Sippo Lake in Stark County, Ohio, is ideally located between two nearby cities, providing the residents of each with a peaceful place to camp, picnic or fish. The lake is also part of the Stark County Park District, which has turned the area into one full of amenities and opportunities to take in the surrounding wildlife. Some of these include waterfowl like blue herons and chorus frogs like spring peepers.
One group that helps to maintain the services that nearby residents and visitors enjoy at the lake is Friends of Stark Parks, a nonprofit organization that promotes the development and use of the county’s parks, trails, facilities, events and educational programs. All of these are based on the parks’ natural resources, which Friends of Stark Parks wants to make sure are used sustainably.
One of the most important resources the nonprofit works to protect is Sippo Lake’s water. To this end, as well as to support other educational programs, Friends of Stark Parks sourced monitoring equipment from NexSens Technology to track water quality in Sippo Lake. The gear included data loggers, water quality sondes and online web datacenter services.
Watching water quality
Two NexSens Data Loggers serve as bases of the monitoring stations that Friends of Stark Parks obtained for their needs. Both are equipped with cellular telemetry for broadcasting data back to park managers in real time.
Two In-Situ Aqua TROLL 400 Multi-Parameter Probes will monitor water quality at each station (one probe at each location). These probes are fitted with sensors to measure temperature, conductivity, pH, pressure, dissolved oxygen and oxidation-reduction potential.
Officials at Friends of Stark Parks have already gotten both stations deployed. One is up and running, providing data on water quality at a location along the south shore of Sippo Lake. The Data Logger at this station transmits data from its Aqua TROLL 400 back to park managers at intervals they defined.
The second data logging station is used along a stretch of an outflow stream that becomes Sippo Creek. This logger and its Aqua TROLL 400 allow park managers to assess water quality before and after it goes through Sippo Lake, one of their key goals.
All data are displayed in NexSens iChart Software, which has graphing tools and configurable parameter alerts that can be sent through text message or email. The software will also interface directly with a NexSens WQData LIVE Web Datacenter that Friends of Stark Parks is planning to set up so that data can be viewable online to anyone.
Park managers plan to share the data with staff, researchers from nearby universities and local students participating in place-based learning programs teaching them the roles that they play in their own watershed.
Images courtesy of the Stark County Park District Facebook page.
The NexSens X2 Environmental Data Logger offers the latest in real-time monitoring technology with wireless communication, large plug-and-play sensor library, and ultra-low power consumption.
The YSI EXO represents the next generation of water quality instruments from YSI. The EXO1 sonde includes four sensor ports with internal data logging and battery power.
WQData LIVE is a web-based project management service that allows users 24/7 instant access to data collected from remote telemetry systems.