General News
17 April, 2023
Jeparit group acknowledged for 30 years of Watching
EstuaryWatch and WaterWatch Victoria have celebrated 30 years of their Waterway Citizen Science program, acknowledging the work of their 1956 volunteers across the state’s 650 actively-monitored sites. Last week’s ceremony at St Anne’s Winery...
EstuaryWatch and WaterWatch Victoria have celebrated 30 years of their Waterway Citizen Science program, acknowledging the work of their 1956 volunteers across the state’s 650 actively-monitored sites.
Last week’s ceremony at St Anne’s Winery at Ravenswood, near Bendigo on Dja Dja Warrung country, included Outstanding Service Awards for contribution to Victoria’s Waterway and Catchment Health Program.
Jeparit WaterWatch monitor and former-facilitator Jeanie Clarke said every region of Victoria still had at least one long-running WaterWatch group.
Ms Clarke has been involved with the Jeparit WaterWatch group since 1995, when she aided foundation members Alan McKenzie and David Livingstone in establishing the group.
“In the Wimmera, the only remaining group is Jeparit WaterWatch, which began in May 1993 and has been monitoring the Wimmera River monthly since then,” she said.
“I wonder how many readers would remember the WaterWatch program in the Wimmera?”
Ms Clarke said Waterwatch began in the Wimmera region in 1993 and ran until state and federal funding ceased in 2009.
“We built up to a team of four facilitators and over a hundred citizen scientists, and we have had most of the schools involved in some way - monitoring and learning about local water quality in their environment, be it on nearby streams, lakes, swamps, or farm dams, bores, channels, or raintanks,” she said.
“Those who started in the 1990’s experienced and collected data for some flood flows, which were more frequent then, and all monitoring in the 2000’s captured data of the devastating Millenium Drought’s effects.”
WaterWatch expanded to include EstuaryWatch in 2006, and River Detectives in 2017.
Ms Clarke is the local facilitator for the Wimmera River Detectives, which provides training and support for teachers in monitoring local water environments, and loans monitoring equipment to seven local schools.
Ms Clarke, having been a monitor for more than 20 years, was well qualified to share some highlights at the ceremony, including photos of its key members over time, and to accept an award on behalf of the group.
“When you are doing the monitoring you don’t tend to think about how important it might be in the future to see how things have changed - or not,” she said.
“We are fortunate that, as well as the Jeparit data monthly since 1995, Wimmera WaterWatchers collected data from many other sites from 1995-2009, and that data has now been around long enough for River Detectives schools to be referred to it.”