MST in Two Southern Maine Watersheds
home - vol updates index

August 23, 2002

Dear Volunteer,

We are approaching the end of our first year of our two-year project. So far, the project has been a big success, in large part thanks to your generous volunteering. Thank you again for contributing your time and energy. This research conducted here in southern Maine is part of progress on a nationwide scale toward deciphering and solving bacterial pollution. Every month, Fred and I see more interest and information out there on Microbial Source Tracking research around the country.

As you know, we haven't gotten much rain this summer. As a result, we haven't conducted as many sample days as we expected to. We would like to meet our original goal of twenty sample dates by the end of September. We've scheduled enough sample days to meet our goal. (If it rains, we'll sample immediately and cancel a pre-scheduled sample day.) We would especially like help sampling on Wednesday, September 4. Here are all the dates:

Wednesday, September 4 (after 10 am)
Thursday, September 12 (after 9 am)
Tuesday, September 17 (after 9 am)
Thursday, September 26 (after 11 am)

We realize this is a lot of sampling over a short period of time. Even if you can volunteer only on one or two of these dates, your help would still be very welcome. Instead of precipitation vs. non-precipitation, we will use these samples to measure the difference between incoming and outgoing tides. Please call or write to let us know if you can help. Enjoy the cool weather. Hope to see you soon.

Cayce Dalton
AmeriCorps/Maine Conservation Corps
Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve
342 Laudholm Farm Rd, Wells ME 04090
207-646-1555, x103
CICEET funded Microbial Source Tracking Project
Partners: UM Sea Grant - UNH/JEL - USM Muskie School