d) of the federal Clean Water Act requires states to assess the condition of their waters to determine where water quality is impaired or threatened. The result of this review is the 303(d)list, which must be submitted to the EPA every other year.

AND

Water Quality and Biological Characteristics of Montana Streams in a Statewide Monitoring Network.This report describes the water quality and biological conditions of 53 fixed station sites that were located on most of Montana's largest streams. The comprehensive report includes five technical reports (an addition technical report will be added in the future). The report also includes site summaries which were developed to inform the public about water quality. The site summaries can be accessed through using hyperlinks that are provided in Figure 4 (Map of Montana).

Monitoring Water Quality
A list of volunteer monitoring links and tools from the EPA

Volunteer Stream Monitoring: A Methods Manual
An on-line technical handbook for volunteer stream monitoring techniques

The Volunteer Monitor
Water monitoring newsletter (become a subscriber with the EPA)

EPA Office of Water
Everything you ever wanted to know about water

EPA Office of Wetlands, Oceans, and Watersheds
Protecting America's water resources