Adopt a Site
Adopt a site for one year to support continued water quality monitoring in the Lake Superior Basin.
Our volunteers have collected water quality data since 2002, but we can’t do this work without your help. Each monitoring site costs approximately $500 per year to maintain. When you adopt a site, you directly support the work of our organization and our volunteers.
Adopt a Site for $500
Your donation supports our water quality monitoring program, and you get to choose a monitoring site to place your name on for a whole year! When you sign up, you choose from the list of our current water quality sites so you can show your support for the rivers, streams, and land that matter to you most.
- Choose your site from our list of active sites
- Get an invite to our annual volunteer appreciation party in June
- Get recognition on digital and physical maps of our sites
Why Support Water Quality Monitoring
You can’t protect what you don’t know, and knowledge is power. Our organization is built upon proving tools and knowledge for our community to make informed decisions around protecting and promoting our streams and rivers. Our water quality program is vital for two major reasons:
- It builds a culture of watershed stewards through engaged volunteering
- It provides us long-term data on our local streams and rivers
Unfortunately, even volunteer-based water quality monitoring is hard to support financially. Many grant programs want to fund something new or additional. But the value in water quality data is having years of sustained information so that changes can be seen over time. It is unsustainable to add new water quality sites every few years, and that experience necessitates dropping old ones quickly. Plus, our volunteers grow attached to the site they monitor. They are, after all, connecting people, land, and water.
While we do acquire grants to support the program, most of our water quality monitoring relies on donations to continue this work and keep monitoring our rivers and streams.
A Few of Our Sites
Frequently Asked Questions
How long do I adopt the site for?
Your adoption is for one full year from the date you give. If you donate on July 1st, then you will have adopted your site through June 30th of the next year.
Do I have to volunteer when adopting a site?
You do not have to volunteer, but you may if you wish! Most of our sites already have dedicated volunteers who monitor their site every single month of the year. Our chemistry volunteers are a dedicated bunch!
However, we are always recruiting macroinvertebrate field work and lab work volunteers! Our field volunteers collect macroinvertebrates in May and in September, and then our lab volunteers identify the critters collected. If you want to help with macroinvertebrates for your site, please reach out!