Spout Run volunteer session set

BOYCE — The C Spout Run organization is looking for volunteers to help monitor the health of the Shenandoah River tributary and chart the progress of restoration efforts.

The classroom portion of a certification program will be held at 7 p.m. Tuesday in the Boyce Fire Hall. A one-day stream-side training class will take place in March.

Spout Run and its tributaries Roseville Run and Page Brook have been declared “impaired” waterways by Virginia’s Department of Environmental Quality because of bacterial pollution and excessive sedimentation.

Various local groups have banded together to clean up the streams.

Sampling bottom-dwelling creatures is one way to measure stream health. Volunteers are needed to get their feet wet, learn a new skill and help the watershed.

Gem Bingol of the Piedmont Environmental Council will lead a free certification course in benthic macroinvertebrate testing, one way to monitor the health of streams by checking the types of aquatic species that live in them.

Certified volunteers can help to gauge the effectiveness of the efforts to bring back the watershed by sampling the animal life at various points several times a year.

For more information about the project, visit www.spoutrun.org.

— Contact Val Van Meter at vvanmeter@winchesterstar.com