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Environmental Progress - Summer 1998

Lake Program Earns Award

Volunteer effort proves it's "Making Waves"

Gregg Good, manager of the lakes program, accepts the "Making Waves" award during the Clean Water celebration.

The "Making Waves Award" was presented to the Illinois Volunteer Lake Monitoring Program (VLMP) during opening ceremonies of the Clean Water Celebration March 22 in Peoria. Accepting the award on behalf of the Agency were Gregg Good, lakes unit manager, and Amy Burns, VLMP coordinator. Also taking part was Rick Twait, a VLMP volunteer from Bloomington.

The award is presented annually to individuals and groups judged to have made a significant contribution to efforts to promote environmental awareness. The award was presented to the Illinois EPA "for its effort to establish grassroots citizen-based supervision of our natural resources for the state of Illinois," said Thomas Pilot of the awarding committee.

A volunteer pours a river water sample into a bowl. Later, the mingled waters were blessed in a symbolic Native American ritual.

The award makes the second statewide award for the VLMP. In 1992, the program was chosen the "Outstanding State Agency Volunteer Program" by Lt. Gov. Bob Kustra's office of volunteer and senior action.

Now in its fifth year, the two day Clean Water event was host to more than 5,000 middle and high school students involved with the Illinois Rivers Project, designed to inform and educate young people of Illinois about the needs of the environment.

The VLMP was begun in 1981. Volunteers use an eight-inch diameter metal plate, called a Secchi ("se-key") disk to measure water clarity. The disk is lowered into the water until it is no longer visible. The depth at which it disappears gives an indication of lake transparency, an important element in determining overall water quality.

With help from Conservation 2000 funding, the program was recently expanded to include volunteer collection and Agency analysis of lake water samples, and monitoring for the presence or absence of zebra mussel populations. Presently, about 250 volunteers in the program monitor some 170 inland Illinois lakes annually.