Monthly Water Testing
From May through October, WJL Youth Fellows process water samples to test for the presence of sewage contamination, as described on our main page. Sampling and processing takes place at NATURE Lab across two days one weekend a month, and data becomes part of River Keeper’s water quality program.
Source to Estuary: Water Justice Summer Camp
In summer 2022, WJL youth fellows participated in the eight-week course Source to Estuary: Water Justice Summer Camp. This course traced the route of water from its source at the Tomhannock Reservoir, through suburban, urban, and buried streams in Troy, to the Hudson River estuary as it flows through Troy and Albany. As we explored water civics, infrastructure, and policy, we looked at related environmental and health justice impacts on the communities along our waterways through hands-on lab work, field trips, and conversations with visiting experts. The eight-week course was structured around weekly field trips to significant locations in our local watershed, from a stream that feeds into our drinking water, to a wastewater treatment plant, to the recently rematriated Indigenous lands of Papscannee Island south of current-day Rensselaer.
Working with Media Sanctuary and WJL staff, Youth Fellows produced radio segments for the Hudson Mohawk Magazine to share their insights into stream ecology and environmental justice. You can visit the links below to follow along from the week of July 6 until our final session in late August.
