GBCW Support for Shellfish Activities 2003

The Great Bay Coast Watch (GBCW) is a volunteer estuarine monitoring program established in 1989 that includes teachers, students, and local citizens with a diversity of backgrounds. Volunteers participate in a variety of training programs that enable them to monitor water quality parameters in Great Bay and coastal areas, sample for marine phytoplankton blooms and conduct shoreline surveys and habitat evaluations. Since 1997 the New Hampshire Estuaries Project (NHEP) has relied on the ability of GBCW to recruit and train volunteers to assist with the implementation of its plan to protect, restore and manage the states estuarine systems. This year GBCW again participated in plan implementation by assisting the NH Department of Environmental Services (NHDES) Shellfish Program. Volunteers completed a variety of work tasks, including mussel collection, sample collection and transport and general field assistance

2004 Support for Shellfish Program and Estuarine Education, Meeker, S & Reid, A

Working within the University of New Hampshire (UNH) Cooperative Extension/Sea Grant Program, the Great Bay Coast Watch (GBCW) is New Hampshire’s most wide ranging program for direct citizen involvement in monitoring estuarine and coastal systems. GBCW has a fifteen year history of educating citizens about the Great Bay Estuary, New Hampshire Seacoast, and Gulf of Maine watershed through active participation in monitoring and an accompanying education program. Based in Durham, NH, GBCW coordinates over 100 volunteers drawn from 19 New Hampshire and Southern Maine communities. In 1990, volunteers began monitoring eight sites on a monthly basis April through October. Today, this effort has grown to include 21 sites that are sampled monthly for water quality around the Great Bay estuary, and six coastal sites that are monitored weekly for harmful algae blooms. Volunteers include adults, students, and home schooled families

Great Bay Coast Watch: A Citizen Water Monitoring Program Volunteer Water Quality Monitoring Manual, 2004

The Great Bay Coast Watch is citizen volunteers, working within the UNH Cooperative Extension/NH Sea Grant Program, protecting the long-term health and natural resources of New Hampshire’s coastal waters and estuarine systems through monitoring and education projects. The purpose of this document is to present step-by-step instructions for conducting water quality testing in support of the Great Bay Coast Watch (GBCW)