Announcement 1

From: Leonard C. Ferrington Jr., Ph.D. [mailto:ferri016@tc.umn.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2007 3:11 PM
To: Volunteer Monitoring List Serve Members
Subject: New On-line resource for Citizen Volunteer Monitoring Programs.

I would like to take this opportunity to tell you about a new on-line resource for Citizen Volunteer Monitoring Programs, and to ask for your assistance in helping us notify and advertise it to appropriate groups that may be involved in water quality monitoring efforts throughout the United States.

A couple of years ago we published a spiral bound identification guide to help Citizen Volunteers perform accurate identifications of invertebrates collected as part of their volunteer water quality monitoring efforts. To date more than 2000 copies have been disseminated, and many additional
copies have been downloaded from our on-line access site. This manual has been an astonishing success, and has facilitated improved accuracy of identifications by citizens who volunteer their personal time to help our collective efforts to improve water resources in our state. Information
about the manual can be located on-line at:

http://www.entomology.umn.edu/midge/GuidePage.htm

Recently, we developed an Interactive Verification Program to complement the spiral bound manual, and allow citizens to check the accuracy of their own identifications. We refer to the software as VSM-IVP, and it can be accessed at: http://www.entomology.umn.edu/midge/VSMIVP.htm

I would like to request that you help us in advertising this on-line VSM-IVP resource by telling your constituents about it. The software went on-line in early December and several states are evaluating it for use in their respective citizen volunteer programs. For instance, West Virginia has already provided links to our software on their official state web pages for water quality programs, and towns in Maryland have asked us for permission to endorse it as part of their local programs. Although the software was
originally designed for use in Minnesota, we are very excited about this early trend in national use of our software, and hope that you will assist us in notifying other potential user groups.

Sincerely,

Leonard Ferrington

Leonard C. Ferrington Jr., Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Entomology
University of Minnesota
219 Hodson Hall, 1980 Folwell Avenue
Saint Paul, Minnesota USA 55108-6125
TELEPHONE: (612) 624-3265
FAX: (612) 625-5299

Visit our web page at: http://www.entomology.umn.edu/midge/index.htm

Announcement 2

Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 08:06:55 -0500
From: Tim Craddock <TCRADDOCK@wvdep.org>
Subject: [CSREESVolMon] New aquatic invertebrate field guide on the WV Save Our
Streams web page

New on the WV Save Our Streams web page is a "Field Guide to Aquatic Invertebrates". This PDF file uses illustrations and Internet links to familiarize the user with commonly encountered families of aquatic invertebrates. The illustrations are from the "Guide to Macroinvertebrates of the Upper Midwest" and are used with permission from the University of Minnesota.

Timothy Craddock, Citizens Monitoring Coordinator
West Virginia Save Our Streams Program
601 57th Street, SE
Charleston, WV 25304

Office: 304-926-0499 (1040)
Mobile: 304-389-7630
E-mail: tcraddock@wvdep.org
Web Page: http://www.wvdep.org/dwwm/wvsos

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