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So

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welcome to SSAC before Labor Day weekend or glad to have you.

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So first off on our agenda is the approval of the June minutes. Do we have a motion?

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We have a second.

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Thanks.

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And we're going to go ahead and get started with Jordan. Why am I here to talk about town branch comments?

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So we're really excited to be here about the case study that was performed on the landscape architecture and on the bioswilth there.

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Good morning everyone.

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Thank you so much Bailey for inviting me to be here today.

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We talked about trying it last year and the case study was still in process going through the peer review.

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And so I felt like it was maybe a little bit better to wait and so I'm really grateful to say that it's been published.

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it's available online to you all now, and excited to share some of the results that we found.

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And I wanted to begin by thinking Bailey, but also thinking all of you, you all are volunteer

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in your time and investing in one of your most precious resources to help our community do

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better things as a school model, so thank you for your service.

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So a quick introduction, my name is Jordan Femister, and I am a senior lecturer in the Landscape

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Architecture Department of the Martin Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment at UK.

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And I was the Research Fellow on the Project.

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I worked in really close partnership with Mitchell Cooperah.

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There in the middle, he was my research assistant. He's currently a senior in our program.

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And he's going to be graduating this spring, which is exciting.

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And we worked in very close partnership also with Erin Masterson.

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She's the senior landscape architect and I believe she might even now be a partner in Greshen Smith.

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We'll type disciplinary architecture engineering, transportation planning firm with offices here in Lexington, and the mobile within Kentucky, but also their headquartered in Nashville and have a lot of offices spread throughout the southeast.

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And they were our shoes are firmly as on for the project.

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So Erin was really helpful in connecting us to resources and project documentation that we used in our analysis and research, and she also connected us to many wonderful partners across Lexington who were involved in some form of fashion.

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with the project and I'm especially grateful again to Bailey and others at the Division of Water Quality for their help and insights with our research and for the invitation to join you all today.

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So just a quick overview of the CSI, the Case Study Investigation Program is funded by the Landscape Architecture Foundation and it seeks to bridge the gap between academia and practice by investing in research that articulates and quantifies sustainability benefits of landscape architecture projects.

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And that's what we in their landscape architecture profession referred to as landscape performance.

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So we were one of six teams selected in the 2025 cohort and the projects range from large urban parks to community garden as well as a campus landscape.

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The program is very fast-paced, we started in February, we wrapped up research in July, so about six months.

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And...

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And it's also very supportive and collaborative with a lot of peer-to-peer learning opportunities within that cohort of other people working on research across the country.

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And it's really approachable and rigorous. So it's great for somebody like me. I came from a background in practice. I do not have a doctorate. I don't have a PhD. I came to teaching from a practice background. And so it was great to make it accessible to someone like me with replicable metrics and methodologies and a peer review process to ensure valid and defensible findings.

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The research deliverables include a high-level case study brief, which is shown on the left.

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That's kind of the web interface that you would find on the website.

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And then a much more detailed methodology document, which is pictured on the right.

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Sorry, yeah. Website on the left document on the right.

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And both of those are freely accessible and online now.

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You can find town branch commons and more than 200 other similar exemplary projects

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from across the country around the world, which have been documented in this way, on the

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landscape performance series website, the program's been in operations since 2010.

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And the website is also a really great resource of landscape performance information and inspiration

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beyond these case studies, including, including translated research, they have a fast-facts library,

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which kind of puts research into more approachable terms, they have warehouse of tools and metrics

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that you might use to measure everything from carbon sequestration to carbon footprint of materials

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those sorts of things.

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And although your focus is on storm water here, you can note the watershed diagram in

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the lower right, showing town branch within the larger Kentucky River watershed, I wanted

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to take a moment to emphasize and point out how multifaceted and transformative town branch

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It is a really, really remarkable project nationally

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and for us to all take a great amount of pride

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in the fact that our community chose to invest

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and kind of worked so hard for so many years to do this.

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It's a multi-modal linear park

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and a transportation system running through

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the heart of our downtown as you can see here.

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It weaves together, green infrastructure, water,

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and walls that separate bike and pedestrian trails

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within a high traffic corridor

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And it connects our urban core to diverse neighborhoods as well as the surrounding bluegrass landscape.

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It traces the historic path of town branch, the original water source for Lexington, which is now buried very deep below.

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The trail and the streets, and this complex urban infrastructure project reflects the cultural and natural histories of our region as well.

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Through educational signage, and it connects people to civic assets, such as parks, public spaces, and transit,

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And it provides a missing link within a regional trail network.

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It does a lot.

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So before I dive into the research, I wanted to share a couple of photos to help us

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kind of highlight some of the key features before and after.

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If you all can remember, many years ago, before it came into being.

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I'm sure that many of you can.

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But I wanted to just kind of start to think with you all a little bit more involved

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how this is maybe, how you might imagine its impacted stormwater.

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So here's the view along Vine Street, we're very close to, I think it's just taken from

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down there facing in this direction.

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What do you see and how, what do you think is the source of stormwater in this condition,

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where do you think the stormwater is going?

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Lots of parking lots, lots of impervious surface, whether it's concrete sidewalks, asphalt roadways,

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roofs, right?

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So do you see much green in this picture?

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I can count.

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probably less than a dozen trees in the view.

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And Kudos to the biker, you can see them in the middle

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towards the bottom, very brave soul, traveling down

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by and street on bike next to the car.

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That we're at times going above 60 miles an hour.

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So, yeah, not a lot of place for stormwater to go,

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but a lot of places for a two canylaid.

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All right, so different location and different view,

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but what are you seeing is some of the key differences here.

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Many more trees, so much more vegetation,

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More permeable surface, so to support the trees and vegetation, a lot more planted areas,

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a lot more volume of soil there.

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Yes, so you can see, especially right along vine street, there are depressions there, so those

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are the rain gardens or by retention areas, they come under a lot of different names.

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And there are curb cuts along vine street to allow water from the road to go directly into those.

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And then there are special soils, engineered soils, plant material that's selected to

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treat stormwater pull out some of the pollutants allow it to infiltrate in and try to improve water quality along the way.

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Okay, so jumping into a little bit of the research.

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I wanted to start by saying that a lot of are we were looking at sustainability.

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So who knows the three pillars of sustainability?

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I'm teaching class at 10 o'clock, so I'm in.

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I'm in my teacher mode. Three pillars. Ross, I can count on you.

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Yes, those three pillars, which hold up sustainability. So, for a lot of our social benefits, we relied on a survey. We had 166 responses. We advertised it through a variety of means, listservs, posters, QR codes. We had over 100 people response, and there was significant support for many of the projects sustainability goals, which you can see here.

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And getting into some of those social benefits, you can see here that the project

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improved both actual and perceived safety along the corridor,

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significant reductions in both collisions and speeds along the corridor.

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This side demonstrates a clear preference.

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Human people preference for those wider, more generous spaces provided for people along the corridor,

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especially when you compare them to those really narrow,

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scary sidewalks that you can see that are just on the opposite side of Nizland Avenue in the upper left corner.

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A whole host of benefits that overlap with one another here.

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The findings highlighted impacts on social connection.

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Health and well-being, and in short, I would say,

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Town Branch Commons helps people to be more active to feel happy and energized when they're on the trail.

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And it's doing it all while connecting them more with one another as well as nature, their sense of nature.

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There's also an aesthetic and cultural and components to the comments, so visitors find the corridor attractive.

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I know some of these things feel very intuitive and logical, not a big surprise.

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But it's important for people to appreciate spaces aesthetically in order for them to care for them, to want to further invest in them.

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So these are important findings for us.

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And so people really like the diverse mix of plants

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and a majority of participants indicated

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that the project had improved their perception of our city.

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So not only people who live here feeling proud of it,

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it draws in visitors, right?

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And people are now staying in hotels downtown

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and can walk to places they could never easily access

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before in a way that's really pleasing and beautiful.

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It also does a really good job of reflecting

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the natural environment and kind of taking some of those

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beautiful spaces that we might be aware of as local locals who live here, but it brings them

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downtown. So people who might not have access to a car and can't get out to see those

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drystone fences in the bluegrass, they can see them right here downtown. They took those

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ideas, those materials, and kind of gave them a new expression in place that's accessible

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to many, many more people.

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So a couple of economic benefits as well, but I wanted to touch on.

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The design of and the investment in town branch commons created a very inviting and

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connected what we call a spine in the design disciplines and it spurred other considerable

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investments along vine street along midlands and main streets and a number of projects

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improving Lexington's public realm have been completed or nearing completion and their

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additional investments right now and mixed use and commercial developments that are scheduled

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to break ground in the coming years.

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So it's definitely been a driver and has helped

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catalyze those things.

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And then also, the project blended multiple funding sources,

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the most significant of which was the transportation

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investment generating economic recovery

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or tiger grant for just over 14 million.

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And the layered funding approach really allowed the city

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to leverage those federal state as well as municipal dollars.

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So shifting to the final pillar of sustainability environmental, which is what we're here for,

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I'm going to start with something and then we'll move into the stormwater stuff.

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But one thing I wanted to highlight, a couple of things related to plants.

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The diversity is much improved.

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I think you all can remember that picture I showed you.

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We maybe counted a dozen trees, most of which were ginkos, a non-native that really provides no wildlife benefit, very little.

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So now, the downtown corridor, which was formerly dominated by hard scape and almost devoid of green,

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it now has these narrow ribbons of really dense and lush plantings which create significant impact in an urban setting.

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So it has a mix of trees and shrubs, which are complemented by densely planted perennial and grass plugs.

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And the Shannon diversity index referenced on this slide is really a measure of the potential diversity of a space,

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and a hundred percent would be year at the maximum diversity.

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So if you look at the circles on the right, you can see generally, we're scoring really, really well.

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It just so happens that because there are so many of those plugs of the switchgrass,

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which is kind of the iconic grass that love it or hate it.

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It's the thing that's kind of a defining feature.

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Those really draw the overall average down a little bit, but overall scoring really highly.

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And the project has a lot of new habitat that it created.

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And

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So significant increase in that habitat with a really diverse range of species pictured on the right. Most of which are native, and nearly 50% of all of the plants have a special value for pollinators and other beneficial insects, as deemed by the zirxes, according to the zirxes society.

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Carbansy question, lots of trees over 250 planted, and they are improving people's experience

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along the corridor, especially as they mature and provide additional shade, but they're

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also providing a lot of environmental benefits, as I'm sure a lot of you are aware.

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And we happen to take these measurements on the hottest days in July of 2025, so we appreciated

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every inch of shade that they could give us, but the trees are doing lots of really important

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stormwater absorption, shade, reducing urban heat, all sorts of great things.

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And those figures were calculated using eye-tree.

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So, finally getting to what you are here for, sustainable stormwater.

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So, this complete street project includes planting areas and a green infrastructure system consisting of curb cuts,

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inlets and plumes that collect and direct stormwater run off into a series of 22 rain gardens,

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with specialized soil mixes and plantings that are designed to support infiltration and in

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addition, they're sparse of permeable pavement as well, in strategic locations to help

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reduce and absorb runoff from the trails.

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So, stormwater quantity, the capture, town branch commons, the catchment area, captures and treats

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approximately 25,000 cubic feet of stormwater, which is 231% of the requirement from the city.

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The city designates a 1.2-inch rain event for treating the first flush, and that tall is up to

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about 10,000 cubic feet, and town branch is punching well above its weight in helping out with

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managing the quantity of stormwater.

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Some of the limitations, I'll get into them for these because I know this is what you're interested

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in.

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These calculated results are estimates, so they are not based on observation of actual rain events.

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And, however, it only accounts for the delineated urban rain gardens.

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So there's a lot more planted area than we use to calculate this value.

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And a lot more just sort of general planted areas that have vegetation,

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they have soils, which are part of that larger network of areas,

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and other features that are helping to collect and treat stormwater.

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So if anything, I think it's probably undercounting a little bit

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what the potential is for the storage and treatment here.

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It does not account her plant interception or a Vapotranspiration, so again that would only be an increase to what it's doing and

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There are there may be some discrepancies between the project documents, which I was using and we were analyzing on the research team and what is actually constructed in the field

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This is the data backing that up. So

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meticulous spreadsheets and calculations

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We analyze the project documents and the stormwater submittals to calculate the storage volume required by the city

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as well as the below ground and above ground storage volumes provided by each of the

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rain of the 22 rain gardens and so this table highlights the data gathered and

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analyzed for those rain gardens. And there's some more information if you want.

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If you have questions at the end, I'm happy to come back and provide some more detail on that.

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Another stormwater quality quantity benefit was the corridor traces, the historic path,

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of town branch, which is a highly urbanized watershed,

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draining much of downtown.

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And the project encompasses a really, really small portion of that watershed.

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I'll get to that a little bit later in my presentation.

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But in spite of these constraints,

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town branch commons has significantly reduced annual runoff by realigning

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and reducing the lane widths of vehicular travel lanes.

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So that's known as a road diet in our profession.

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And the green infrastructure system, which has the rain gardens,

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the dense vegetation, the pervious pavement, all of that combines to decrease the impervious

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services for their contributing to the reduction and runoff from the site.

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So those two pie charts on the left, the baseline, that was the pre-existing conditions.

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And on the right is what we project to be the post-construction current scenario in the EPA's

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Stormwater Calculator Lingo. So you can see the big change there is the runoff is being influenced

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by the increase in vegetation and infiltration opportunities.

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Again, some limitations.

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These are modeled results.

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They're estimates not based on observation,

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and it is generated by the EPA's warm water calculator,

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which does not account for tree canopy and rainfall

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interception.

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So that might mean this is a little bit of an undercount,

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and then there are always potential discrepancies

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between the documentation we had to look at

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what was actually built in the field.

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Again, some more data.

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We analyze project documents and the stormwater submittals to calculate storage volume required by the city, as well as, sorry, that was the other one.

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So EPA National Storm Water Calculator is what we use.

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I would like to use to calculate this benefit, and I can get into more details if you'd like, but I think I'll stay at a higher level in the interest of time, but just shows you some of the volumes that we were talking about there.

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So,

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town branch, when it comes to the thing that Kail or Bailey invited me to talk about, it was stormwater quality, and this was our one inconclusive benefit, but to me it was honestly one of the most interesting things I got to work on, because this was when I was connected to Bailey, I think through somebody at strands,

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and Bayley connected me to Chase, and that allowed my research assistant mid tonight to get

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out in the field and actually do some measurements and not just be documenting things

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in our office on the computer. So it was a really exciting, very warm couple of days that we

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got out in June and July of 2025. And I just wanted to kind of preface this section by starting

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to talk a little bit about the town branch Commons project within the overall watershed. So

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we know now that it's the actual town branch is very well beneath the streets.

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And the linear system of town branch commons represents a really small fraction of it of the overall watershed point zero three percent to be exact.

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So the watershed is heavily impacted by urbanization, as we all know, and town branch commons can only do so much.

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And know it's impossible to control for development and changes in land use prior to and since the construction of town branch commons, we felt like it was a symbolic moment and a prominent location where the outfall is in.

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what was then under construction,

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Gatton Park, it's now open and been open for just over a year.

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But we felt like it was a great moment

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to raise public awareness at that much anticipated park.

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So we gathered water samples in June and July of

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not this past summer, but the summer before

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and were really grateful to the support

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and assistance we received from the city,

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most notably Bailey and Chase,

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both pictured here in David Price

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at the Laboratories supervisor,

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as well as his team at the

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equipment, chemical analysis, all of those things. So this is the work that we did to begin

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to compare all of the data that we collected, which was only over four days, but we had

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a really great resource from the city with the volunteer work that had been done monitoring

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water sheds over the years. And so we compared our data, which is on the bottom and some of

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the cells are highlighted in yellow, to the volunteer monitoring data from 2021, which is really

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the top chunk of the spreadsheet.

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Some of those cells are highlighted in a really pale green, I see.

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And so we were also using EPA's water quality standards

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and some documentation on town branch watershed

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focus monitoring that I think was provided

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or created by Thurdrop,

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who might be presenting later today.

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The key comparisons we decided to make under the

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advisement of Bailey and Chase and others

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was to look at the dry samples.

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So it had to be 72 hours post a storm event, and those cells in our data collection are highlighted in yellow, and we compared that to the summer collection samples from the 2021 volunteers.

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So those are the ones highlighted in green. Those are the numbers that I'm going to be sharing with you today because we felt that they were most similar in terms of mimicking similar climatic temperature and precipitation conditions.

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So, we had a variety of measurements that we took in situ.

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We collected the samples from the middle of the water body at town branch 12, monitoring

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site, and we used a hand-a-water quality multimeter probe that was known to us by the lab.

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And we collected water grab samples, put them in some ice, and took them to the lab on the

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days that we collected for them to conduct the chemical analysis in the lab.

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So the following are the results from the insidium measurements.

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And again, we're comparing 2025 to the 2021 summer dry sample.

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So dissolved oxygen increased, and it meets the benchmark.

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pH, but we'll talk a little bit more about that in a second.

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pH also increased, it's within the optimum of most aquatic organisms.

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Temperature increased a decent amount, which made the 7.6%,

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which made the increased dissolved oxygen a little bit suspicious.

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So, these are part of the reasons that we decided to designate these findings as inconclusive

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because you would expect there to be lower oxygen in warmer waters.

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And the average dry measurement does meet the benchmark, however.

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Conductivity increased a little bit of a problem area,

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because the average dry measurement was well above the healthy range to support fish and macros.

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And then looking at the chemical analysis, again, comparing 25 to 21, some are dry, and the suspended solids, massive increase.

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Likely a result, it was an active construction site at the time. They had silt fence up. They were doing their best, but they were, you know, they did a lot of re-engineering of the banks of town branch where it comes into Gatton Park.

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And so I would imagine that this contributed to it. And now, if editation getting a little bit better established, I hope that these values might be lower than they were when we measured them last year.

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E. coli decreased, and although this is a move in the right direction, it's still well above

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the primary contact recreation benchmark, so lots of work to be done in that area.

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Total phosphorus increased, but it still meets the benchmark, nitrogen increased, but also meets the benchmark, and nitrate decreased, exceeds the benchmark there.

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All that being said, I think it's worth noting that people are still very supportive of

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these types of investments and they care about the work that you all are spending your

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time on and others really care about here.

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So I just wanted to kind of after the inconclusive quality data I wanted to share that it's

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still really important and we still need to keep working on it and just kind of reiterate that

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Brown Branch Commons is a tiny, tiny parcel within a really large watershed, and that incrementally

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I think there's a lot of work to be done, but a lot of potential improvements within

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the urbanized watershed of downtown Lexington.

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So I wanted to share just a couple of final thoughts before I leave you for the future.

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So so often when we are designing for stormwater, the spaces do one thing.

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They hold the maximum or designated amount of water for a prescribed amount of time.

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And not all of them look like this, but there's a fair number out there that look like this, they're not very attractive.

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If you're really lucky, maybe you get a fence around it because it's considered dangerous and a potential place for a kid bite drown.

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But I really want to leave you all with a much higher expectation for what is not only possible, but what is needed and incredibly worthwhile.

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In terms of investing in when it comes to stormwater infrastructure, it's precisely the multifunctional nature of town branch commons that makes it so compelling and inviting.

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It supports people from all walks of life. It provides a green ribbon of bluegrass through downtown with lush plantings. It collects and treats stormwater and connects us to our history and to the region through material choice and design expression.

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It also provides educational opportunities and spaces to engage with and interact with the plants and

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materials that are there and all of these qualities together are what make it so successful.

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I also wanted to point you to that landscape performance series website, another case study.

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This was in Hoboken New Jersey.

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I wanted to highlight this one that is focused on storm water and it may be a source of inspiration for future

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redevelopment downtown. So in response to flooding during during hurricane

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standby back in 2012, which hit Hoboken particularly hard, this project transformed

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a surface parking lot. We have a lot of those into a resiliency park by weaving

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together social spaces at the ground level. On top of layers of stormwater and flood control

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infrastructure. So rain gardens, you can see the kind of green diagram shows you how people

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use an interact with the space and the blue diagram shows you all of the engineering and materials

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that are happening underneath the ground.

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And so it's weaving these things together and it allows the rain gardens, bioswales, and permeable

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pavement, channel, stormwater into underground systems and it absorbs nearly 200,000 gallons

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of stormwater and it helps to reduce confines to or overflows in Hoboken.

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There's more detail available online so they have a similar brief and methods document that

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and book into if you're interested in.

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A little bit closer to home.

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I wanted to highlight one of my students' projects

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from the spring of 2025.

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We were using what was, then, the EPA Rainworks Challenge

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Design Competition as our prompt for a semester-long project.

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And so my students started out looking at schools

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all across Fayette County.

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And this one in particular is Wellington Elementary,

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which is located pretty close to Fayette County,

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or Fayette Mall.

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And so this, you can see in the upper left,

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I think it's emblematic of schools across our district,

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which are very heavy on Monterf,

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very sparse trees, rest can confirm this for me,

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though he's done a really good job to get more trees

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on during school sites.

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But the moan line, in the aerial image,

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you can see a large linear detention basin

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on the right side of the image there,

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and that is moan to within an inch of its life,

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year round, and it's supposed to be collecting

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stormwater helping absorb. So, this project will...

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We thought to transform this underutilized infrastructure as well as many other spaces around the school and to opportunities for enrichment and learning.

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So some of the planting, strategies they were thinking about in the lower left and just the ways that they were imagining, transforming, increasing tree canopy, creating lots of learning spaces and mixes of materials and opportunities for learning.

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This is a quick diagram showing those big moves that they were making because part of the design competition was you had to quantify, like, what are the benefits?

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And so they were improving a reducing stormwater runoff.

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They were increasing tree canopy.

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They were adjusting impervious surface.

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And they were shifting mongrass to no-mo areas,

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which means more water can infiltrate, more biodiversity,

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more learning opportunities for students.

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And then this was a section drawing,

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looking at that same detention basin,

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which is currently being mode really heavily,

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thinking about that as being a more naturalized condition.

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And all of the different activities and spaces

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you could link along that space.

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And then a prospective view showing some of the other ideas,

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including rain gardens, greater diversity

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of trees, materials, and that's where things.

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So that's hypothetical student projects.

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But I wanted to emphasize that these are not only visions

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they can be our reality, too.

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So these are a few final images I'll share of school

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projects that I was fortunate to work on

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when I was in Virginia before we moved to Kentucky.

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This is a view of menaces elementary school in Northern Virginia and on the left you can see

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really innovative stormwater infrastructure.

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It is the detention basin there, but it also acts as an amphitheater and it's collecting all the water from the parking lot,

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it's collecting water from the roofs, and it's doubling as this rate wonderful gathering space.

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And on the right, in our school district we can't plant trees, close to windows or buildings for security concerns,

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which is important, but you can see on the right this is a courtyard space that was really

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lushly planted with canopy trees and understory species that provide really rich learning

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environments for kids and outdoor learning opportunities for teachers.

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And then one final image is the basketball arena at the University of Virginia's campus,

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and this was on the left a bioswale with a series of wears or check dams right after it was planted.

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But you can note here like the very intentional edge that we were creating there and kind of frame for that facility and then there's a view a couple years on right up the middle of it so that clean edge helps to frame a much wilder and will your interior metal planting, which does a much better job of infiltrating stormwater and slowing water down along the slope.

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So wanted to open it up to questions and say thank you because I don't want to over over step my time.

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So,

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Wayne Burke, what would you consider some shortfalls or challenges and lessons learned from the top-red comments?

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From the project itself, or from my research.

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Oh, both.

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A really obvious one for research was mapping out our schedule to think about doing things like,

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We'd be being more knowledgeable about dry measurements for water quality or water quality, sorry.

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00:33:23,410 --> 00:33:28,050
We could have mapped out our schedule a bit better, especially for measuring all of the trees during really hot days.

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That was a little rough, so that's a simple thing.

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In terms of the commons itself, all the pictures I have are from when it was very close to completion.

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And we can look outside now and know and rest of the nose it pretty intimately like he's starting to maintain the space.

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So understanding the maintenance considerations is a really important part of making these projects

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successful, too.

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00:33:47,610 --> 00:33:52,130
So it's great when they look wonderful for the initial pictures, but then they evolve and

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change.

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And so there is, as part of this project, they have an adaptive management plan.

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So they are anticipating those long-term maintenance questions that are going to come up, because

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you put down all these plants, but they're not going to stay in exactly where you put them,

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and some plants are going to self-seed and do other things.

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And so there is this idea of trying to anticipate some of the longer term maintenance concerns that

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I think because it's a very complex project with lots of different partners from within the city that have

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If you look at all the responsibilities in that management plan, I don't know, five or six different entities within the city that have a particular role to play

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So the coordination aspect makes it I think a little bit more challenging and I would say if I had my dream

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All of the money that Gatton Park is doing such a great job of raising philanthropically, if they could kick off a little bit of that endowment to the Commons, which is really the front door to that park and really connects it to the rest of the city.

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I would love to see them be a little bit more generous with their fundraising and see how important that connection is and how those two really feed into one another.

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Given that there's a lot of eyes on this project and a lot of different people involved in so many different ways.

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And given that you had the award, this was a national competition to do this and you get some resources to do this.

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00:35:25,760 --> 00:35:35,040
But on a small scale, like what could be some of the most simplified, easiest to do kind of case studies on stormwater infrastructure in town locally?

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00:35:36,400 --> 00:35:42,880
Great question yeah given all the different stuff you looked at maybe what would you kind of see is like a fundamental or baseline

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Yeah, well, I think one of the things Bailey and I talked about and we never quite like we just did not have the time in our schedule to do it

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But what of your goals which is great that you have someone like Bailey and the city who's so curious and interested and invested in improvements to stormwater infrastructure is

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is how might there be ways to measure the impacts on a unit by unit basis?

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Like there are 22 rain gardens along the corridor.

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Is there a way and there are methods out there?

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There are equipment out there that you could invest in to really start to build infrastructure

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in a way that has the monitoring in place.

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Right now retroactively after the fact it's really hard to go back in and put in some of the sensors

426
00:36:27,240 --> 00:36:31,360
monitors that would help us understand, okay, here's the water quality going into this cell and

427
00:36:31,360 --> 00:36:35,340
here's what it looks like in the outflow pipe, but that's possible if you want to put

428
00:36:35,340 --> 00:36:39,020
the resources and you can find the resources to put towards it. So I think that that's kind

429
00:36:39,020 --> 00:36:46,940
of maybe some of the leading edge that might lead to more buy-in to the value of this in terms of

430
00:36:46,940 --> 00:36:51,960
like those like small-scale research opportunities is like where are some spaces that are smaller

431
00:36:51,960 --> 00:36:57,580
more contained where you could really better understand like the outfall at the park compared

432
00:36:57,580 --> 00:37:01,440
to what happens along the corridor and the larger waters said we knew it wasn't going

433
00:37:01,440 --> 00:37:06,640
to really move the needle much but in a small more contained unit where you can really understand

434
00:37:06,640 --> 00:37:11,960
the volume and quantity and quality coming in and what's leaving that system that would be great

435
00:37:11,960 --> 00:37:17,580
to start to figure out how can you monitor those things. Yeah. Yeah in the back.

436
00:38:11,110 --> 00:38:11,990
Great questions.

437
00:38:11,990 --> 00:38:17,010
My recollection is that we tried to do our sampling in mourning as well.

438
00:38:17,210 --> 00:38:19,530
I don't think any of them were in the afternoon.

439
00:38:20,430 --> 00:38:26,890
I don't remember exact times, but I probably have that written down somewhere in my research notes, I would hope.

440
00:38:28,250 --> 00:38:30,450
So I remember very hot.

441
00:38:30,550 --> 00:38:36,230
Many of the times that we were out there monitoring and very exposed because it was a wide open construction site.

442
00:38:36,750 --> 00:38:40,210
I mean, they left one tree in that corridor in the park.

443
00:38:40,210 --> 00:38:42,670
that was at pre-existing, so no shade whatsoever.

444
00:38:43,470 --> 00:38:46,450
So it might be a little bit, I remember, before the park.

445
00:38:47,010 --> 00:38:49,250
Construction, that was a highly-vegetated corridor.

446
00:38:49,470 --> 00:38:51,390
So that may have had some impacts in terms

447
00:38:51,390 --> 00:38:53,350
of the pre- and post-mesherments,

448
00:38:53,370 --> 00:38:56,370
because they had to set down the banks quite a bit

449
00:38:56,370 --> 00:38:58,890
and removed a lot of the existing vegetation in favor

450
00:38:58,890 --> 00:39:01,990
of introducing more native and diverse vegetation

451
00:39:01,990 --> 00:39:03,630
and was there previously.

452
00:39:04,830 --> 00:39:07,490
And then your second question about soil specifications.

453
00:39:07,770 --> 00:39:09,830
So I was not the landscape architect,

454
00:39:09,830 --> 00:39:17,730
but I have access to the landscape architecture, construction, documents, and I believe it was actually

455
00:39:17,730 --> 00:39:23,050
it was a very diverse project team as well. So, Gresham Smith was the lead and they did a lot of

456
00:39:23,050 --> 00:39:29,430
the transportation engineering as well as a lot of the kind of design you see on the ground, walkways,

457
00:39:29,890 --> 00:39:33,950
walls, et cetera, but they also worked in partnership with Strand Engineering. But I believe it

458
00:39:33,950 --> 00:39:38,830
may have been element design that may have done some of the help them on some of the soil specifications

459
00:39:38,830 --> 00:39:44,090
specifically and some of the planting and so I might be able to access that and potentially

460
00:39:44,090 --> 00:39:47,370
share it with Bailey if that would be helpful. Yeah,

461
00:39:49,630 --> 00:39:49,970
yeah.

462
00:39:52,410 --> 00:39:53,810
Was there any data available

463
00:39:53,810 --> 00:39:59,970
of bears on the question about increasing those water quality parameters being able to

464
00:40:00,000 --> 00:40:06,220
Or reflection of the changes in the basin as a whole, versus in that reach that you are working on.

465
00:40:06,600 --> 00:40:13,500
I cannot say, I just did not have the research time or capacity, or like knowledge-based,

466
00:40:13,680 --> 00:40:17,640
so it would be able to answer that question unfortunately. I know where my expertise ends,

467
00:40:18,300 --> 00:40:23,900
and really as I was saying to somebody earlier, we're able to dip our toe into the water monitoring,

468
00:40:23,900 --> 00:40:29,480
Thanks to folks like Bailey and Chase helping us because that was not my research background coming to it.

469
00:40:30,280 --> 00:40:33,760
So I'm sure many of you are much more knowledgeable on those issues than I am.

470
00:40:35,040 --> 00:40:35,800
All right.

471
00:40:35,980 --> 00:40:36,360
Thanks.

472
00:40:41,030 --> 00:40:41,850
Thank you very much, Jordan.

473
00:40:42,030 --> 00:40:45,550
Walking here every day, crossing camera and comments is a delight.

474
00:40:45,830 --> 00:40:49,310
So I'm glad to know that it's actually also a real delight to the rest of the people.

475
00:40:50,410 --> 00:40:54,090
And I thank you to Bailey who started this off because I got caught in the

476
00:40:54,090 --> 00:40:56,310
to the construction of the parking garage.

477
00:40:56,730 --> 00:40:59,330
Anyway, it was an adventure this morning, coming parking.

478
00:41:00,070 --> 00:41:03,310
But we now have Tisha Cookley with the Kentucky water

479
00:41:03,310 --> 00:41:05,130
said watch, and she's going to talk about the water quality

480
00:41:05,130 --> 00:41:06,370
monitoring and community engagement.

481
00:41:19,230 --> 00:41:22,110
OK, thank you all so much for inviting me.

482
00:41:22,550 --> 00:41:26,830
And thanks, Bailey, for letting me know that some members

483
00:41:26,830 --> 00:41:28,510
of this group might be interested in knowing

484
00:41:28,510 --> 00:41:31,430
about what watershed watch is, what we do.

485
00:41:32,050 --> 00:41:34,070
And so this is not a technical presentation.

486
00:41:34,710 --> 00:41:35,830
I'll kick it off by saying this

487
00:41:35,830 --> 00:41:43,110
this presentation just about the nonprofit organization who we are, what we do, how we work

488
00:41:43,110 --> 00:41:47,710
with communities throughout this day. And so I'll start by just introducing myself because

489
00:41:47,710 --> 00:41:54,590
I've worked with some of you before in different capacities in Lexington. I used to be working

490
00:41:54,590 --> 00:42:00,550
as a capacity at the University of Kentucky as a water quality microbiology researcher and I don't

491
00:42:00,550 --> 00:42:05,810
do that anymore. And so I fall in on touch with some of you. And so that's just to say that

492
00:42:05,810 --> 00:42:08,890
I moved on to different types of administrative work.

493
00:42:08,970 --> 00:42:12,710
I do strategic planning and data analytics type of work now for the University of Kentucky.

494
00:42:13,810 --> 00:42:21,070
And so in my spare time as a volunteer, I'm still involved in water quality work through citizen science,

495
00:42:21,410 --> 00:42:22,190
volunteer engagement.

496
00:42:23,010 --> 00:42:27,810
And so I'm the statewide president and board chair for Kentucky Watershed Watch.

497
00:42:28,870 --> 00:42:31,830
And I know many of you have worked with Watershed Watch

498
00:42:31,830 --> 00:42:36,630
And right here in Lexington through Kentucky River Watershed Watched Base and Organization.

499
00:42:37,490 --> 00:42:44,450
And so you might know or you might not know that we're statewide, we work with seven river basins throughout the state.

500
00:42:47,390 --> 00:42:52,910
And so we are a board of directors statewide and five working committees of the board.

501
00:42:53,550 --> 00:42:58,450
And the board and the working committees have representation from all seven river basins.

502
00:42:58,450 --> 00:43:07,030
And the working committees are sampler support, outreach and communication, science advisory, fundraising, and organizational operations.

503
00:43:07,750 --> 00:43:14,330
And that's a pitch to say to you all, we are always looking for additional input on these working committees.

504
00:43:14,850 --> 00:43:24,270
If you have interest in citizen science and engaging with us as a statewide organization, after you hear this talk, let me know because we're always looking for committee engagement.

505
00:43:27,990 --> 00:43:39,530
Okay, so our mission statement is to support water quality monitoring that informs connects and empowers volunteers and their communities for the improvement and protection of Kentucky's water resources.

506
00:43:40,370 --> 00:43:43,970
And so keywords in there are volunteers and communities.

507
00:43:48,780 --> 00:43:54,020
So one thing I want to ask first is I know there are some samplers in the room that are watershed watch volunteers.

508
00:43:54,020 --> 00:43:58,120
I might not know some of you if you're sampling and I haven't met you yet.

509
00:43:58,220 --> 00:43:59,000
Can I get it right?

510
00:43:59,060 --> 00:44:01,520
Show hands of who all samples for Watership Launch?

511
00:44:02,300 --> 00:44:02,820
Great.

512
00:44:03,520 --> 00:44:03,560
Cool.

513
00:44:04,000 --> 00:44:05,060
Thank you all so much.

514
00:44:05,960 --> 00:44:06,720
Your data matters.

515
00:44:07,280 --> 00:44:07,360
Okay.

516
00:44:07,420 --> 00:44:09,540
So how do we achieve our mission?

517
00:44:09,800 --> 00:44:16,020
We work towards our mission by developing scientifically based sampling protocols and training methods.

518
00:44:16,620 --> 00:44:20,660
And I'll talk more about those specific methods protocols in this talk.

519
00:44:20,660 --> 00:44:27,500
We also recruit train and equip volunteer stream monitors throughout the state.

520
00:44:27,980 --> 00:44:33,600
We encourage that those volunteers to collaborate with each other and communicate within

521
00:44:33,600 --> 00:44:37,060
their communities to take their data to community action.

522
00:44:39,020 --> 00:44:42,100
And we establish local support hubs throughout the communities.

523
00:44:42,200 --> 00:44:47,800
I'll talk more about this as well, but these are partner organizations that support the volunteers

524
00:44:47,800 --> 00:44:49,720
directly within their community.

525
00:44:51,420 --> 00:44:55,480
And then we provide access to our sampling results

526
00:44:55,480 --> 00:44:59,500
for the volunteers to enter their results.

527
00:45:00,000 --> 00:45:17,320
Economously in a data portal and also as a public facing data portal for members of the community to go and see the data. So you can go and look at the sample results anywhere in the state at any time that you want to. And we can sort and filter those different ways in the data portal.

528
00:45:19,880 --> 00:45:30,660
Okay, so where is this currently happening? Right now, these orange dots are all of the current sample sites throughout the state. There are 298 of them as of right now.

529
00:45:30,660 --> 00:45:40,600
And I just onboarded 13 new volunteers for Fayette County yesterday, and so it's growing constantly.

530
00:45:42,020 --> 00:45:51,360
And one aspect of our programming is growing in particular right now, and that's a teaser about something I'm going to tell you about a little bit.

531
00:45:52,260 --> 00:45:59,580
And then, so we have a leaderboard on a public facing part of our data portal to celebrate

532
00:45:59,580 --> 00:46:06,860
the counties and the hubs and the samplers and samples that are being sampled the most.

533
00:46:07,180 --> 00:46:12,040
And so right now Fayette County is the top of the leaderboard when sorted by County,

534
00:46:12,180 --> 00:46:19,280
yay Fayette County, and also in the, for the hubs, Lexington Fader Mechanic Government's

535
00:46:19,280 --> 00:46:27,080
branch waste water treatment plant lab is the fourth top support hub in the state right

536
00:46:27,080 --> 00:46:34,720
now for number of samples. This is just for 2026 so far. And the Kentucky River Basin is by

537
00:46:34,720 --> 00:46:42,960
far the most samples of all of the river bases on our leaderboard. And so we need some more work

538
00:46:42,960 --> 00:46:47,760
in the upper cumberland and the green river basins. We're doing a lot of work right now to try

539
00:46:47,760 --> 00:46:49,680
build up engagement in those areas.

540
00:46:50,520 --> 00:46:54,300
But the Kentucky River Basin and Fayette County are definitely leading the pack.

541
00:46:54,780 --> 00:46:58,660
But September isn't over yet, and we're in the middle of our September sampling surge

542
00:46:58,660 --> 00:47:00,580
right now, so these numbers could change.

543
00:47:03,380 --> 00:47:04,820
Okay, so what is the support hub?

544
00:47:04,840 --> 00:47:09,300
I mentioned the town branch wastewater treatment plant, is the support hub.

545
00:47:10,420 --> 00:47:12,680
So, some of the support hubs are like that.

546
00:47:12,760 --> 00:47:16,760
There are municipal government locations and communities throughout the state.

547
00:47:16,760 --> 00:47:25,180
Also, a lot of support hubs are extension offices or libraries or conservation district offices.

548
00:47:25,720 --> 00:47:38,300
Any type of community partner that has not lined mission with either environmental protection, water quality watershed protection and or community outreach and engaging the public.

549
00:47:40,360 --> 00:47:46,480
So what a support hubs do is they host our monitoring kits, our stream chemistry monitoring

550
00:47:46,480 --> 00:47:53,120
kits, and also for biological sampling, they host deep-frame nets for macro and vertebrate

551
00:47:53,120 --> 00:47:54,740
collection and things like that.

552
00:47:55,320 --> 00:47:59,660
And then they meet with the volunteers to check out that equipment to them like a library

553
00:47:59,660 --> 00:48:00,620
loan system.

554
00:48:01,120 --> 00:48:06,200
We manage that process, the sampler, when they check out their kits, they snappy QR code,

555
00:48:06,200 --> 00:48:11,400
and it registers on our statewide database where the kids are, so that the people

556
00:48:11,400 --> 00:48:15,700
managing the support hub don't have to take responsibility for the equipment at that

557
00:48:15,700 --> 00:48:16,860
level of tracking.

558
00:48:18,700 --> 00:48:23,980
But some of the hubs also offer additional services to samplers, and some of these really

559
00:48:23,980 --> 00:48:28,960
get more into how the hub benefits from the connection with our samplers.

560
00:48:30,500 --> 00:48:35,940
So we host an incubator at the hubs, they can incubate the E. coli cards, and then help

561
00:48:35,940 --> 00:48:43,120
sampleers interpret their data, they can host sampler meetings, training events, annual meetings

562
00:48:43,120 --> 00:48:49,600
to share results and interpret results together. They can help samplers choose sampling sites

563
00:48:49,600 --> 00:48:55,020
or locations. And so this is really important in municipalities that are hoping to get volunteers

564
00:48:55,020 --> 00:49:00,480
out to look at specific locations like outfalls or the stormwater outfalls or something like

565
00:49:00,480 --> 00:49:06,400
that the support hub can say, if you don't know where you want a sample yet, maybe you consider

566
00:49:06,400 --> 00:49:10,360
this spot and the samples are very receptive to that.

567
00:49:11,480 --> 00:49:14,180
They also help the samplers understand their results.

568
00:49:15,000 --> 00:49:19,360
Sometimes the results can become plexe, like Jordan was just talking about why did the temperature

569
00:49:19,360 --> 00:49:25,320
go up and the DO went down and so sometimes depending on who the support hub manager

570
00:49:25,320 --> 00:49:29,660
is, they may need to be in a position to help the samplers understand what they're seeing

571
00:49:29,660 --> 00:49:36,380
results too. They also can work with samplers to develop community projects. This is especially

572
00:49:36,380 --> 00:49:43,660
helpful when a sampler or a group of samplers in a community have a sample site or watershed

573
00:49:43,660 --> 00:49:50,300
location that they have specific concerns with. The support hub can kind of be the connection

574
00:49:50,300 --> 00:49:57,380
between getting those samplers connected with other groups to address that concern through community

575
00:49:57,380 --> 00:49:59,840
project, string, cleanups, best management practices.

576
00:50:00,000 --> 00:50:14,500
It's grant funding and things like that. And then, finally, they, some support have also host outreach and recruitment, equipment, so tabling, equipment for community affairs and things like

577
00:50:17,030 --> 00:50:17,230
that.

578
00:50:17,390 --> 00:50:28,590
Okay, so right now we have 42 support hubs throughout the states. And you can see that this map is remarkably similar to looking at the map of where all the sample sites are.

579
00:50:28,590 --> 00:50:35,230
If I overlay them with each other, it is literally around every support hub is a group of sample sites.

580
00:50:35,910 --> 00:50:38,170
And so that's one of the benefits of being a support hub.

581
00:50:38,910 --> 00:50:45,570
If there's an organization or a partner that is interested in getting a lot more monitoring data right there in their community,

582
00:50:46,110 --> 00:50:50,370
by becoming a support hub instantly the number of volunteers then follows.

583
00:50:52,610 --> 00:51:04,910
So another program that we work with is we have a partnership with Kentucky 4H and we've developed a 4H stream team program.

584
00:51:05,370 --> 00:51:14,790
Where watershed watch volunteers can become a 4H volunteer and take out a group of 4H youth to their sampling site.

585
00:51:14,790 --> 00:51:20,330
sample the water with them, do a habitat assessment, a macro vertebra assessment if they want to

586
00:51:21,450 --> 00:51:26,950
and develop a community project. And so this is a great way to start trying to get kids more involved.

587
00:51:27,590 --> 00:51:32,370
Children can't be official watershed watch volunteers. You have to be 18 to officially be

588
00:51:32,370 --> 00:51:37,530
a volunteer. But so this is our way of starting to work with you throughout the state.

589
00:51:38,490 --> 00:51:43,470
And so this is a newer program. We're kind of starting to build that up right now.

590
00:51:43,470 --> 00:51:51,070
And so, we have Fayette County, is going to be one of the first 4-H stream teams, and

591
00:51:51,070 --> 00:51:56,810
we're working right now, it's a partnership between Fayette County Public Schools, and

592
00:51:56,810 --> 00:52:03,730
Ico Grove, and Lexington, Fayette Urban County Government through Fiscal Year 26 Class

593
00:52:03,730 --> 00:52:05,630
of Education, Stormwater Grant.

594
00:52:06,250 --> 00:52:12,810
And so, we are right now in the process of training and coordinating teachers, and who

595
00:52:12,810 --> 00:52:18,170
then start working with the students, and we're very excited to see what kinds of community projects,

596
00:52:18,310 --> 00:52:25,170
those students propose after they go through the process of figuring out what's going on with

597
00:52:25,170 --> 00:52:26,510
their stream of choice.

598
00:52:31,280 --> 00:52:34,680
And so some of the examples of community projects that can come out

599
00:52:34,680 --> 00:52:42,200
of that are stream-bang tree plantings, stream cleanups. We've also talked with different for each

600
00:52:42,200 --> 00:52:47,340
agents who have said, you know, sometimes we have little kids who aren't going to necessarily

601
00:52:47,340 --> 00:52:52,040
want to get out there and do something like even a stream cleanup. But what type of

602
00:52:52,040 --> 00:52:58,600
community project could people do that would be more, you know, classroom-based, maybe.

603
00:52:59,000 --> 00:53:04,760
And so we've talked some about kids can do things like photos, studies, interviewing members

604
00:53:04,760 --> 00:53:08,460
of their community about the stream site and things like that.

605
00:53:11,850 --> 00:53:13,230
Okay, so how do volunteers

606
00:53:13,230 --> 00:53:20,650
getting involved. Like I said, there are multiple monitoring programs that we're doing statewide,

607
00:53:20,950 --> 00:53:27,290
so the physical chemical and E. coli testing, what we consider to be our base program,

608
00:53:27,810 --> 00:53:35,570
most all samplers are trained in those protocols. We also have habitat assessment, training,

609
00:53:35,870 --> 00:53:39,290
and monitoring protocols, as well as macro and vertebrate assessments.

610
00:53:41,890 --> 00:53:42,690
So in order to become

611
00:53:42,690 --> 00:53:49,590
volunteer. The first step is person goes through online training modules. And so if you were going

612
00:53:49,590 --> 00:53:56,290
to become a volunteer just for the base program, stream chemistry and E. coli, you take five

613
00:53:56,290 --> 00:54:03,630
online modules. They're about 10 minutes each. So it takes just about an hour to do the entire online

614
00:54:03,630 --> 00:54:10,170
training to become a sampler. If someone is interested in becoming a habitat assessment sampler,

615
00:54:10,170 --> 00:54:18,810
That's an additional online module, it's again about 10 minutes, and then there's a little bit longer when I think it's about 15 minutes for the biological assessment training.

616
00:54:19,450 --> 00:54:20,490
So these are simple.

617
00:54:21,550 --> 00:54:32,830
The purpose of them really is just to get people having a basic understanding of what they're going to learn when they meet with us for an in-person training that's approximately two hours.

618
00:54:32,830 --> 00:54:46,750
This is a hands-on practicum type exercise where they are able to get refreshed on what they learn from online training and then practice and demonstrate what they've learned in the field.

619
00:54:48,110 --> 00:54:50,770
So we conduct these workshops throughout the state.

620
00:54:51,070 --> 00:54:54,710
We have trainers throughout the state who provide these.

621
00:54:54,710 --> 00:54:56,250
Some trainers are in this room.

622
00:54:56,610 --> 00:54:59,630
We are eternally grateful to our trainers for being willing to do this.

623
00:55:00,000 --> 00:55:19,500
And so the habitat assessment training in particular is starting to really pick up in 2026. We've had several of those, and we have some more coming, including as a part of the Kentucky Hallbender Festival next week.

624
00:55:19,500 --> 00:55:26,320
REST Turbin is going to lead a habitat assessment training at, I'm sorry, REST, where is that one going?

625
00:55:26,900 --> 00:55:30,600
Lower Howard's Greek, thank you. On Thursday at 5 p.m.

626
00:55:31,600 --> 00:55:37,840
So if anybody's interested in attending that one, you can sign up through that after our website to attend that.

627
00:55:38,240 --> 00:55:47,740
And we have more of those scheduled. We're not quite as dependent on flow conditions and things like that to conduct a habitat assessment training.

628
00:55:47,740 --> 00:55:53,760
and it's very popular people like it, it's anyone can do it, and so we're starting to roll

629
00:55:53,760 --> 00:55:57,220
out a lot more of those, so watch for those in the future if you're interested.

630
00:56:00,020 --> 00:56:04,160
We also work at those training events to form sampling teams.

631
00:56:04,240 --> 00:56:08,680
We're working hard to try to form more community connections between samplers.

632
00:56:09,200 --> 00:56:14,000
So a lot of times we find out in conversation standing beside a creek that these two people

633
00:56:14,000 --> 00:56:15,780
who've never met each other before,

634
00:56:16,120 --> 00:56:19,360
are very, very interested in the exact same stream site.

635
00:56:20,500 --> 00:56:23,540
And they've come friends and then want to start doing things

636
00:56:23,540 --> 00:56:25,920
and their communities together to protect that stream.

637
00:56:26,440 --> 00:56:28,080
And so we use these training events

638
00:56:28,080 --> 00:56:30,200
to help try to make those connections as well.

639
00:56:32,280 --> 00:56:35,920
OK, so then after a person completes their in-person training,

640
00:56:36,800 --> 00:56:40,420
they receive an invitation from us

641
00:56:40,420 --> 00:56:43,400
to enter the online data portal and create a profile.

642
00:56:43,400 --> 00:56:53,420
And once they create a profile and they're in the portal, now they have access to a lot more tools than are visible in the public facing side of the data portal.

643
00:56:54,000 --> 00:56:58,200
And some of those tools include how they enter their sample results autonomously.

644
00:56:59,060 --> 00:57:04,360
So a sampler can collect samples whenever they want, wherever they want and enter their data.

645
00:57:04,360 --> 00:57:15,300
We have a science advisory committee on the back end that is going through and looking at that data periodically to see if there are any quality control concerns.

646
00:57:15,960 --> 00:57:25,780
And we also have threshold values built into the data portal that will flag things and not let you enter a result if it seems way out of alignment.

647
00:57:29,250 --> 00:57:41,330
Okay, so then after you've created your profile in a data portal, you can open up a map in the data portal where you're able to select your support hub and also decide where you want to sample.

648
00:57:42,030 --> 00:57:49,570
And so you can see all the orange dots are sample locations that already exist, maybe they've been sampled in the past, but they're not sampled anymore.

649
00:57:50,070 --> 00:57:55,690
So a lot of times a new volunteer will want to pick up an old sample site to continue it.

650
00:57:55,690 --> 00:57:58,590
So that's one way to choose a sample site.

651
00:57:59,470 --> 00:58:01,950
Also, if you have a sample site in mind,

652
00:58:02,110 --> 00:58:04,130
that you want to sample is never been sampled before.

653
00:58:04,230 --> 00:58:06,870
Maybe this is just the stream that runs by my house.

654
00:58:07,670 --> 00:58:11,250
You also, in the data portal, you can just zoom in on the map,

655
00:58:11,470 --> 00:58:15,310
drop a pen, and then that automatically creates a new sample site,

656
00:58:15,310 --> 00:58:19,010
assigns a site ID to it, and assigns it to you.

657
00:58:22,010 --> 00:58:24,390
So then after you decide where you want to sample,

658
00:58:24,690 --> 00:58:27,110
and you've selected where you want to pick up your equipment

659
00:58:27,110 --> 00:58:32,450
at hub, you go to that, you contact the hub, let them know you're coming, and then you go

660
00:58:32,450 --> 00:58:38,050
to the hub and pick up your sampling kit. So the sampling kits contain dissolved oxygen,

661
00:58:38,310 --> 00:58:46,150
pH, conductivity, meters, a thermometer for strength temperature, waste containers, and also

662
00:58:46,150 --> 00:58:52,890
a little instructional flip card deck that are waterproof, laminated cards that are just brief

663
00:58:52,890 --> 00:58:58,590
refreshers to the volunteers so that they can end the stream refresh their memory on how many

664
00:58:58,590 --> 00:59:01,370
drops of sodium phalsa they do I use.

665
00:59:05,190 --> 00:59:07,130
So then they take the kit, they go to the stream

666
00:59:07,130 --> 00:59:13,970
and conduct their sampling. This is an image of the field data sheet that our volunteers use

667
00:59:13,970 --> 00:59:20,170
to collect their data while they're at the stream. So they take this as a printed copy and

668
00:59:20,170 --> 00:59:24,170
you can see it includes a lot of information about the sampler, where they're sampling,

669
00:59:24,170 --> 00:59:30,590
We're tracking their volunteer hours and drive time and things like that that helps a lot with grant reporting

670
00:59:31,750 --> 00:59:34,530
And then also they're giving us information about

671
00:59:34,530 --> 00:59:43,130
Visual observable data. So are there any odd smells? Is there anything new about the stream that you've noticed that wasn't there the last time you visited?

672
00:59:43,670 --> 00:59:46,310
What is the flow conditions those types of things?

673
00:59:47,050 --> 00:59:47,570
any

674
00:59:47,570 --> 00:59:50,730
litter around that we should know about

675
00:59:50,730 --> 00:59:54,270
And then also turbidity is just a visual measurement.

676
00:59:54,530 --> 00:59:59,970
It's a subjective, either it's cloudy, muddy, clear, mostly clear.

677
01:00:01,300 --> 01:00:18,700
And then they can also take pictures of from their sample site, looking upstream, looking downstream, and upload those pictures into the data portal with their results, so that if something seems odd in their data, we want to try to take a look. We can pull up those pictures and see what's going on at that stream.

678
01:00:20,380 --> 01:00:26,580
Then they use the chemistry kit in order to assess the water temperature pH, dissolved oxygen

679
01:00:26,580 --> 01:00:29,260
conductivity, record all of that.

680
01:00:30,520 --> 01:00:34,360
They're trained how to calibrate their conductivity meter so that it's calibrated

681
01:00:34,360 --> 01:00:36,620
on the day that they go out sampling.

682
01:00:37,560 --> 01:00:43,820
And then they're using Roth biosciences, our cards, to collect equalized samples.

683
01:00:43,820 --> 01:00:50,360
on to a little, it's a card, like a cardboard card with a vellum film that folds down on it

684
01:00:50,360 --> 01:00:56,780
that's impregnated with the growth medium. So it duplicates, or it's an analog of a Petri-Dish

685
01:00:56,780 --> 01:01:04,080
culture method. But it's inexpensive, it's great for volunteers, it's field deployable. So they have

686
01:01:04,080 --> 01:01:08,960
a little pipette and they have their cards, they run each sample and triplicate, and they put

687
01:01:08,960 --> 01:01:13,620
one milliliter of sample on each card, let them sit until they

688
01:01:13,620 --> 01:01:17,100
gel out, there's some augur built into the growth medium, and then

689
01:01:17,100 --> 01:01:20,420
they take those back to the hub to incubate them, and when they come

690
01:01:20,420 --> 01:01:24,120
out the next day they count them, or some of the hubs can count

691
01:01:24,120 --> 01:01:27,660
the cards for the sampler, or take pictures of the cards and send

692
01:01:27,660 --> 01:01:30,980
the pictures to the sampler so they can count them. But they're

693
01:01:30,980 --> 01:01:35,600
counting blue colonies, and it's the only thing that grows on the

694
01:01:35,600 --> 01:01:41,080
is E coli, so if you see a dot, you count it. It's pretty simple for volunteers to deploy.

695
01:01:43,240 --> 01:01:49,660
So then when they get back home, they take their sample data sheet from the field, and it's

696
01:01:49,660 --> 01:01:54,580
an exact replicate of what everything looks like in the data portal, so that there's no confusion.

697
01:01:54,700 --> 01:01:59,060
When they open up the data portal, and they start putting in sample results, it looks exactly like this sheet,

698
01:01:59,100 --> 01:02:02,600
and they basically just transfer all of the information over into the portal.

699
01:02:04,230 --> 01:02:08,050
Okay, and then finally data interpretation and using their data.

700
01:02:08,430 --> 01:02:11,810
This is one of the harder nuts to crack as a non-profit organization.

701
01:02:11,830 --> 01:02:19,610
I think many of you are familiar with this is getting the community to then do something with that data can be expensive.

702
01:02:20,050 --> 01:02:20,870
It can be challenging.

703
01:02:21,310 --> 01:02:22,570
It's time consuming.

704
01:02:23,270 --> 01:02:27,750
And so we have some ways that we work towards this.

705
01:02:28,350 --> 01:02:32,690
So first of all, in Formos, we're increasing personal and community awareness of the string conditions.

706
01:02:32,690 --> 01:02:41,210
And again, we're forming those teams between samplers to communicate with each other and communicate with their cities and communities about the problems that they're finding.

707
01:02:42,590 --> 01:02:50,050
They can use their data as a basis for further action, but not as regulatory data, just as pattern recognition.

708
01:02:50,790 --> 01:03:02,050
And hey, we're seeing this looks a lot different than the other stream sites around it, or this stream site looks very different than it did two years ago, based on our data, what should we look into for that.

709
01:03:02,050 --> 01:03:05,010
So we're trying to track things spatially and temporarily.

710
01:03:06,790 --> 01:03:12,150
And then also, we, as an organization, create a report annually to send to the

711
01:03:12,150 --> 01:03:16,310
Division of Water and we have an annual meeting with the Division of Water to talk about

712
01:03:16,310 --> 01:03:21,790
this report and it's where we present to them our sites of concern annually.

713
01:03:22,170 --> 01:03:28,770
And so we're invited to tell them about 10 sample locations statewide each year that we consider

714
01:03:28,770 --> 01:03:32,190
to be the most concerning that we want to bring to the division of water

715
01:03:32,190 --> 01:03:39,150
retention. They can choose to do something with those sites or not, but we work with

716
01:03:39,150 --> 01:03:44,070
them to try to figure out including giving context based on the Sampler's own

717
01:03:44,070 --> 01:03:49,250
interpretation of why they chose set that site, why they care about that site, what

718
01:03:49,250 --> 01:03:53,850
they're seeing around there as far as land use patterns and things like that, so

719
01:03:53,850 --> 01:03:58,610
we can make sure that the division of water has the context they need to act.

720
01:03:59,970 --> 01:04:06,310
We're also currently working on a site grading tool in our data portal so that we can

721
01:04:06,310 --> 01:04:14,470
have a clear indication of how sites compare to each other statewide, not just on any one

722
01:04:14,470 --> 01:04:19,370
parameter, but based on the aggregate of all the parameters that we're looking at combined.

723
01:04:20,090 --> 01:04:25,110
So just kind of heat mapping, good, fair, bad.

724
01:04:28,340 --> 01:04:29,860
Okay, have a time assessment.

725
01:04:30,000 --> 01:04:32,920
Like I said, is one of our newer things that we're getting involved in.

726
01:04:32,920 --> 01:04:34,300
And it's really exciting right now.

727
01:04:34,340 --> 01:04:36,100
People are really enjoying this training.

728
01:04:36,580 --> 01:04:39,080
So we're starting to roll out more and more of this.

729
01:04:39,420 --> 01:04:41,460
And so what we do and have a time assessment,

730
01:04:41,620 --> 01:04:43,220
we're looking at stream characteristics,

731
01:04:43,340 --> 01:04:46,380
a observable stream characteristics standing on the banks.

732
01:04:46,780 --> 01:04:49,720
And we're looking at things like stream bank erosion,

733
01:04:49,720 --> 01:04:56,160
repairing buffer width. There's many more characteristics. And we are teaching volunteers

734
01:04:56,160 --> 01:04:59,980
how to score those on a rubric. So...

735
01:05:00,000 --> 01:05:14,140
So that these habitat assessments, scores, are standardized statewide, and we can compare the habitat of the different stream sites to each other throughout the state as a snapshot in time or across time.

736
01:05:15,560 --> 01:05:29,500
So one of the things that's interesting to me about this is like Jordan was saying, we hear all the time that is very challenging to say what was improved after implementation of a BMP or different types of things.

737
01:05:29,500 --> 01:05:36,080
What was the improvement? If we try to measure that as E. coli, it's really hard sometimes to show that there's been an improvement.

738
01:05:37,000 --> 01:05:42,480
And so, habitat assessment might be a way of granted across long time periods,

739
01:05:42,580 --> 01:05:49,620
but we have samplers in this room that has been sampling these streams throughout Kentucky since 1997.

740
01:05:51,600 --> 01:05:55,800
And so we are dedicated volunteers who tend to stick with the programming.

741
01:05:55,800 --> 01:06:06,540
And so if we have the ability to assess these sites across long periods of time and say pre and post implementation changes,

742
01:06:07,020 --> 01:06:14,220
this could be an empowering tool for communities to use to showcase what these BMPs have done for us.

743
01:06:16,660 --> 01:06:24,800
So we do work with municipalities, we work with LFECG, we also work with some other municipalities throughout the state and in this force.

744
01:06:24,800 --> 01:06:30,340
And so I wanted to briefly say why Ms. Ali Orman and Ms. Four would work with Watershed

745
01:06:30,340 --> 01:06:30,640
Watch.

746
01:06:31,220 --> 01:06:37,660
So we believe as a partnership, we help turn technical plans into more visible and community-based

747
01:06:37,660 --> 01:06:38,340
implementation.

748
01:06:39,760 --> 01:06:47,420
And so that increases local capacity by providing volunteer monitoring and support of infrastructure

749
01:06:47,420 --> 01:06:51,520
and communities to expand the community outreach and engagement.

750
01:06:51,520 --> 01:07:02,900
It creates better program feedback so that there's a structured feedback loop for a municipality to get input from their citizenry.

751
01:07:03,600 --> 01:07:12,540
And also creates routine signals across time to help municipalities prioritize where to focus further work.

752
01:07:12,540 --> 01:07:20,680
And then, also, because we are documenting our volunteer training hours, drive time, sampling, and training events,

753
01:07:21,520 --> 01:07:28,460
a number of samples and things like that, we're able to provide that type of data back to municipalities to say,

754
01:07:28,640 --> 01:07:34,180
here's the engagement level that we were achieving in this community during this period of time.

755
01:07:34,180 --> 01:07:36,300
That helps with grant recording and things like

756
01:07:38,380 --> 01:07:38,640
that.

757
01:07:38,640 --> 01:08:07,840
So, however, we know that volunteer data can't be used easily for regulatory purposes, and so we are advocates of a hybrid monitoring approach, where we're using volunteer monitoring to look at broad and frequent coverage throughout the community, maybe more sites, maybe more frequency that could be offered by professionals, and likely with a lot less cost.

758
01:08:07,840 --> 01:08:14,080
And then we're definitely offering community engagement, stewardship, we're providing screening

759
01:08:14,080 --> 01:08:17,940
level observations to help with pattern recognition and prioritization.

760
01:08:19,040 --> 01:08:26,180
We're our volunteers are finding trends and hotspot flagging for municipalities and communities.

761
01:08:26,860 --> 01:08:30,400
And then also, of course, education and hands-on experiences.

762
01:08:31,820 --> 01:08:36,960
What we need from professional monitoring though is the regulatory and compliance enforcement

763
01:08:36,960 --> 01:08:44,720
support much higher precision and consistency accuracy, data that can be used for more regulatory

764
01:08:44,720 --> 01:08:50,420
purposes. And then advanced laboratory analysis that we can't deploy in the field with

765
01:08:50,420 --> 01:08:57,320
volunteers, complex source tracking when we're, when and where that's appropriate, and then

766
01:08:57,320 --> 01:09:01,160
validation and follow up investigations based on where our volunteers find.

767
01:09:03,890 --> 01:09:04,550
So the bottom line

768
01:09:04,550 --> 01:09:10,130
volunteers broaden the signal, but professionals validate, diagnose, and act on that signal.

769
01:09:12,530 --> 01:09:15,910
OK, so finally, I wanted to wrap up with some follow-on actions.

770
01:09:15,930 --> 01:09:20,190
If you're interested in learning more, you can visit our news page on our website.

771
01:09:20,550 --> 01:09:25,670
We have a listing of success stories of some outcomes in various communities where we've

772
01:09:25,670 --> 01:09:26,170
been working.

773
01:09:26,530 --> 01:09:31,950
So you can read some of those and tell us more that we don't know.

774
01:09:31,950 --> 01:09:37,950
There's, we believe that there are success stories all over the state, that we as a board of directors just aren't

775
01:09:38,510 --> 01:09:40,250
dialed into fully yet.

776
01:09:40,330 --> 01:09:45,130
And so if you know of anything that you want to add to success stories from monitoring, let us know.

777
01:09:46,530 --> 01:09:54,270
And then also, we produced our 2025 annual report of all of our sampling results statewide.

778
01:09:55,470 --> 01:09:59,710
And so if you're interested in seeing more details about what our volunteers found.

779
01:09:59,710 --> 01:09:59,890
and

780
01:10:00,000 --> 01:10:05,400
In the water sites, they were sampling statewide. You can check out that in all reports of that.

781
01:10:07,540 --> 01:10:30,640
And if you're interested in getting involved with us further, there are many ways to be involved with watershed watch, other than as a sampler. And that would be as a trainer, offering a support hub. I should say there are three support hubs in Fayette County, town branch, wastewater treatment plant is one of those also Kentucky water research institute is one and raven run as a support hub.

782
01:10:31,340 --> 01:10:49,080
We also are always looking for people to help table at events and recruit more volunteers and then we're always seeking additional leadership in the organization for board service or service on one of our working committees and of course because we're a non-profit money.

783
01:10:49,500 --> 01:10:51,060
We're always looking for donations.

784
01:10:51,060 --> 01:10:56,140
So that's all I've got, if anybody has any questions, do I have time for questions?

785
01:11:18,580 --> 01:11:22,800
I need to call if I was saying I have not been in a leadership position for the statewide

786
01:11:22,800 --> 01:11:28,560
board for very long and so I've only had that experience a little bit.

787
01:11:28,980 --> 01:11:34,520
So I'm not the person to answer that question across at times, but my understanding is there

788
01:11:34,520 --> 01:11:41,140
has been variability in that and I do think it's getting better and I think that the more

789
01:11:41,140 --> 01:11:48,960
we do as an organization to be a partner with governments, the better we do at having their

790
01:11:48,960 --> 01:11:53,620
ear when we come to tell them about something. I don't think that the division of water,

791
01:11:53,620 --> 01:11:58,720
my impression is that the division of water does not have the capacity internally to act on

792
01:11:58,720 --> 01:12:06,200
every site that we tell them about, so they have to prioritize on their end. The more that we can do

793
01:12:06,200 --> 01:12:12,020
get them in touch with the community and what's going on in the community, the easier that conversation is.

794
01:12:12,260 --> 01:12:17,560
And so the basin coordinators are kind of the middle person where that happens and I think that

795
01:12:17,560 --> 01:12:23,100
basin coordinator model is currently getting better and it seems like we're getting some new basin coordinators

796
01:12:23,100 --> 01:12:27,880
throughout the state who are coming in with a lot of fresh energy and reaching out to us.

797
01:12:27,920 --> 01:12:32,380
We're getting a lot more community connections going right now through basin coordinators and I anticipate

798
01:12:32,380 --> 01:12:36,360
Okay, that's going to improve that conversation with the visual water on

799
01:12:52,970 --> 01:12:54,990
going.

800
01:13:05,650 --> 01:13:07,190
Thanks for that question, Ken.

801
01:13:08,030 --> 01:13:12,670
They are not cheap, and they've been increasing recently as with inflation.

802
01:13:13,730 --> 01:13:18,350
So my numbers are probably a little bit out of date, but I'm going to go on a limb and

803
01:13:18,350 --> 01:13:26,070
a full field kit with everything new purchased is at this point close to $500 but

804
01:13:29,340 --> 01:13:29,740
we do

805
01:13:29,740 --> 01:13:35,340
refresh field kits. This is part of the reason why watershed watch for years used to every

806
01:13:35,340 --> 01:13:39,840
new sampler got their own field kit and took it home with them and it was there kit to keep

807
01:13:39,840 --> 01:13:45,300
until they didn't want to be a sampler anymore. It was very tough to get those kits back if somebody

808
01:13:45,300 --> 01:13:51,140
had stopped sampling for a while and so we had a lot of kits out there that weren't being used and

809
01:13:51,140 --> 01:13:54,740
So the support hub model is helping with that.

810
01:13:54,900 --> 01:13:57,940
So we need fewer kits now to do the same amount

811
01:13:57,940 --> 01:13:59,120
of data collection.

812
01:14:05,330 --> 01:14:05,970
Any other questions?

813
01:14:07,190 --> 01:14:07,790
Thank you.

814
01:14:14,390 --> 01:14:16,930
So I scanned it a QR code and the website

815
01:14:16,930 --> 01:14:18,210
to answer the other part of your question

816
01:14:18,210 --> 01:14:20,550
can has plenty of opportunities to make donations.

817
01:14:21,250 --> 01:14:22,990
So you can be that there.

818
01:14:23,810 --> 01:14:27,010
I was a sampler of fun, of last for quite some time,

819
01:14:27,190 --> 01:14:28,630
but good lord is it fancy right now.

820
01:14:28,970 --> 01:14:32,110
It was all paper and there was no portals

821
01:14:32,110 --> 01:14:33,890
and that's really fancy, so good job.

822
01:14:35,350 --> 01:14:37,310
To continue our water sampling theme,

823
01:14:37,430 --> 01:14:39,190
we are going to have our friends from Third Rock

824
01:14:39,190 --> 01:14:42,690
talk about their monitoring program.

825
01:14:52,160 --> 01:14:53,460
You guys hear me all right?

826
01:14:54,660 --> 01:14:57,180
I'm Matt Call, I'm an engineer at Third Rock Consultant,

827
01:14:57,340 --> 01:14:59,980
and as asked to come here and give just a quick present.

828
01:15:00,000 --> 01:15:07,180
The presentation about some updates that Lexington has done to their MS4 program. We went through a couple

829
01:15:07,180 --> 01:15:14,460
of changes recently. We ended a permit cycle where we shifted from a watershed focused monitoring

830
01:15:14,460 --> 01:15:22,060
program to a bank county wide complete MS4 monitoring program. So just real quickly, I want to give

831
01:15:22,060 --> 01:15:27,040
a little bit of a background about it. I'll see a lot of familiar faces here, so I have a feeling

832
01:15:27,040 --> 01:15:32,180
guys are aware of the program and considering it's Labor Day weekend and you guys showed

833
01:15:32,180 --> 01:15:36,880
up I think you guys care about this a little bit. And then after that I'm going to talk

834
01:15:36,880 --> 01:15:42,020
about just some of the quick elements of the program and then some of the updates we've done

835
01:15:42,020 --> 01:15:48,180
to you call the assurance and quality control. And then right now where we are with each of those

836
01:15:48,180 --> 01:15:56,160
elements and the sampling and the monitoring and how that's going. So real quick, Lexton is under

837
01:15:56,160 --> 01:16:03,160
a KPDES permit, and as part of that, there's supposed to monitor the streams from the MS4

838
01:16:03,160 --> 01:16:07,980
that received water from the MS4. And like I said, the watershed focus monitoring program,

839
01:16:08,120 --> 01:16:17,240
that went from 2015 to 2023 when we wrapped up with Wolfron. And that was a yearly sampling where

840
01:16:17,240 --> 01:16:23,980
one major watershed would get sampled pretty intensively for one year. There are about 14 events

841
01:16:23,980 --> 01:16:25,340
for each of those watersheds.

842
01:16:25,420 --> 01:16:28,100
And it was really good for establishing a base line.

843
01:16:28,520 --> 01:16:30,020
It's a really good intense data,

844
01:16:30,380 --> 01:16:34,060
but the problem we ran into is that's just one year.

845
01:16:34,420 --> 01:16:37,060
So it's really difficult to establish trends

846
01:16:37,060 --> 01:16:39,600
and see if there's actual improvement in the watershed

847
01:16:39,600 --> 01:16:42,060
if you just have a snapshot in time.

848
01:16:43,760 --> 01:16:46,200
So currently, I'm working pretty extensively

849
01:16:46,200 --> 01:16:51,040
with Petrotech and Bailey MS4, LBCG.

850
01:16:51,040 --> 01:16:58,700
We were able to trim all the sides, which are about 115 sides that were sampled throughout

851
01:16:58,700 --> 01:17:04,180
all the watershed, down to 63 monitoring sides that we sample every quarter.

852
01:17:05,540 --> 01:17:11,680
And that's a pretty significant event, it's a sample, and it takes a lot of coordination.

853
01:17:12,520 --> 01:17:17,580
We ended up breaking all those sides up in the 13 different sampling routes, two different

854
01:17:17,580 --> 01:17:23,900
days or volunteers, sacrifice their time to come in and help us out along with LFECD staff

855
01:17:23,900 --> 01:17:26,800
and a third rock getting involved on that.

856
01:17:27,340 --> 01:17:32,080
But for each of these sprouts, they're about four of the six sides per route, each of them

857
01:17:32,080 --> 01:17:37,980
have like a little guide sheet and map to get to that spot, and then hopefully around lunchtime

858
01:17:37,980 --> 01:17:40,640
they bring it back to the town branch who then starts processing.

859
01:17:41,480 --> 01:17:46,400
So there's a lot that goes into it, but those sides were based off of the previous water

860
01:17:46,400 --> 01:17:51,860
quality data, approximate location to each other, and then also the drainage size for each

861
01:17:51,860 --> 01:17:52,520
of those sides.

862
01:17:54,280 --> 01:17:59,980
And like I said, it's throughout the entire MS4 area, which you can see here, each of the

863
01:17:59,980 --> 01:18:01,600
water sheds and major water sheds.

864
01:18:02,080 --> 01:18:07,720
And then additionally, we wanted to focus on the MS4 areas that are outside of, kind of like

865
01:18:07,720 --> 01:18:10,000
that central urban service area.

866
01:18:10,060 --> 01:18:15,000
Because there are some urban areas like the airport and then some of the extension areas outside

867
01:18:15,000 --> 01:18:20,500
you could see that pink shading that we're also we've added some sites that weren't sampled

868
01:18:20,500 --> 01:18:25,680
in the watershed folks monitoring program because especially with expansion and urbanization

869
01:18:25,680 --> 01:18:31,740
and continuing we want to set some good ground data now and then compare it to you know in five

870
01:18:31,740 --> 01:18:36,580
ten years when those areas kind of start to blow up a little bit we have a baseline and then we can

871
01:18:36,580 --> 01:18:39,020
compare it to effects of urbanization.

872
01:18:41,420 --> 01:18:43,820
But talking about the elements of the watershed

873
01:18:44,600 --> 01:18:51,800
MS4 monitoring program, water quality monitoring, quarterly scheduled sampling events by train volunteers,

874
01:18:52,960 --> 01:18:57,900
LVCG staff and third-doc staff, and you can see there that's a picture from the second quarter.

875
01:18:58,320 --> 01:19:02,940
No, I'm sorry, this is most recent event, and everybody is having a pow out there in the time branch lab,

876
01:19:03,120 --> 01:19:08,920
because as a saying, quality assurance quality control is constantly changing with this,

877
01:19:08,940 --> 01:19:12,560
because we want to make sure we have the best data that we can provide to the end user.

878
01:19:12,560 --> 01:19:22,800
And so there's usually some updates about sampling techniques and just friendly reminders to staff and volunteers about how to properly collect those.

879
01:19:23,400 --> 01:19:25,440
And so that was the most recent event.

880
01:19:25,780 --> 01:19:32,140
And then there's quarterly wet weather sampling done by Third Rock at each of the seven major watershed sites.

881
01:19:32,140 --> 01:19:38,980
And that's done by Third Rock because they're a very specific wet weather events and a

882
01:19:38,980 --> 01:19:45,240
sedence that we have to hit for to qualify as a wet weather event and it can be kind of

883
01:19:45,240 --> 01:19:46,180
dangerous sometimes.

884
01:19:46,300 --> 01:19:50,980
So we'd rather get out there and risk our own skin and have a bunch of volunteers out there.

885
01:19:51,220 --> 01:19:58,900
The most recent wet weather event was done during the June 4 event and that was a pretty heavy

886
01:19:58,900 --> 01:19:59,960
rain event and everything.

887
01:20:06,200 --> 01:20:17,260
And then on top of that, there's wet weather sampling done at the remaining sites, come down to about 57 sites, better done by us once a year.

888
01:20:18,480 --> 01:20:27,160
On top of that, let's just the chemistry side. There's macro and vertebrate and habitat sampling done once a year at each of the seven sites.

889
01:20:27,160 --> 01:20:30,920
And then every other year at the remaining 50-some sites.

890
01:20:31,220 --> 01:20:34,200
Fish sampling is only done at the major sites.

891
01:20:34,920 --> 01:20:37,400
Once a quarter or every other year,

892
01:20:37,540 --> 01:20:39,720
and then GM Warfare Assessment is something

893
01:20:39,720 --> 01:20:41,360
that we've implemented recently.

894
01:20:41,560 --> 01:20:46,480
They stopped feedback from likes and turn and touch or tag

895
01:20:46,480 --> 01:20:49,000
and have some of the other stormwater programs

896
01:20:49,000 --> 01:20:50,000
that are being implemented.

897
01:20:50,640 --> 01:20:53,040
And so that's done once a year at the major sites

898
01:20:53,040 --> 01:20:55,420
and every other year at the remaining sites.

899
01:20:55,420 --> 01:21:03,120
and geomorphic assessments were geomorphology, that's just the study of landscape, rivers,

900
01:21:03,460 --> 01:21:08,020
streams, and how they change over time. So that's really important in urbanization,

901
01:21:08,540 --> 01:21:14,460
or in urban areas, because the streams, they really get hit hard when you start increasing

902
01:21:14,460 --> 01:21:21,660
the impervious area and you can see effects from erosion. So we want to know if we're contributing

903
01:21:21,660 --> 01:21:25,860
sediment to the stream and I don't know landowners are really appreciative of not losing their

904
01:21:25,860 --> 01:21:27,680
stream bank and losing property.

905
01:21:30,240 --> 01:21:34,020
So some updates to the QAQC that I was mentioning. Some of

906
01:21:34,020 --> 01:21:38,860
this is already in place that we did for Worship of SmartTreeing Program. That's some we've added

907
01:21:38,860 --> 01:21:47,020
on. So everything in black that has been, you know, it's been an effect since 2015. There's

908
01:21:47,020 --> 01:21:52,880
minimum education and training and experience required for each element of the program volunteers

909
01:21:52,880 --> 01:21:58,700
have to attend a annual training where it stands on. We go through a presentation to

910
01:21:58,700 --> 01:22:03,380
them how to do it or for many of them remind them how to do it. Just a little

911
01:22:03,380 --> 01:22:07,980
refresher and then they go back to the lab and run some mock samples in the lab

912
01:22:08,660 --> 01:22:14,640
there. And then also to check for precision, collection, accuracy and analytical

913
01:22:14,640 --> 01:22:20,840
accuracy. We do duplicate samples and assessments for all elements. But we've

914
01:22:20,840 --> 01:22:25,960
also re-added field blank samples in Rinset Blanc samples.

915
01:22:26,800 --> 01:22:31,800
So, the duplicate that tests both laboratories, precision, and a sample is precision,

916
01:22:32,380 --> 01:22:37,200
but having the field blanks that allows us to see if there's any cross-cutation in a contamination

917
01:22:37,200 --> 01:22:41,780
when you are dropping it off at the lab, if the lab has anything wrong with the equipment,

918
01:22:42,620 --> 01:22:48,120
which typically onto that thing, but it's still nice to know it's just extra validation

919
01:22:48,120 --> 01:22:52,860
for the results and then rinse blank samples, that's just down to make sure there's nothing

920
01:22:52,860 --> 01:22:57,280
dirty with the field equipment that you use from side to side. You don't have to do that

921
01:22:57,280 --> 01:23:02,360
with a bottle because you fill it up, drop it off the lab once, but something like a chlorine kit

922
01:23:02,360 --> 01:23:09,040
or something like a filter kit where we filter a dissolved phosphorus. We want to make sure that

923
01:23:09,040 --> 01:23:13,920
the decontamination is at end of the day that we do when we get back to the office is not affecting

924
01:23:13,920 --> 01:23:20,380
the side samples. And then also one thing we've added on we kind of beefed up our equipment

925
01:23:20,380 --> 01:23:25,040
calibration where it's like chronicness that there's something wrong with the meter when

926
01:23:25,040 --> 01:23:30,980
you're putting the results in or the solution is outdated or expired it will let you know immediately

927
01:23:30,980 --> 01:23:35,500
as opposed to if you get back and you're looking through the sheet at any of the day you

928
01:23:35,500 --> 01:23:39,180
realize there's something wrong with your meter and all those results just have to get thrown out of

929
01:23:39,180 --> 01:23:47,260
point. So just extra validation, extra QAQC, and then field audits we've added to where once a year

930
01:23:47,260 --> 01:23:53,140
we have to go out and kind of just supervise the sampling, the processes, seeing how that's been

931
01:23:53,140 --> 01:23:59,860
done and make sure that it's all good and then offer correction when necessary. Because at the end of the

932
01:23:59,860 --> 01:24:06,540
day we just want this data to be used, not sit on a shelf, but to be implemented in either its

933
01:24:06,540 --> 01:24:16,160
KDAOs call for data or for watershed programs or whatever may be. We want this data to be used and it needs to be good data.

934
01:24:17,540 --> 01:24:27,520
And so right now monitoring status, the first three quarters have been done by volunteers and the results for the first and second process, the third is currently being processed.

935
01:24:27,520 --> 01:24:35,380
The first and second quarter major wet weather sampling has been completed and then 33 of the annual wet weather

936
01:24:35,380 --> 01:24:40,580
sides have been sampled and that will spend that June 4 event where we dropped off 33 wet weather

937
01:24:40,580 --> 01:24:49,260
samples at the lab and I believe it was 4.5 inches of rain in six hours so it was a pretty wet wet weather

938
01:24:52,260 --> 01:24:59,980
macronverate sampling, habitat assessments, all high water sides have been sampled and assessed and all

939
01:25:00,000 --> 01:25:12,160
And by the end of the day, we have our crews out there wrapping up the last wave of sites right now. Same with fish sampling, all had water sites been sampling and they're by the end of September, the wave of sites will be complete.

940
01:25:13,840 --> 01:25:23,200
And the GM traffic assessment, all field work has been accomplished. You can kind of see there in the pictures some of the stream sites would go to, to assess if there's any bank erosion.

941
01:25:23,200 --> 01:25:34,240
Some sites are pretty easy to tell, but also we've picked sites that are in prior restoration or prior green infrastructure so we're not just looking at the bad sites.

942
01:25:34,240 --> 01:25:38,280
We wanted to have a wide range of data that we can compare.

943
01:25:38,880 --> 01:25:44,820
You know if these green infrastructure practices are working, if it is maintenance, but also sediment contribution.

944
01:25:45,540 --> 01:25:49,060
It's very important to know what your contributing to the watershed.

945
01:25:49,060 --> 01:25:55,500
And so with the Geomorphic Assessment, all the monitoring monuments have been established

946
01:25:55,500 --> 01:26:01,500
where we can come back and check the dimensions of the stream from near to year, and then

947
01:26:01,500 --> 01:26:05,320
bank erosion hazard index, that's what we were doing in these photos here.

948
01:26:06,160 --> 01:26:12,480
And then soon the sediment modeling will begin shortly, and I will be in charge of taking care

949
01:26:12,480 --> 01:26:13,160
of that.

950
01:26:14,640 --> 01:26:20,820
So, with that really brief, really fast, but if there are any questions, I'll open up the

951
01:26:20,820 --> 01:26:21,240
portal.

952
01:26:26,250 --> 01:26:26,590
Yes, Ken?

953
01:27:01,320 --> 01:27:02,520
Yes, so that's very right.

954
01:27:02,600 --> 01:27:06,780
And then to your first point, this program is pretty incredible.

955
01:27:07,080 --> 01:27:11,800
Just talking to people at conferences, I actually just got back from a national stream restoration

956
01:27:11,800 --> 01:27:17,140
conference, and they were pretty impressed at the level of volunteer inclusion with

957
01:27:17,140 --> 01:27:17,800
this program.

958
01:27:17,800 --> 01:27:28,180
And then also with just some of the elements that Lexington has added to the program, it's something that they're pretty excited to hear about and will probably be following up on.

959
01:27:28,340 --> 01:27:36,100
As for the reporting, typically at this time each year, we would be giving the results from the previous watershed folks monitoring program.

960
01:27:36,100 --> 01:27:49,380
But where we just transitioned into this MS4 wide program that we're only halfway through the year on the sampling, we don't have those results yet, but it will be an annual report at the end of the year, and I will be presenting on it at an SSAC meeting.

961
01:27:51,520 --> 01:27:52,560
So, yes.

962
01:28:15,620 --> 01:28:17,300
We did that in March.

963
01:28:17,500 --> 01:28:24,140
Like we talked about what we were doing, and so we just finished our first year of the IDSF program this summer.

964
01:28:24,140 --> 01:28:32,260
So we'll wait until that data is finished being compiled, and then we'll have results on it.

965
01:28:38,500 --> 01:28:39,120
Thanks, Bailey.

966
01:28:41,000 --> 01:28:50,880
There's so much cross-pollination between volunteer groups, between watershed, watershed, and this water quality monitoring program, and not just people, but also simple sites.

967
01:28:51,400 --> 01:28:51,560
Right.

968
01:28:52,400 --> 01:28:53,220
Yeah, you have.

969
01:28:54,640 --> 01:29:01,280
Yeah, so Lexington is extremely fortunate to have much better capacity than most communities

970
01:29:01,280 --> 01:29:03,020
that we work with throughout the state.

971
01:29:03,460 --> 01:29:09,840
So, in Lexington, Watershed Watch is just recruiting volunteers and communicating with volunteers

972
01:29:09,840 --> 01:29:11,560
to coordinate their efforts.

973
01:29:12,020 --> 01:29:18,500
And then once we have the group together for who's willing to sample on which dates, we pass

974
01:29:18,500 --> 01:29:23,200
that list off to Bailey and then she coordinates to put them together in teams and get

975
01:29:23,200 --> 01:29:25,640
and with third rock, for example, yeah.

976
01:29:26,040 --> 01:29:28,780
And third rock is providing much higher-level training

977
01:29:28,780 --> 01:29:30,140
to those volunteers.

978
01:29:30,880 --> 01:29:33,300
So there's a lot of, yes, there's definite cross-pollination,

979
01:29:33,480 --> 01:29:35,100
but the volunteers are retrained

980
01:29:35,100 --> 01:29:38,820
with additional more technical methods

981
01:29:38,820 --> 01:29:41,180
using different equipment than what we're

982
01:29:41,180 --> 01:29:43,000
able to provide to volunteer statewide.

983
01:29:47,650 --> 01:29:48,570
Any other questions?

984
01:29:52,260 --> 01:29:55,100
The habitat in biological assessments

985
01:29:55,100 --> 01:29:59,600
you are done theoretically by watershed watch.

986
01:30:00,000 --> 01:30:06,000
What has been a challenge to get people confident enough to go out and do those assessments on their own?

987
01:30:06,320 --> 01:30:19,620
Would Third Rock think about doing some sort of mentoring where volunteers could go out for the Third Rock and work with them to gain more experience in doing those assessments?

988
01:30:20,940 --> 01:30:28,600
Yeah, that's something we'd totally be able to do. I will mention for this program when we go out and do the habitat assessment and the macro and the fish.

989
01:30:29,200 --> 01:30:32,680
with watershed watch, which bluegrass community

990
01:30:32,680 --> 01:30:35,240
will apologize to you to have a program

991
01:30:35,240 --> 01:30:36,720
where they would take their students out.

992
01:30:36,900 --> 01:30:38,560
I think that is still an act of class

993
01:30:38,560 --> 01:30:41,740
to where they do some stringboard work characterization

994
01:30:41,740 --> 01:30:42,880
and some habitat.

995
01:30:43,820 --> 01:30:47,620
So there are avenues for that, but for this program,

996
01:30:47,760 --> 01:30:50,880
we actually have a taxonomous two IDs.

997
01:30:51,320 --> 01:30:53,620
So it's not just like a field check.

998
01:30:54,000 --> 01:30:56,300
They'll take it back to our lab and look

999
01:30:56,300 --> 01:31:00,820
it under a microscope and ID it down the gene. So it is it's a little bit more

1000
01:31:01,300 --> 01:31:05,060
involved. But yeah, that's something we totally be open to do.

1001
01:31:11,020 --> 01:31:12,000
Anything else?

1002
01:31:13,580 --> 01:31:14,560
All right. Thank you for your time.

1003
01:31:22,550 --> 01:31:28,470
All right. So next on our agenda are approval of the meeting dates for 2027. So you

1004
01:31:28,470 --> 01:31:33,890
should have them on the agenda. March 5th June 4th September 3rd and December 10th.

1005
01:31:33,990 --> 01:31:37,770
Does anybody have any of the way I'd like to make a motion to approve those?

1006
01:31:37,770 --> 01:31:39,010
Second,

1007
01:31:41,820 --> 01:31:50,300
who was that? Great. And then any discussion? I mean, changes, updates. Okay. All in favor? Any opposed?

1008
01:31:50,700 --> 01:31:57,960
Okay. All right. Now we have one potential topic third and new meeting as in the next year. What about other topics?

1009
01:32:01,560 --> 01:32:09,200
Here's about, if the city doesn't need post-mortem after flooding events that don't typically flood.

1010
01:32:09,200 --> 01:32:17,640
Um, I'm thinking, um, Richmond Road flooded after a big rain event, and that's like at the top of the town branch watershed, I had no idea could even flood.

1011
01:32:18,680 --> 01:32:24,340
Um, I'm at things in, um, mittens had water intrusion from a rain event, and so I'm just curious.

1012
01:32:24,740 --> 01:32:31,820
I mean, I'm sure the city has known flooding problem areas, but one of the area flood that doesn't usually like, what does that look like for the city?

1013
01:32:33,900 --> 01:32:36,840
Bailey is taking notes, so I think that's a great idea. It's in, timely.

1014
01:33:01,580 --> 01:33:04,720
That was a no for the record.

1015
01:33:15,270 --> 01:33:19,450
With the mention of the schools that Jordan did earlier, I thought it might be interesting

1016
01:33:19,450 --> 01:33:23,950
to have to see or somebody from the schools, I know Russ is what maybe it's Russ, I don't

1017
01:33:23,950 --> 01:33:26,990
know, but somebody talked about all of the tree paintings and stuff that they're doing there

1018
01:33:26,990 --> 01:33:28,230
for some water

1019
01:33:31,590 --> 01:33:32,570
in the hills.

1020
01:33:34,370 --> 01:33:35,930
All right, next are announcements.

1021
01:33:36,790 --> 01:33:37,590
Do you have a slide?

1022
01:33:41,080 --> 01:33:42,800
Oh, God. I'm sorry.

1023
01:33:44,840 --> 01:33:48,920
I'm so sorry. Okay. It's almost, I'm out after this.

1024
01:33:51,380 --> 01:33:52,140
I don't know

1025
01:33:52,140 --> 01:33:57,660
that I want to read these. You all can read them. I am going to point out that on September

1026
01:33:57,660 --> 01:34:01,440
19 along with the mulch giveaway is recesses. I'll have them back.

1027
01:34:01,780 --> 01:34:06,140
We have recesses green fest event where we have this as a sustainable living festival.

1028
01:34:06,140 --> 01:34:12,520
we have sustainable vendors, we have beekeeping, sourdough workshops, composting,

1029
01:34:12,620 --> 01:34:17,120
how to compost and green cleaning, how to make green cleaners. We also have guided hikes on

1030
01:34:17,120 --> 01:34:24,540
on birds and foraging. We have music, beer, gasoline key. Anyway, super fun, the event.

1031
01:34:25,080 --> 01:34:32,200
Anyway, does anybody want to talk about any of the other events that are listed on here or

1032
01:34:35,050 --> 01:34:36,170
the

1033
01:34:36,170 --> 01:34:39,370
showed up in my email that hell been to festival.

1034
01:34:39,970 --> 01:34:42,730
It's September 5th to 12th.

1035
01:34:42,830 --> 01:34:46,090
Maybe someone knows more about it to tell us.

1036
01:34:48,340 --> 01:34:50,940
As I understand it, direction to this.

1037
01:34:51,120 --> 01:34:52,180
It is already on.

1038
01:34:52,960 --> 01:34:55,680
September 5th, there is an event at Burnsboro,

1039
01:34:56,000 --> 01:34:57,300
there are events during the week,

1040
01:34:58,260 --> 01:34:59,960
and Parks and Recreation is sponsoring the festival.

1041
01:35:00,000 --> 01:35:09,280
The Special Counselor, Calis Landing, on the 12th with some paddling races in the morning and the table from 12 to 3 and

1042
01:35:09,280 --> 01:35:12,680
kayakrim on stuff, and it is on the parks and yet.

1043
01:35:13,720 --> 01:35:15,540
And what are the ways legs for be there?

1044
01:35:16,960 --> 01:35:26,260
And I can add a KY Riverkeeper.org, it's where you can get more information.

1045
01:35:26,720 --> 01:35:30,540
That's KY Riverkeeper.org.

1046
01:35:31,460 --> 01:35:31,820
Great.

1047
01:35:34,390 --> 01:35:34,730
Jennifer?

1048
01:35:54,080 --> 01:35:54,800
Now, hello.

1049
01:35:55,740 --> 01:35:57,880
You can probably hear me without this anyway.

1050
01:35:58,520 --> 01:36:05,300
I just wanted to do an extra push for going to visit the Art by Neatur Gallery.

1051
01:36:05,300 --> 01:36:13,260
you when it's out or when it's open, our inspirations, this year are mostly environmental or water

1052
01:36:13,260 --> 01:36:20,240
quality incentive grant projects and just kind of encouraging people to do art those sites to

1053
01:36:20,240 --> 01:36:27,340
show that water quality infrastructure can be useful and also beautiful. So I really encourage everybody

1054
01:36:27,340 --> 01:36:35,280
to visit the gallery when it's open. It'll be open October through mid December. So at

1055
01:36:35,280 --> 01:36:39,080
So it's a cool water quality, really, there aren't things here.

1056
01:36:39,320 --> 01:36:40,860
That's a...

1057
01:36:40,860 --> 01:36:45,360
Is the call for submissions to open for those artworks?

1058
01:36:45,500 --> 01:36:45,840
Yes.

1059
01:36:47,240 --> 01:36:49,700
The submissions are open and fill.

1060
01:36:50,380 --> 01:36:53,640
I want to say a week from Sunday.

1061
01:36:53,800 --> 01:36:55,300
You have about a week and a half.

1062
01:37:00,470 --> 01:37:01,450
Anybody else?

1063
01:37:01,790 --> 01:37:02,210
How anything?

1064
01:37:02,830 --> 01:37:03,070
See.

1065
01:37:03,810 --> 01:37:08,170
Yes, I'd like to announce that we're still taking late registrations

1066
01:37:08,170 --> 01:37:10,930
for annual water research symposium.

1067
01:37:11,150 --> 01:37:19,330
It'll be at the Central Bank Center on September the 18th.

1068
01:37:19,470 --> 01:37:24,190
So if you can join us for that, it's a great all day event on water research.

1069
01:37:25,210 --> 01:37:30,770
And also I'd like to announce that we now have a new basin coordinator for the Kentucky River

1070
01:37:30,770 --> 01:37:31,270
Basin.

1071
01:37:31,470 --> 01:37:33,730
So we have Nathan Weber this year,

1072
01:37:35,800 --> 01:37:39,100
so to be around for a little bit afterwards if you want

1073
01:37:39,100 --> 01:37:43,280
We need to discuss project ideas that we may be able to Swiss, though.

1074
01:37:43,560 --> 01:37:43,880
Thank you.

1075
01:37:44,080 --> 01:37:46,740
Perhaps that's a future topic, also.

1076
01:37:47,800 --> 01:37:48,400
Maybe not December.

1077
01:37:48,620 --> 01:37:50,120
We'll let you get a little bit more on your feet.

1078
01:37:53,250 --> 01:37:53,950
Get used to that.

1079
01:37:54,230 --> 01:37:54,530
Thanks, Steve.

1080
01:37:55,010 --> 01:37:55,810
My name is Nathan.

1081
01:37:56,470 --> 01:37:57,370
Glad to be here.

1082
01:37:58,610 --> 01:38:00,710
It's going to be good to work with everyone here.

1083
01:38:01,450 --> 01:38:03,290
And throughout the Kentucky River Basin.

1084
01:38:04,210 --> 01:38:09,350
Just announced that the Kentucky River Authority grant applications open right now.

1085
01:38:09,350 --> 01:38:15,230
So, we're going to send out a newsletter and mass emails based and wide.

1086
01:38:16,410 --> 01:38:19,210
Applications are due December 4th, I believe.

1087
01:38:20,350 --> 01:38:23,930
Our application process is right now on the KWRI website.

1088
01:38:24,850 --> 01:38:28,010
More information will come with the newsletter hopefully next week.

1089
01:38:29,550 --> 01:38:34,470
And those projects include any non-profits or liberal governments

1090
01:38:35,310 --> 01:38:38,270
with water quality improvement projects, outreach and education,

1091
01:38:38,690 --> 01:38:41,710
programmatic agendas, things like that.

1092
01:38:42,490 --> 01:38:48,150
In the ceiling for each grant award is $5,000, I believe.

1093
01:38:50,210 --> 01:38:52,430
So meet with me today.

1094
01:38:53,030 --> 01:38:54,170
I'll stick around a little bit longer.

1095
01:38:55,150 --> 01:38:56,230
Or email me.

1096
01:38:57,590 --> 01:39:01,070
It's just Nathan.webber at UKY.edu.

1097
01:39:01,070 --> 01:39:11,510
But just one B, thanks for asking, that's a very common, so yeah, and then I'm in the KWRI office,

1098
01:39:11,850 --> 01:39:17,170
there at the campus and I'm building, and looking forward next week to be held in

1099
01:39:17,170 --> 01:39:26,130
a festival, working with Russ, and then the preserve manager. So yeah, thanks guys, and I look forward

1100
01:39:26,130 --> 01:39:27,110
to being old.

1101
01:39:29,360 --> 01:39:30,880
Congratulations, thank you.

1102
01:39:33,870 --> 01:39:34,270
Anything else?

1103
01:39:35,070 --> 01:39:38,410
Alright, we've got 20 minutes to go, so we're going to sit here the whole time.

1104
01:39:39,890 --> 01:39:42,530
Thank you all, and we'll see you in December 12, take 11.