This summer you can pull on your rubber boots, grab your pH meter, dunk your macroinvertebrate (bugs) net, and wade into your local waterway.
If you're at least 14, you can join your neighbors and volunteer to romp through your local streams and collect data to monitor the water quality of Westchester.
The Citizens' Volunteer Monitoring Program (CVMP), administered by the county Department of Planning, is part of the county's comprehensive water quality protection effort. One goal of the stream monitoring program is to connect communities with their water resources by hands-on involvement and education.
The volunteer monitor program began seven years ago, and, for some, the friendships formed over the years are the best part of participating. For a number of citizen volunteers, sloshing through streams and collecting samples for testing inspired their first steps on the career path to environmental science.
Last year, a father brought his daughter along, hoping she would learn first-hand how mathematics is applied to the real world during the water quality data compiling project. 
They were among the more than 100 people who last year tested the water of local streams and compiled the physical, chemical and biological data to compare the health of the county's water to the quality standards established by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.
The county is currently seeking volunteers for its 2010 season. Come to a training session on any one of these three Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.: April 24 at the Teatown Lake Reservation in Ossining, May 1 at the Rye Nature Center or May 8 at the Ward Pound Ridge Reservation in Cross River.
Volunteers must be at least 14 years old to participate. Novices are welcome. To enroll in one of the training sessions, contact Susan Darling at (914) 995-6535 or e-mail
In the morning volunteers learn about water chemistry and the equipment used in stream monitoring. In the afternoon they practice collecting, analyzing and recording water quality data and learn to identify water critters such as crayfish or mayflies. Volunteers, if they choose, can also be trained on entering data into the online water quality database.
After the day of training, graduates team up, receive monitoring equipment and are assigned a local site or two to monitor throughout the summer. Team roles such as Web site reporter, team scheduler and equipment keeper are assigned.
During the summer, streams in the six major drainage basins in Westchester County – the Bronx River, Croton River, Upper and Lower Hudson River Basins and the Upper and Lower Long Island Sound Basins – are measured. These basins are noteworthy because of the degree of impact they have on both the area's natural resources and the number of people affected.
The data collected is available to the public through an interactive Web site.