Water samples and temperature readings are taken at Coal Creek (COL001) at the mountain biking trailhead along Coal Creek Road as part of the Elk River Alliance's Community-based Water Monitoring program (CBWM) and Elk River Alliance's Hydrometric program. The CBWM program assesses aquatic habitat health at selected tributaries of the Elk River to fill in gaps in currently available watershed data and make these data accessible to the broader community. In 2020, ERA's CBWM program transitioned into a fully CABIN (Canadian Aquatic Biomonitoring Network) based program, with macroinvertebrate sampling occurring annually during low-flow conditions. This site is part of the Columbia Basin Water Monitoring Framework program (CBWMF). The CBWMF is a coordinated monitoring network that tracks how climate change and other impacts are affecting water supply for communities and ecosystems across the Canadian Columbia Basin region.
