Hi everyone, Jackie Ruff again!

It has been a very busy summer in the Groundwater Education Program! We have only done about a third of our events but have done over 150 nitrate screenings of well water. Our goal is to do 500 nitrate tests by the end of the summer. This goal definitely seemed a bit ambitious at the beginning of the summer. But being this far along already, and with most of our bigger events still to come, I am confident we can reach this goal.

So far, we have had events in Linn, Benton, Marion, Lincoln and Polk counties. We have gone to farmers markets, community festivals, fairs and concerts in the park. Our busiest event so far was the Tri County Business Expo & Harrisburg, where we did about 70 tests! This event was a ton of fun. I got to talk to so many people about their wells and enjoy a lovely concert while doing so. Talking with community members is one of my favorite parts of this internship. I love when I can help people find the answers to their questions on wells and just hearing about so many different peoples’ experiences. At the Tri County Business Expo & Harrisburg Summer Sounds, we talked to almost 250 different people! We stayed very busy the whole event, but it was so much fun.

I am definitely looking forward to doing more events over in Lincoln County on the coast. Although the drive there from Corvallis can be a bit long, the coast is one of my favorite spots. And we do not get to do a ton of events out there during the rest of the year.

I am also looking forward to the Corvallis neighborhood screening we scheduled for early September. Usually, we attend events that are already happening, such as farmers markets, to do nitrate screenings. For this event, we were invited by a homeowner to host a pop-up screening at her home. It has been a very different experience planning the screening with her directly. I am excited to see the turn out we get, since I have never done a neighborhood pop up like this before.