The City has participated in this partnership with the Metropolitan Council since 2002 to complete lake water quality monitoring of Lake O’Dowd. The Metropolitan Council and City staff will provide instruction and oversight to the volunteers.

The Citizen Assisted Monitoring Program involves the use of citizen volunteers to collect in-lake samples from approximately 185 plus lakes in the Twin Cities Metropolitan Area. The volunteers will collect surface water samples to be analyzed for total phosphorous (TP), total Kjeldahl nitrogen (TKN), and chlorophyll-a (CLA). In addition, the volunteers will measure surface water temperature, water transparency, and fill out a lake sampling form to help describe the lake and weather conditions at the time of sampling. Lakes are scheduled to be visited bi-weekly for a period determined by the Metropolitan Council and weather conditions.

The Boyce family, who have been our volunteers for the past seventeen years "retired" at the end of the sampling season last year and we thank them for their years of dedicated service. We are excited to have a new volunteer, Maxine Hughes, who will begin collecting lake samples in 2020. Due to the stay-at-home order, there is no collection of samples and no delivery of sampling equipment until that order has been lifted.

The cost associated with participating in the program in 2020 is $760. The Metropolitan Council charges the City for the analysis of the samples collected by the volunteers. The City does receive a final report from the Metropolitan Council for all lakes monitored as part of the program that is available for review.