We strolled along the trail on a gorgeous, warm July evening for our summer stream monitoring on Difficult Run Stream in Great Falls VA. As we've done since we became stream monitors a few years ago, we were off to check the water quality of our stream using benthic macroinvertebrates (critters without backbones that live on the stream bottom) as indicators of stream health. The last time we visited was during the winter, and the score for the stream was an 8 -- pretty good for this particular stream! This time it wasn't quite so good -- the score was a 5. We saw many clams and LOTS of common netspinners, which are animals that are fairly tolerant of low water quality. We'll see what the fall survey brings!
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