NORMAN — Norman could get a little help monitoring water pollution in the near future. Volunteers trained by Blue Thumb may be monitoring Bishop Creek and Merkle Creek soon.

Common questions answered by the data collected by Blue Thumb volunteer monitors include: Is excessive erosion taking place? Is there shade over the stream? What is the substrate? Are there riffles, runs and pools?

Understanding stream health is dependent upon having some knowledge of the chemical, physical and biological properties of the stream.

Blue Thumb is the educational branch of the Oklahoma Conservation Commission’s Water Quality Department. Blue Thumb educator Kim Shaw trained a group of 26 volunteers with real-world experience at Bishop Creek in Norman this weekend. Bishop Creek runs through the Duck Pond and the University of Oklahoma golf course, then under Highway 9 and into the South Canadian River.

“A lot of the people who come to the training just want to get educated themselves,” Shaw said. “Quite a few will join us with the creek monitoring.”

Volunteers can help with monthly monitoring or educational outreach, which can include booths where volunteers teach the public about non-point source pollution. Monitoring helps identify non-point pollution and other environmental issues at local creeks.

Blue Thumb conducts five or six trainings a year throughout the state and one training a year in the central metro area in Norman or Oklahoma City, Shaw said.

Shaw has been with the Oklahoma Conservation Commission for nine years and has been with the Blue Thumb division for close to eight years. She finds working with and training volunteers very rewarding, even though it means giving up her weekend and mucking around in muddy creeks in all kinds of weather.

“That’s what I did as a kid,” Shaw said. “I love the outdoors. I was a tomboy kid. Now I get paid to do it, so I can’t beat that.”

The best part of it, though, is the difference the education makes in the lives of those who go through the training.

“It keeps me going, seeing the people’s faces and hearing the comments about the training,” Shaw said.

People are often surprised to discover there is life in those creeks — that it isn’t just water in a ditch running under the bridge they drive across. There are fish and bugs under the rocks. People also are often surprised at the types of things that cause non-point pollution.

Many realize that herbicides from yards run into the streams, but they may not know that bacteria from pet waste is also a contaminant, especially in high-concentration, urban areas like Norman.

Volunteers learn to test oxygen levels. They also learn to check for nutrients such as nitrate, nitrite, ammonia and phosphorous. Those nutrients may be common in pesticides people spray on their lawns and they are pollution when they reach the creek.

The Blue Thumb training educates people on ways to minimize pollution.

“Our basic hope is that we’re educating these 26 people, that they’ll grasp some basic concepts and that they’ll educate others,” she said.

Shaw said fertilizer and pesticides aren’t really needed on yards.

“Having a few weeds is better than putting down herbicides,” she said.

At the very least, people should avoid putting down herbicides right before a rain, she said.

Another simple way to decrease pollution is to pick up after pets, even in your yard. Pet waste carries bacteria that contaminates local rivers and streams.

“It’s a big bacteria problem,” Shaw said.

All Blue Thumb monitoring volunteers go through at least two days of training to prepare them for monthly chemical water quality testing at a stream site of their choice. People come from a wide area to participate in the free training.

“We had students from OU and also OSU in Stillwater,” Shaw said. “We also had a high school group in Ardmore. A teacher brought five students from Anadarko High School. We also had one boy that came in ... I think he goes to Tuttle High School. We even had a husband and wife who came up from the Witchita Falls area in Texas.”

Joy Hampton 366-3539 jhampton@ norman transcript.com