May Riverkeeper Report

It's here! The grades are in for our 2024 Report Card for the South, West, and Rhode Rivers.

New this year, we added three new parameters to the report - nitrogen, phosphorus, and chlorophyll a (algae). Because of this new data - all three rivers saw declines in grades to each earn a C for 2024. 

2024 River Report Card

In addition to a newly printed report card with three new parameters, Arundel Rivers monitoring team also produced a data story map and subwatershed reports for each of our tributaries. The story map will give you a deeper look into each parameter and give you the opportunity to see each individual site's score for each parameter through an interactive map. The subwatershed reports will give you a focused look at your local tributary, including bacteria monitoring and restoration insights. 

Here are my main takeaways from the 2024 monitoring season: 

1. Our waterways are not where they should be or could be health-wise. Algae in particular is a major issue that we need to tackle. 

   
   

2. In general, water quality declines as you travel upstream. This means that our worst preforming sites are those located in the headwaters, which have less tidal flushing and deep water. The one exception here is nitrogen- which was higher in the mouth of the South River than the headwaters. 

   
   

3. We are seeing some improvements! Dissolved oxygen scores have been trending upwards for the past 5 years in all of our rivers and the South River in particular saw a notable improvement in oxygen between 2023 and 2024.

   
   

4. We need more data! This is an exciting and fascinating closer look at what is happening beneath the surface of our waterways, but more data will tell a more complete story and identify potential trends. 

   
   

Data collection including these exciting new parameters is already underway for the 2025 season, which started in April. Our salinity levels remain notably higher this year compared to last year- which could be why we are still seeing some winter jellies lingering. We have started to receive reports of grasses growing throughout all 3 rivers- excellent news! If you see grasses growing, be sure to drop a pin and let us know the coordinates! 

Finally, our bacteria monitoring program will start this month on the Thursday before Memorial Day. We are still looking for volunteers to help us collect samples by car every Thursday morning through Labor Day. We will post the results every Friday on our Facebook page. Please reach out to Riley Kuehn at riley@arundelrivers.org for more info or if you're interested in volunteering. 

See you on the river!