State of the Verde River: Water Quality

The Sierra Club Water Sentinels have implemented a volunteer water quality and flow monitoring program on the Verde River. Teams of Water Sentinels volunteers have collected water samples, made field measurements of water quality parameters, and measured the flow of the river at six to eight sampling sites on the Verde River over the last five years. The data summarized in this report was collected between December 2, 2006, and December 10, 2011. The suite of water quality parameters include E. coli bacteria, total arsenic, total nitrogen, total phosphorus, and suspended sediment concentration. Water Sentinels also made field measurements of dissolved oxygen concentration, pH, electrical conductivity, total dissolved solids, and air and water temperature. They collected hundreds of water samples at six to eight sampling sites along the upper and middle reaches of the Verde River during all seasons in the five‐year period, visiting sampling sites on the Verde River five or six times each calendar year. View Document.