Join the Idaho Conservation League for summer fun and lake stewardship

By Jennifer Ekstrom
Reader Contributor

With summer upon us, Lake Pend Oreille’s glistening water beckons. Whether dusting off your paddleboard, plotting kayak camping adventures, scheming new tricks on your wakeboard or simply throwing sticks for your pooch, our magnificent backyard lake offers something for everyone to enjoy. With that enjoyment comes responsibility. It’s up to each of us to do our part to keep our lake awesome in spite of the pressures it faces. 

The Idaho Conservation League is ramping up for the 2025 water quality monitoring season, and there are openings for additional stewards to help out. Each year this program helps us better understand this lake we love — from identifying pollution sources, to seeing trends over time, to monitoring where water quality is improving. By consistently collecting and testing water samples, we gain valuable insights about the condition of the water that we drink and play in.

Dedicated volunteer stewards take on the commitment to collect water samples and data at 13 stations across the lake and river for four months from June through September. Each water sample collected is tested for water quality indicators like temperature, dissolved oxygen, pH, total nitrogen, total phosphorus and E. coli, to name a few. 

Volunteer water stewards learn how to collect water samples. Photo courtesy of ICL.

Additionally, the stewards serve as eyes and ears on the water, letting us know if they see trash, dead fish, invasive weeds, signs of toxic algae outbreaks or evidence of poorly managed shoreline development. By tracking these various indicators of water quality, we can better understand impacts to Lake Pend Oreille — and take action to protect and restore its waters. 

This summer will be ICL’s fourth year managing the program, though the program’s 14th year overall. Each year we learn valuable insights, and the long-term dataset is helpful for agency decision making, climate change resilience planning and just deciding where you might not want to go swimming.

One of the most enjoyable things about this program — aside from getting out on the water each month — is getting to know the stewards. Each person joins the program for unique reasons, all of which contribute to the program’s success. I am continuously inspired by their dedication to protecting our waters and keeping them swimmable, fishable and drinkable. 

This season we are thrilled to have many of our longtime stewards returning, but there are still a few more openings. You do not need a science background or any experience to help out, so please consider giving back to our waters by spending a few days this summer monitoring water quality on Lake Pend Oreille.

A steward training session will be held on Wednesday, May 28 from 5:30-7 p.m., and attendance is required for each potential steward. Attending a training is not a commitment to being a steward, but training is mandatory if you want to participate. We encourage people with any level of interest to attend, learn how the sampling works, and meet our returning volunteers. Email jekstrom@idahoconservation.org or call 208-318-5812 if you have questions or want to sign up for a training session.

Jennifer Ekstrom is North Idaho director of the Idaho Conservation League.