ST. MARY’S CITY, Md. – Norm and Shelly O’Foran are volunteers for the Friends of St. Clements Bay (FSCB) water quality monitoring program. Every other week, Norm, Shelly, and other volunteers travel to the streams and the bays of Breton Bay in kayaks to take water quality measurements and collect water samples for lab analysis.
This process is time consuming. Remote water quality monitoring devices are very expensive, but Norm and Shelly are working on a better way.
Norm began the complicated process of designing his own water quality monitors. He’s used open-source technology and individual water quality sensors to make buoys that can measure water temperature, pH, conductivity, salinity, total dissolved solids, and dissolved oxygen. These sensors transmit the data to the internet using cellular.
Norm, Shelly (a retired teacher), and FSCB have been working with the Forrest Tech Center Natural Resource Management class to assemble and troubleshoot seven buoys for Breton Bay. When St. Mary’s River Watershed Association learned about this project, we decided to start a similar project in the St. Mary’s River.
Norm, Shelly, and SMRWA applied for the Oyster Innovation Grant from Chesapeake Bay Trust and received $10,000 to add five water quality monitoring buoys to the St. Mary’s River Oyster Sanctuary. We are planning to use the data collected from these buoys to improve oyster restoration success.
Join us for our annual member’s meeting where we’ll hold nominations and elections for SMRWA’s board of directors. This event is free and open to the public. If you’d like to become a member, please click here.
10:00 a.m. Saturday, March 18, 2023
Ruddy Duck Seafood & Alehouse—St. George Island
Light Refreshments Served
Olivia Caretti (SMCM ’14) will discuss her work at the Oyster Recovery Partnership (ORP). ORP is leading oyster restoration efforts in the Chesapeake Bay.
In 2022, ORP and their partners completed phase one restoration on 25 acres of sanctuary reefs in the St. Mary’s River, Maryland’s fourth restoration tributary under the 2014 Chesapeake Bay Agreement.
Olivia will provide an overview of this accomplishment and discuss other ongoing work and opportunities for collaboration focused on the St. Mary’s River.