LEAF PACK:
Using Bugs To Monitor New York City’s Watershed

By William Wegner & Marc A. Yaggi, Hudson Riverkeeper
Photos by Hudson Riverkeeper
Hudson Riverkeeper, along with the Stroud Water Research Center (Stroud) and the Hudson Basin River Watch, have been harnessing kids’ fascination with bugs to help measure water quality in the New York City Drinking Water Supply Watershed. The program – the “Leaf Pack Network/Hudson Basin River Watch Project” – is less invasive than most sampling programs and was developed as a pilot project in Pennsylvania by Stroud in 1999. Then, in 2000, with support from Congress through the Safe Drinking Water Act, the three groups transferred the program to the 2,000-square-mile New York City watershed, which supplies unfiltered drinking water to more than 9 million New York City and upstate consumers.

Here’s how it works: In fall and/or spring, school students place plastic mesh bags of leaves in streams. After two to three weeks, aquatic organisms colonize the leaf packs as a food source; students then retrieve the leaf packs and sort and identify the bugs. Each species is assigned a pollution tolerance index that reflects its sensitivity or tolerance to water pollution. By monitoring the richness and diversity of the organisms that colonize the leaf packs, students can determine stream health. Students post their data on Stroud’s Website to share their data and compare the health of their streams with others around the watershed.

Riverkeeper spearheaded the project by approaching more than 100 secondary schools in watershed communities on both sides of the Hudson. River Watch, a volunteer river-monitoring project whose goal is to improve the water quality of the Hudson River and all its tributaries, had a network of schools already involved in stream monitoring and helped recruit some of the initial Leaf Pack Network participants. The funding allowed us to provide teacher training workshops and equipment kits for any schools willing to sample in the New York City watershed.

Now in its third year, the Leaf Pack Network has more than 40 classes sampling streams in the New York City watershed. To increase awareness and recruit additional participants, Hudson Riverkeeper produced an 8-minute video that demonstrates the Leaf Pack Experiment in a designated secondary school. In 2001, the children’s television network Nickelodeon featured the Leaf Pack Network in its Big Help program to encourage student participation in water quality issues on a national level.

Riverkeeper also partnered with the Seeing Necessary Alternatives Photographically (SNAP) program. SNAP provides cameras and film processing for students to document their Leaf Pack Experiments. The SNAP representative provides display boards featuring student photos, which Riverkeeper uses to showcase the Leaf Pack Network on Websites and at water quality related events.

The Leaf Pack Network builds a real-world connection between students and their watersheds, fosters a sense of ownership and responsibility for water resources and provides useful information on water quality.