Every year Little Falls Watershed Alliance joins with the Izaak Walton Salt Watch program to test the effect of road salt on our local creeks. Road salt makes the roads safer, but too much salt ends up in the creek and kills the freshwater organisms who call the creeks their home.
Benthic Macroinvertebrate
Sarah Morse
On Saturday, October 18, our stream team did the fall sampling for benthic macroinvertebrates in the Little Falls Creek. For the second time this year, planaria were the star of the show accounting for more than half of the organisms we found. Black fly larvae were also found in abundance - 26% of the total count.
Bacteria Monitoring, bacteria monitoring
Sarah Morse
For the fifth consecutive summer, the fecal bacteria levels in the Little Falls watershed have exceeded the Maryland State Standards for recreational water use - even for infrequent human contact. According to our 16-week study conducted at eight sites, the Little Falls Branch, the Willett Branch and the Minnehaha Branch fail to meet the criteria for safe water play at all locations.
Benthic Macroinvertebrate
Sarah Morse
On Saturday, July 6, our stream team did the summer sampling for benthic macroinvertebrates in the Little Falls Creek. Planaria were the star of the show accounting for more than a third of the organisms we found. Small Minnow mayflies were also found in abundance. We found nine different species in all, giving the creek BIBI score of 2.1 which puts it in the very low Fair category.