Vermont Law School

University of North Carolina at Wilmington

James Madison University

Water Quality Monitoring Initiative Director at Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay

I am the current program director for water quality monitoring programs, including the Chesapeake Monitoring Cooperative and RiverTrends. The CMC is a group of leading organizations that provide technical, programmatic, and outreach support in order to integrate volunteer-based and non-traditional water quality and macroinvertebrate monitoring data into the Chesapeake Bay Program partnership.

Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay

Water Quality Monitoring Initiative Director

I am the current program manager for the Chesapeake Monitoring Cooperative, which is a group of leading organizations that provide technical, programmatic, and outreach support in order to integrate volunteer-based and non-traditional water quality and macroinvertebrate monitoring data into the Chesapeake Bay Program partnership.

Water Quality Program Manager

As the program manager I worked with the Alliance's stormwater management programs, RiverWise and Reduce Your Stormwater, to educate individuals about their impacts to the environment and to offer cost-share incentives to install conservation landscapes, rain gardens and other stormwater practices. This included conducting education and outreach by presenting at various meeting, conferences and associations, and  training and managing volunteers to conduct stormwater assessments.

Program Manager

My time at the District is split between managing the Virginia Conservation Assistance Program (VCAP) and assisting Albemarle County to develop their Chesapeake Bay TMDL Action Plan in accordance with their MS4 Phase II General Permit.Development of Albemarle County's TMDL Action Plan includes, assessing the current MS4 program, determining the required pollutant of concern (POC) load reductions for existing, new and grandfathered sources, and determining the means and methods to meet the reductions requirements for this permit cycle. I use GIS and Microsoft excel to determine the required reductions and work with the water resources engineer to determine the evolving means and methods. I also worked with various other County departments during the process of collecting and analyzing the County stormwater management data.The Virginia Conservation Assistance Program (VCAP) provides financial incentives for non-agricultural stormwater best management practices (BMPs). Currently, I manage all of the projects occurring in any of the 4 Counties within the District. This includes going out on site visits, presenting applications to the TJSWCD Board for approval, and ensuring the projects are completed on time. I have also facilitated streamlining the application process within the Thomas Jefferson District and updating the VCAP Manual available for all Districts. Professional Trainings: VA SWM for Contractors and Operators (DEQ), Basic Soil Science (DEQ), Plants in Stormwater Management and Erosion and Sediment Control (DEQ), Residential Rain Garden Certification PLUS (NC State University, Durham, NC)

Thomas Jefferson Soil and Water Conservation District

Water Resources Planner

As an intern for the Department of Environmental Quality, I worked with the Quality Assurance Director.  In my short time at DEQ I assisted with quality assurance audits of DEQ regional offices, organized and digitized 20 years of water monitoring records, and wrote three major documents.  I researched and updated the Non-Agency Water Quality Monitoring help file used by citizen monitoring groups and Chapter 2 of the 305(b)/303(d) Integrated Water Quality Assessment Report and citizen monitoring tables with current Citizen Water Quality Monitoring data.  I also created a user help file for the Virginia Environmental Geographic Information System (VEGIS).

Virginia Department of Environmental Quality

Intern

Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay is a non-profit organization dedicated to bringing together individuals, organizations, businesses and governments to find collaborative solutions, to build a strong commitment to stewardship, and to deliver innovative, broadly-supported programs that benefit the land, waters, and residents of the Chesapeake Bay.As an intern for Alliance, I worked primarily with their RiverWise Watershed Protection Program.  I organized and conducted property assessments to determine which stormwater best management practices, such as, rain gardens, bayscapes, and rain barrels, would work best on each property.   I also helped refine the RiverWise Watershed Protection program as it continues to grow within Richmond by collaborating with the other interns to streamline the assessment process, update the assessment form and revise feedback documents.Professional Trainings Citizen Water Quality Monitoring- This training was to become a RiverTrends Volunteer Water Quality Monitor through the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay and the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality.  Through this, I was certified to collect level two samples for Water Clarity (using a secchi disk or turbidity tube), and level three samples for Temperature (using an armored or digital thermometer), Dissolved Oxygen (using a LaMotte Dissolved Oxygen Test Kit), pH (using an Oakton pH Testr 30 Meter), and Bacteria.Invasive Species Removal- This training prepared me to become an Remove Invasive Plants (RIP) Ranger.  It covered proper identification and removal techniques for a variety of invasive species, from vine species like English Ivy to bushes and trees like Japanese honeysuckle.

Vermont River Conservancy (VRC) is a small non-profit land trust focused on protecting popular swimming holes, breathtaking gorges, and magnificent waterfalls, fishing and boating assesses, paddlers’ trials, wildlife corridors and watersheds.  This organization is supported by people who believe the protection of exceptional shore land is essential to the quality of life in Vermont.  Since this is a very small, one and a half person organization, I gained valuable experience doing a variety of tasks in order to promote the organizations initiatives.  The main project I worked on during my internship was to complete VRC’s Easement Amendment and Easement Violation policies.  To accomplish this, I updated the policies and worked with the board to finalize the wording.  The board passed both policies during my internship.  Another project I worked on was updating GIS maps for each easement property, checking accuracy of GPS data for each site.  This included uploading all of the GIS polygons to a sub-meter GPS unit and field checking the site boundaries.  Further, I then used Bing Maps to display all of the conserved areas on the VRC website in a user-friendly way to make them accessible to the general public.  Other various projects I worked on while interning at VRC included: organizing stewardship and outreach programs, documenting Board meeting minutes and promoting VRC initiatives in an e-newsletter.

Vermont River Conservancy

The UNCW Aquatic Ecology Lab is a research lab that assesses the physical, chemical and biological components of marine, estuarine and freshwater ecosystems.I worked as a Lab Technician at the Aquatic Ecology Laboratory during my Master’s degree in Marine Science.  The major projects that occurred during my time in the lab were The Lower Cape Fear River Program (LCRFP), the City of Wilmington Watersheds Project, and JEL Wade Wetland Project.  For these projects, I organized and scheduled numerous truck and boat sampling trips each month, collected samples, analyzed various physical, chemical and biological parameters both in the field and in the lab, entered data into lab databases and managed databases to ensure accuracy of data, and assisted with data analysis and writing the annual reports.  Skills:-Field research and analysis of physical water properties using YSI Sonde model 6820 multi-parameter water quality probe -Lab analysis of fecal coliform bacteria using the membrane filtration (mFC) method (APHA Method 9222B), North Carolina State-certified chlorophyll a (EPA Method 445.0), biochemical oxygen demand (APHA Method 5210B), chemical nutrient analysis using a segmented flow Bran-Luebbe AutoAnalyzer (APHA Method 4120B), nutrient bioassays, and dilution bioassays (Method from Landry and Hassett, 1982)-Statistical analysis of data

Liz Chudoba