Resource Center: Materials for Loan

Water Sampling Loaner Kits
Kits are available for loan to anyone who has taken the Certified Hoosier Riverwatch Volunteer Stream Monitoring class offered by Hoosier Riverwatch. Some materials included in the kit are:

• Testing kits for dissolved oxygen, pH, orthophosphate, nitrate, E. coli and BOD5
• Turbidity tube
• Kick seine net with poles
• Dip net
• Reference materials

If you are interested in reserving a Water Sampling Loaner Kit, please contact the St. Joseph River Watershed Initiative at 260-484-5848 x3.

Request a Speaker
The staff or board members are available to speak to your group or organization on water quality or land use issues. If you would like someone to come to your next meeting, contact us at 260-484-5848 x3.

Videos

After the Storm           VHS  |  22 minutes
All across America, people live, work and play in watersheds without knowing it. As this video shows, protecting the nations; water resources will take the awareness and effort of individual citizens. Three case studies focus on the interconnections between water supply, water quality and the economic vitality and quality of life in communities. Co-produced by the EPA and The Weather Channel.

Fate of a River: Revisited           VHS  |  30 minutes
In 1965, the Junior League of Toledo produced a film entitled: Fate of a River: Apathy or Action depicting foaming detergents, raw sewage, green and blue industrial discharges, gasping fish and algae-laden streams in the Maumee River Watershed. This update, produced in 2002, explores the many water quality improvements made in the 30 years since the passage of the Clean Water Act in 1972 and demonstrates the need for continued actions by many of the 1.7 million people living in the three-state watershed.

Green Sells           DVD
Green Sells is a video on the reasoning behind construction Best Management Practices (BMPs) that focuses on the cost-benefits of compliance and project management.

A Watershed Mentality           DVD
A documentary about the problems of sediment and erosion in the Maumee River Basin.  The Maumee River is the largest tributary and watershed in the Great Lakes and deposits millions of cubic yards of sediment into Lake Erie yearly.  Sediment and contaminants from various non-point source pollutants lead to water quality issues such as algal booms; expensive dredging; loss of habitat and added treatment of drinking water. This project was undertaken by the Fort Wayne City Utilities, the Allen County (IN) Partnership for Water Quality, and WFWA PBS 39 Fort Wayne.

Books

Pond Life
by George K. Reid
A guide to common plants and animals of North American ponds and lakes This guide describes and illustrates the plants and animals that live in or near ponds, lakes, streams and wetlands. It includes surface-dwelling creatures as well as those of open water, the bottom, and the shore and tells how various animals and plants live together in a community.

Guide to Stream Quality Monitoring a volunteer action project
by The Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) and the Division of Natural Areas and Preserves
This guide provides information on macroinvertebrates, data, volunteers, water monitoring, maintaining quality data along with macroinvertebrate identification cards.

Save Our Streams – Monitor’s Guide to Aquatic Macroinvertebrates
by Loren Larkin Kellogg
A publication of the Izaak Walton League of America

A Guide to Organizing a River Cleanup Event
by Tom’s of Maine

Field Manual for Global Low-Cost Water Quality Monitoring
by William B. Stapp and Mark K. Mitchell
This book provides a global perspective for watershed education. It includes activities to help readers understand key concepts and build skills. It provides handouts and instructions for making inexpensive equipment.

A Guide to Common Freshwater Invertebrates of North America
by J. Reese Voshell, Jr.
This book meets the needs of naturalists, environmentalists, anglers, teachers, students, and others by providing substantive information in easy-to-understand, nontechnical language for many groups of invertebrates commonly found in the streams, lakes, ponds and other freshwater environments of North America. This book will appeal to both novices and those with more advanced knowledge of the subject. It also contains more than 100 color illustrations.

Healthy Water, Healthy People Water Quality Educators Guide
by The Watercourse, International Project WET
The purpose of this publication is to raise educator’s awareness and understanding of water quality topics and issues by demonstrating the relationship of water quality to personal, public, and environmental health. This publication-especially when used in combination with the other Healthy Water, Healthy People materials-gives teachers, students, nonformal educators, water managers, treatment plant operators, and citizens an opportunity to explore water quality topics in an interactive, easy-to-use, hands-on format.

Aquatic Entomology The Fishermen’s and Ecologists’ Illustrated Guide to Insects and Their Relatives
by W. Patrick McCafferty
An up-to-date, easy-to-use introduction to the world of insects associated with aquatic environments. This book is the first consistent and thoroughly comparative treatment of each of the orders and families of aquatic and semiaquatic insects in North America, north of Mexico.