Catherine Wang ’23 is one of 26 student fellows who completed research with a community-based organization in upstate New York this summer as a part of the Upstate Institute Summer Field School.
In our harsh reality, where environmental degradation poses one of the largest threats to humanity, it is hard to fathom how to even begin addressing these issues. This summer, while working with the Ausable River Association (AsRA) in Wilmington, N.Y., however, I was able to partake in an organization that understood the importance of starting outreach and implementing a hands-on approach on a local scale when working toward environmental conservation.
AsRA is a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping the local community protect the streams and lakes in the Ausable watershed. The Ausable watershed is composed of the Ausable River, numerous lakes, and more than 70 tributary streams, and it is home to an array of diverse organisms and a heavily frequented location for human recreation. Providing services for plants, animals, and humans alike, it is crucial that its waters are protected to ensure it can continue to support the livelihoods that rely on its health. Consequently, AsRA is committed to an array of different projects that work toward alleviating the issues that threaten the watershed. This includes monitoring the quality of the water year-round, conducting angler surveys to prevent the spread of invasive species, hosting riverwide clean-up events, restoring streams and replacing coverts, and assessing brook trout and salmon populations. A heavy emphasis is placed on field-based science and community stewardship to attain practical solutions for these challenges.
AsRA may be a small organization, but its impact on the region is by no means minimal. While I was there this summer, I came to understand how influential the organization is, especially in a community that holds immense value in the integrity of its environment. To complete its work, AsRA has partnered with a multitude of organizations that supplement and bolster its objectives. Much of the scientific work that AsRA takes on is funded by grants from organizations like the Lake Champlain Basin Program, which trusts AsRA to carry out meaningful research projects to learn more about the organisms in the area and form a better understanding of the threats to which the different bodies of water are subject. Other large projects are done in tandem with partners ranging from institutes such as the Adirondack Watershed Institute to government agencies such as the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Furthermore, many stewardship events that the organization hosts are often sponsored by local businesses and organizations that are both glad and eager to help support AsRA’s cause.
My work this summer reflected just how involved the organization is in this region as I was able to take part in a number of AsRA’s projects. In addition to field days spent wading in rivers and streams to collect environmental DNA to detect the presence of salmon and brook trout and conducting fish surveys via electro-fishing, I spent days interviewing anglers and informing them on invasive species–prevention methods — a means for public outreach — while tabling at farmers markets and filling in whenever a different project needed a helping hand.
The vast majority of my work, however, focused on water-quality monitoring, in which I helped collect data for 12 lakes and 30 streams in the watershed. For lakes, this entailed paddling out to the deepest point of the lake each month to take both a surface and/or a bottom sample, which would then be analyzed in a lab to look at various nutrient and mineral concentrations, filtering the water to look at chlorophyll levels in the body of water, and using a YSI ProDSS device to record water parameters such as temperature, dissolved oxygen, pH, and specific conductivity. For streams, the YSI was used to measure the same parameters mentioned above and completed on a biweekly basis. The data collected was compiled into a database that contains data from as far back as 2015. This data will be used to analyze long-term trends in the region and to assist stakeholders in making informed decisions regarding the state of the watershed. Considering the current and imminent threats looming in the future, it is essential to document baseline data that could help quickly identify areas of concern.
As an environmental studies major, I found this experience incredibly rewarding. Not only was I able to contribute to longstanding research and databases, but I was also able to interact with and communicate messages of conservation to the public. I found the latter to be not only enjoyable but also imperative in the field of environmentalism, as enabling people to better understand an issue and how it might impact them often results in increased concern for the issue. Moreover, given that, in my studies on campus, I usually only read papers to learn more about a subject, it was refreshing to be able to work in the field and see firsthand the problems that papers could only describe in words: the unusually warm surface temperatures, the specific conductivity levels that were often above pristine.
I was thankful for the opportunity to be included in and observe the ins-and-outs of how a nonprofit organization functioned. In addition, by joining projects with government agencies or other environmentally based organizations, I was also given insight into the tasks and roles that different stakeholders hold, as well as what political obstacles each may face when trying to implement science-based solutions to environmental issues. Working as an Upstate Field School Fellow truly allowed me to immerse myself in the community in which I was based and to understand people’s relationships to the issues at hand as well as how different organizations addressed them. Having seen the multifaceted nature of community environmental work, I hope to continue to advance my knowledge and comprehension of environmental issues while using this summer’s experience to contribute to the solutions wherever I am able.