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A grant from the Louisville Water Foundation helped Kentucky Watershed Watch (KWW) strengthen water monitoring in the Louisville area by expanding local support hubs, training new volunteers, and improving access to equipment used to test stream health.
The $6,756 grant supported KWW’s 2025 efforts to establish a new support hub at Bellarmine University. A training event onboarded several students “who then began collecting chemistry and microbiological data from stream locations near campus,” said Becca Trueman, KWW project manager and watershed coordinator.
The organization also used the funding to equip Louisville-area hubs with supplies and to support hub managers through webinars, information sessions, a training video, and a new Support Hub Guidance Manual. Volunteer recruitment was another focus area. KWW worked with community partners to broaden participation and increase outreach.
Foundation funding also supported Bellarmine biology students’ research comparing the lower-cost R-CARD (Rapid Test Method) for detecting E. coli with the long-standing IDEXX lab method. Early results have been promising.
“KWW is sharing its results with other hubs and samplers throughout the state, allowing us to engage in an important conversation about cost reduction for volunteer monitoring and retention of data quality throughout the network,” Trueman said.
Ultimately, the Foundation grant will help KWW provide “swift follow-up actions whenever pollution issues arise, connecting volunteers and local agencies to collaboratively address problems identified by monitoring efforts,” she said.
Louisville Water is sharing this story during National Water Quality Month to highlight how the Foundation supports local partners whose work helps protect source water and promote safe drinking water for everyone.
