Imagine a beautiful, sunny summer day with a team of enthusiastic volunteers and their leader enjoying it by wading into wetlands to collect dragonflies, beetles, and other water bugs. These volunteers are part of the Wetland Health Evaluation Program (WHEP), a 28-year-old monitoring program sponsored by ten cities (Apple Valley, Burnsville, Eagan, Farmington, Hastings, Lakeville, Mendota Heights, South St. Paul, Rosemount, and West St. Paul), Dakota County, and the North Cannon River Watershed Management Organization, administered in partnership with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.
In June, volunteers set traps and use nets to collect samples of macroinvertebrates – bugs – living in the wetland. Later, volunteers gather in a lab to identify and count the bugs using microscopes and magnifying glasses. The abundance and presence – or absence – of some organisms relates to their sensitivity to human disturbance or pollution. The more bug varieties the volunteers find, the healthier the wetland is considered.
In July, volunteers revisit their wetlands to identify and count the plants living in a plot representative of the entire wetland.
The work does not require any special experience. Volunteers go through eight hours of training, learning everything they need to know to conduct the inventories. Volunteers come with all levels of experience, though all have a common interest in wetlands and helping to preserve the dragonflies, leeches, myriad of beetles and bugs, sedges, grasses and irises that call wetlands home.
Volunteers are provided equipment and support to follow a sampling technique developed by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. They evaluate about 34 wetlands in Dakota County each year, and each volunteer spends 10 to 30 hours each summer collecting samples and documenting results. At the end of the season, volunteers are recognized at an appreciation dinner and hear the results of their work.
The information volunteers collect has real value. Dakota County assembles the volunteers’ data for analysis by a consulting ecologist. The county provides a report of this analysis on wetland conditions to participating cities for their use in development decisions and wetland protection efforts.
Monitoring serves another purpose. Volunteers become “wetland ambassadors,” sharing information about wetlands and the WHEP program with people who are curious about the wetland visitors in chest waders.
Volunteers report WHEP to be a great experience that deepens their understanding of wetland ecology and how urban impacts -- such as stormwater carrying nutrients, salts and sediments -- can damage wetland biology.
Join a group of volunteers in your community to explore and gather information on wetlands. It takes over 100 volunteers to monitor wetlands in Dakota County. To learn more, visit www.mnwhep.org or call Dakota County, 952-891-7000. Registration is open through Thursday, May 15. Sign up to volunteer on a team today with Dakota County Environmental Resources at Be More.
