A National Park Service scientist is asking for help from St. Croix 360 readers. David VanderMeulen, an aquatic ecologist, does water quality monitoring on the river and needs to know when the ice is off three specific areas so he can return to do his sampling work.

VanderMuelen wrote in an email:

“I monitor water quality at three sites on Lake St. Croix and have no reliable way of knowing exactly when those sites are ice-free so that I can conduct my work.  The three sites are as follows:

1. Bayport, MN, mid-channel, directly across from the Anderson Windows Plant
2. Just south of the I-94 Bridge
3. About 1 1/2 miles north of Prescott, WI, mid-channel, across from Carpenter Nature Center.

I need to know when those sites are ice-free to be able to get out and do some water quality monitoring.”

You can contact VanderMuelen at this email address: david_vandermeulen@nps.gov.

The St. Croix is included in the Park Service’s Great Lakes Inventory and Monitoring Network, part of a “strategy to improve park management through greater reliance on scientific information.” From the group’s website:

The purpose of the inventory and monitoring program is to design and implement long-term ecological monitoring and provide results to park managers, science partners, and the public.  The intent is to provide periodic assessments of critical resources, to evaluate the integrity of park ecosystems, and to better understand ecosystem processes.

More about the St. Croix and Mississippi River monitoring program is available here.

David also sent over the great photo of a St. Croix River sturgeon below, taken near one of his water sampling site:

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