Monitoring Efforts

The Morro Bay Volunteer Monitoring Program offers both ongoing and seasonal volunteer opportunities.

Ongoing monitoring typically involves a monthly commitment and includes:

Creek Samplers: Enjoy getting off the main road and into a local creek where you will use water quality parameter test kits and meters to monitor what's flowing out of our hills and into our bay.

Bacteria Monitors: Collect samples from the bay and creeks and conduct scientific lab work to determine levels of bacteria.

Dawn Patrol: Watch the sun rise as you spend your morning kayaking throughout the bay to collect important data on dissolved oxygen levels and temperature.

Algae Surveys: Take pleasure in hiking around the watershed while you take photographs to document the distribution and diversity of macroalgae mats.

Plankton Pullers: Net yourself some marine phytoplankton then take a microscopic look at your sample to identify plankton diversity and to help the state Department of Public Health track toxic blooms.

Bay Nutrients: Spend an afternoon on the bay shores to monitor nutrient levels.

Urban Watch: Patrol a set of storm drains in the community of either Los Osos or Morro Bay to help characterize what is flowing out of these drains in the dry season..

Seasonal monitoring typically involves a one-time commitment and includes the following opportunities:

First Flush: Join other volunteers to capture runoff from the first big storm of the fall.

Stream Profiling: Each summer, see parts of the watershed that most people don't have access to by helping survey stream channel profiles to monitor channel and bank erosion.

Macroinvertebrate Surveys: Take a closer look at stream habitat and water quality when you survey local creeks and collect channel substrate samples to be analyzed by the Department of Fish and Game for water quality sensitive critters called macroinvertebrates.

Shorebird Surveys: Get out those spotting scopes every spring and fall and join up with other experienced birders to conduct counts of local and migratory birds utilizing Morro Bay.

If you’re interested in volunteering, learn more about how to get involved.