For fifteen years (2005-2020), Bob Gray with the assistance of his wife Nancy conducted monthly water monitoring at Honey Creek and at the Day-Use Area of Guadalupe River State Park, on behalf of the Texas Stream Team. Over that time, Bob and Nancy made some 180 trips to the monitoring sites, and carried out 360 CORE¹ sampling and E. coli tests. But it was becoming increasingly hard on Bob’s knees and a bit of a challenge for him to bend over at stream-side to collect water samples. So in 2020, Bob announced his retirement from the job.
Mackenzie Brown and Charleen Moore were willing to step in and take over the water-monitoring responsibilities. Mackenzie and Charleen shadowed Bob on three monitoring outings, before Mackenzie took the training classes for both the CORE and E. coli testing. The photos and video below show Bob conducting the water monitoring tests at Honey Creek near the crossing, on September 11, 2020 (during the pandemic when everyone wore masks). Mackenzie helped with the pH reading. All photos and the video were taken by Charleen Moore.
¹CORE testing includes measuring pH, dissolved oxygen, conductivity, and assessing condition of the water (clear, cloudy, smooth, ripples, high or low flow, odor, color, and the like), weather conditions, air and water temperature.