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Stream workshops starting Saturday
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Forsyth County News
If you’re going

To register or view workshop dates and times, visit www.handsonforsyth.org.
Keep Forsyth County Beautiful will begin hosting free workshops to teach people how to monitor and protect streams.

Chemical and biological monitoring classes last about four hours, and those who successfully complete the training will receive certification from the state Environmental Protection Division.

The 10 Adopt-A-Stream classes, beginning Saturday, will take place about once a month through September.

“The goal of the program is for the outreach aspect but also for getting volunteers to adopt a stream,” said Kevin Smith, community outreach specialist for KFCB.

People who adopt streams collect chemical data once a month or biological data every three months to assist in monitoring water quality.

Most monitoring is done by contractors who can’t always visit all the streams, Smith said, so volunteering allows people to protect streams in their community that are important to them.

“The more people we have out there, the more likely we are to be aware of issues before they become big issues,” he said.

Instructors will teach the two workshops both inside a classroom and outside at a stream to test for data both chemical, such as pH level, and biological, such as number of certain small organisms.

Smith said anywhere from about five to 25 people attend the average workshop.

“The goal is just to saturate the county with as many volunteers as we can,” he said. “That way we’re in as many streams as we can be in.”