Thanks to the help of local community scientists, we've taken the next step towards proving that Hangman Creek pollutes the Spokane River with sediment. We are ecstatic to announce that we've completed a major milestone in our "Community Science Sediment Study". We've submitted the previous two years of data our community scientists have collected to the Department of Ecology for review. Although it may not seem like much, this is the next step towards officially recognizing the Spokane River has a big pollution problem from Hangman Creek. In the upcoming months, Ecology will review our data and let us know if the Spokane River is "impaired" for turbidity (sediment) pollution. If it is, the resultant pollution listing could direct funding or projects towards cleaning up the pollution source (Hangman Creek). We will continue our Sediment Study, with the help of volunteers of course, so be on the lookout for opportunities! Thank you to everyone who helped us with this achievement.
An image from one of our community scientists taken on March 2nd, 2022, showing the extent of sediment pollution in the Spokane River.
Click the screenshots below to read our letters to the Department of Ecology asking for an evaluation of our dataset. In sum: We have found that the levels of anthropogenic sediment pollution from Hangman Creek impairs our river that can hurt our native redband trout.
