WDTU Golden Mile River Watch Water Sampling
by Joe Cunningham

Saturday, March 11 saw the first WDTU River Watch water sampling crew meet at Lion's Park in Golden at the foot of the Golden Mile on Clear Creek. The crew was made up of Miles Williams, Gil Hassinger, Bob Untener, Gary Frey, Tom Moyer and yours truly, along to photograph the undertaking. The Colorado River Watch program is a statewide program co-sponsored by the Colorado Division of Wildlife and the Colorado Watershed Network.

The temperature at 11:00 was in the upper 20s with either the threat of snow or the promise of a little sunshine. It did spit a bit of snow, but it was still a good day to be out with Mother Nature. That is, unless you happened to be Gil and Tom, who had to get into the 0 degree Centigrade water to collect the samples. Yes, 0 C. One degree lower and we may have had to leave them there until spring thaw.

As this was the first water sampling on the Golden Mile, two sampling sites needed to be established. It was determined that the first site would be at a spot approximately 100 feet upstream from the US highway 6 bridge. The second sampling site was established at the upstream end of the creek-side trail just below the point where the Highline canal is diverted into Clear Creek. It was decided that future water sampling will be done on the second Saturday of each month, circumstances permitting. Each sampling session will be done at the same locations, using the same methodology. The samples will be delivered to the Colorado Division of Wildlife. The CDOW will use the data to make watershed management decisions about Colorado rivers. The CDOW will analyze the data and make it available to CDOW biologists, Water Quality Control Commissioners, the EPA and other water resource managers.

The samples taken will used to determine, among other things, water temperature, alkalinity, pH, hardness, oxygen content and dissolved metals. We will look forward to the results, not only from the first sampling, but also from subsequent ones. The first sampling will give us a baseline. Future samplings will allow us to observe trends in the values acquired and to monitor the health of our adopted stretch of Clear Creek.

Saturday was a good day to be out and we are hopeful that the sampling efforts will prove to be the beginning of a valuable course of study as we put our efforts toward restoring the Golden Mile stretch of Clear Creek.

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