Research · October 22, 2025
$1.84 Million Federal Award Extends River Monitoring Network Upstream Into Farm Country
A four-year grant adds six stations on three agricultural tributaries of the Porter River and pays ten undergraduate field technicians a year.
The university’s Freshwater & Watershed Laboratory has received a four-year, $1.84 million award from the National Inland Waters Program to extend its student-run Riverwatch monitoring network upstream, onto three agricultural tributaries that feed the Porter River above town.
Riverwatch currently runs 12 stations — eight on the main stem, two on the Millrace and two on tributaries — that report water temperature, dissolved oxygen, turbidity and other readings every 15 minutes. The award adds six more on Cedar Creek, Lunde Creek and Sawmill Run, which together drain about 70 square miles of row-crop and dairy land. Those streams carry a large share of the sediment and phosphorus that reach the river, but until now they have been sampled only by hand, a few times a season.
“We have fifteen years of very good data on what the river looks like when it gets to campus. What we have not had is a good picture of where the problem starts. This lets us watch a storm move off a field and into a creek in real time.”
— Dr. Everett Yoon, professor of environmental science and the project’s principal investigator
The budget breaks down roughly as follows:
| Item | Four-year total |
|---|---|
| Six new stations: sondes, stage sensors, telemetry, solar | $412,000 |
| Undergraduate field technicians (10 per year, paid) | $486,000 |
| Lab manager and analytical chemistry | $371,000 |
| Landowner partnership and outreach | $148,000 |
| Indirect costs | $423,000 |
Each of the new stations sits on private farmland, and the project’s first year is mostly about those relationships. Fourteen landowners have already agreed to host equipment or allow stream access; each gets a monthly report on their own reach of creek and a seat at a winter results meeting. Co-investigator Dr. Grace Whitfield, an associate professor of geomorphology, will lead a parallel study of streambank erosion on the same three creeks.
Field technician positions open to any major, with priority for environmental science students. The first six hires start in January, with stations going in after spring thaw. Data from the new stations will join the existing public dashboard described on the river and Millrace ecology page. The award was processed through the Office of Research & Sponsored Programs.
Contact: Office of University Communications, news@uwporterfalls.edu
Fictional information
UW–Porter Falls is a work of parody. The National Inland Waters Program, this award, its budget, the creeks and the researchers named here are invented; no real agency funded any of it.