Texas Watch, a volunteer environmental monitoring program based in the Department of Geography at Southwest Texas State University, is launching the effort.
Organizers plan to make the project an annual event.
Volunteer monitors across the state will sample surface and ground water to collect important environmental information. More than 2,000 volunteer monitors are expected to participate, and approximately 300 sites will be surveyed in the sampling. Texas Watch, headquartered at SWT, facilitates a statewide coalition of volunteer monitors who work in conjunction with the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission through a grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. This is an important effort, and we hope to gather some very significant data in the process. The mission of Texas Watch is to facilitate environmental stewardship by empowering a statewide network of concerned volunteers, partners and institutions in a collaborative effort to promote a healthy and safe environment through environmental education, data collection and community action.