Water Quality Monitoring

Volunteers of all ages can be river stewards! Print out this schedule of events and keep it handy for upcoming water quality monitoring opportunities.

Volunteers Needed!

Water quality monitoring teams are forming now. People of all ages are encouraged to participate. Young people under 18 are welcome and require adult supervision. Each team must commit to monitoring their assigned site four scheduled times per year.

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About the Project

Since 2004, the Upper Merced River Watershed Council has conducted water quality monitoring along the Merced River with teams of community volunteers. 

After a break due to the pandemic, we've relaunched our water quality monitoring program and seeking interested community members to volunteer quarterly to collect data along four sites west of the Yosemite boundary: the Sand Pit (above the NPS maintenance complex in El Portal), the South Fork confluence at the Hite Cove trailhead, Briceburg, and Railroad Flat.

Data is collected on the following:

• Air + water temperature 

• pH

• Total dissolved solids

• Dissolved oxygen 

• Turbidity 

• Photo point survey of general conditions

• COMING SOON: Nitrates/nitrites and macroinvertebrates

Each team is given a monitoring kit along with detailed written instructions outlining protocols to be followed consistently at each site and with each monitoring session.  Documentation is collected on data sheets and the results are reported annually to the National Park Service and a national database.

Kits are dropped off on Friday and teams can pick anytime during the weekend to do their monitoring.

The 2026 calendar of quarterly monitoring weekends is noted above. On the Saturday of each monitoring weekend, we host a riverside TRAINING DAY for folks interested in joining one of our monitoring teams. The next training days are from 10am-noon at Briceburg:

• February 14

• May 16

• August 15

• November 14

This program is made possible thanks to a River Network Wild & Scenic Rivers Partnership grant and a Bureau of Reclamation WaterSMART Cooperative Watershed Management grant.