MERIDIAN TOWNSHIP - The Red Cedar River is an iconic landmark in the region, and there are many organizations that aim to protect it. One of them being the Mid Michigan Environmental Action Council, or Mid-MEAC.

Over the last few years, Mid-MEAC has been testing the water along the Red Cedar River in order to find trends in the overall health of the river, and to pinpoint the areas where pollution is the highest. However, the testing conducted by Mid-MEAC is a little different than most.

“Other organizations check water quality, they’ll check temperature, the USGS monitors the flow and the height of the river, what we are doing is looking at the larvae, which are the babies if you will, of bugs,” said Mid-Meac Executive Director Julie Powers.

The sampling attracts around 20 volunteers who go through a 30 minute training session, and then are sent to assigned locations to conduct the monitoring.

The monitoring being done involves taking samples of the water to find invertebrate. Volunteers hope to find the invertebrate that are very sensitive to pollution which would signify high water quality.

The Red Cedar River covers a vast area of land and is challenged by not only a college campus but also farmland, shopping centers, and many areas vulnerable to pollution.

“People kinda take the river for granted a lot, and kinda don’t think a lot about the importance of water quality and the health of the watershed," said Mid-MEAC Outreach Coordinator Brandon Kawalec.

Mid-MEAC hopes that events like this raise awareness to pollution of our water, and also promote long term changes to the way we treat this valuable resource.

“You have to be mindful because literally every drop of water on this earth is every drop of water we’ve ever had, and its every drop of water we will ever have, and so if you pollute it yesterday, you’re going to drink it tomorrow a year from now, or your grandkids will be drinking it," said Powers. "So you have to be mindful of what you do.”

Results of the stream monitoring are not yet available, but volunteers at the Ferguson Park site claim they discovered a large amount of macro invertebrate, many of which are indicators of high water quality.