MISSION: WATER 22 HEADLINE SURFACE WATER The state-of-the-art Jerry F. Costello Confluence Field Station was awarded LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold Certification by the U.S. Green Building Council, officially making it a gold standard of sustainable building. Over the years, dams and levees have been built to allow for economic development along the rivers. In doing so, much of the natural lands have been converted to agriculture and urban areas and many of the natural processes of the ecosystem have been damaged. The research and education NGRREC does adds to the understanding of these processes to inform decision-makers for policy reform, leading to a more sustainable river. Making an Impact NGRREC is a small organization, with a staff of around 30 people, and uses a model of partnership and collaboration to extend its reach. The research, education and outreach teams work closely with many partners, including academic institutions, government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and industry. “Thousands of people are served by our educational programming with the goal of developing a river and freshwater educated public to support better management and policy,” said Executive Director Gary Rolfe. “Our comprehensive water quality program showcased through Great Lakes to Gulf, an integrated, geospatial water quality database, and the Great Rivers Ecological Observatory Network (GREON) monitoring program provide the foundation with effective and targeted water quality solutions for the future.” GREON exemplifies the type of collaborative work being done at NGRREC. Partners at the Illinois Natural History Survey, a part of the University of Illinois, had been taking discrete water quality samples for more than 20 years as part of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Upper Mississippi River Restoration Long Term Resource Monitoring project. Because of the interval between these discrete samples collected over a wide spatial range, changes happening on a short time scale, such as a flood pulse over a week’s time, would not be captured in that discrete data. Continuous monitoring using field-deployed instruments are an amazing complement to this already rich data set. NGRREC worked with YSI Integrated Systems to come up with a turnkey solution as a proof of concept for continuous monitoring of mid-channel water quality. The PISCES platform, outfitted with a YSI EXO2 sonde, UV nitrate sensor, weather sensor and data logger, was first tested in a backwater channel connected to the Mississippi River and performed admirably. NGRREC’s goal was to monitor water quality along the entire length of the Mississippi River, and eventually to create partnerships with monitoring rivers around the world. Throughout the next few years after that first test, NGRREC was able to purchase and deploy a total of seven fully outfitted PISCES platforms. Three of these units are on the main channel of the Mississippi River, two on backwaters contiguous with the river, and two are on reservoirs in the watershed. These continuous monitoring stations have done well to fill in the data gaps from discrete sampling.