Lake Erie Guardians

The Lake Erie Guardians project aims to increase community engagement in water quality monitoring across the Lake Erie basin, with a focus on the Niagara region and the western basin of Lake Erie. Citizen scientists will gather data on contaminants such as PFAS, nutrients, and chloride (road salts), filling critical regional gaps in water quality data and supporting pilot programs for new monitoring methods.

Water Rangers was selected as a recipient of a $330,000 grant from Canada Water Agency under the Freshwater Ecosystems Initiative. This funding will support the three-year project Lake Erie Guardians – Increasing Community Participation in Citizen Science, running from 2024 to 2027.

The Lake Erie Guardians program was initially funded by Province of Ontario, Minister of the Environment, Conservation and Parks’ Great Lakes Local Action Fund.

In 2021 we put out a call for people to join the program, inviting them to help keep an eye on the health of the Lake Erie watershed. We only had spots for 35 people. Over 300 people and groups answered the call to join the Guardians program. The project’s goal is to empower over 400 new participants in citizen science by involving them in hands-on activities like data collection events (Blitzes), as well as long-term monitoring. By following standardized procedures and sharing data through open platforms such as Water Rangers and DataStream, community members will contribute essential information to support decision-making on Great Lakes priorities.

The project aligns with the broader goals of the Freshwater Ecosystems Initiative, which supports local efforts to address environmental challenges affecting water quality and ecosystem health in the Great Lakes.

Program Objectives

• • Engage community scientists in collecting baseline water quality data in the Lake Erie watershed through regular monitoring and monitoring blitzes and data collection and monitoring of winter road salt, PFAS and nutrients.

• • Develop and revise standard operating procedure guides for community-based water monitoring for new measures (e.g., Peristix/nutrients, PFAS, chloride/road salts) and make available for public/citizen scientists

• • Share data and results via presentations at public events, conferences and education institutions

• • Standardize community-based water monitoring practices

• • Publish annual Lake Erie community-based water monitoring results/reports