Armed with hip waders and some unorthodox equipment, stream monitors are coming to protect area waterways.

Trout Unlimited recently trained a group of local conservation-minded people to monitor the quality of area streams that could be affected by the proposed PennEast pipeline.The pipeline crosses dozens of such streams, including the Pohopoco and Aquashicola right here in Carbon County.Volunteers recently came together to learn how Trout Unlimited does monitoring testing, with hopes of applying it along the PennEast route.They'll be looking for erosion and sediment that could potentially damage the trout streams during the construction of the pipeline."We want to get them out there quickly to get some baseline data, so it will be before and during construction, and we'll do some follow-up monitoring after construction to make sure that the permanent erosion controls are functioning properly," said Jake Lemon, who oversees the program.The volunteers are all people who have some interest in maintaining water quality. There were fishermen, nature lovers and college academics.John Bernick of Allen Township is a volunteer who will be monitoring the Hokendauqua Creek near his home. He said that he'll bring the monitoring equipment along when he goes to fish the creek."As California has learned, water is our most precious resource, and we have lots of water here in the East, it would be nice to have it clean so that it's drinkable, fishable and swimmable," he said.Volunteers learned how to consistently measure the turbidity (transparency) of the water among other indicators. That will help them to quickly identify if there is a problem that could potentially affect aquatic life.Lemon said that the goal of the project is more about ensuring the health of area streams, more than trying to get penalties against PennEast."We're trying to get more eyes and ears so if there is an issue, it's seen, it's reported, and it's fixed in a quick manner, so there aren't ongoing impacts," he said.