WATER QUALITY

FORR Water Quality Report

Royal River Conservation Trust’s water quality work is rooted in the work of the Friends of the Royal River (FORR), one of our predecessor organizations. For eight years in the 1990s, dedicated volunteers designed and implemented a water quality-monitoring program for the Royal River. They carefully sampled stream water and recorded data from dozens of locations around the watershed. The compilation of their outstanding work revealed a river system that had good water quality, generally, but also exposed some problems of excessive turbidity and high bacterial counts in specific tributaries.

The Friends of the Royal River also advocated for the river as state and federal government officials decided the fate of the region’s notorious McKin Superfund Site in Gray. FORR’s role helped to ensure EPA cleaned up the site and that the river is tested annually.

Today, RRCT focuses on preventing non point source pollution from reaching our streams by collaborating with area municipalities on specific projects. In 2005, we completed a watershed survey of Moose Brook in Auburn to determine threats and improvements to this headwater stream. For the past three summers, RRCT has run the Royal River Youth Conservation Corps. For eight weeks during the summer, we employ areas high school students to reduce harmful runoff from reaching our streams and lakes and improve riparian conditions throughout the Royal River region.

As resources permit, RRCT will continue to finds ways of improving the region’s water quality through direct action by our Youth Conservation Corps or by working with area municipalities to maintain healthy, functioning buffers along our lakes, streams and wetlands.