Idaho: Watershed Turbidity Monitoring

The Myrtle Creek watershed is the principle water source for the small city of Bonners Ferry, ID. An extremely hot forest fire went through most of this watershed in the late summer of 2003. Experts project a high sediment load during spring runoff for this year and perhaps a few years in the future until the watershed "heals." Funds were allocated late in 2003 so the installation had to be done in winter. The Idaho Department of Environmental Quality contracted with Electronic Data Solutions to provide, integrate, and install a system to monitor turbidity and sound an alarm when levels exceed a user-settable threshold.

The selected equipment consists of a CR10X datalogger, an FTS DTS-12 turbidity sensor, a low-band radio from Meteor Communications Corp. (MCC), and solar-charged batteries for power. Installation took place in late January, 2004.