LAGRANGE – Money has been given to a LaGrange County organization to help them with a project they have been wanting to do.

The LaGrange County Soil & Water Conservation District has received a grant of $11,500 from the LaGrange County Community Foundation. The funds will be used to support its plans to develop and implement a long-term and county-wide water quality monitoring program. The money comes from the Caring Community Fund.

Martin Franke, District Manager of the LaGrange County Soil & Water Conservation District, says the funds would be used to acquire equipment and skills necessary to begin testing surface waters in 15 locations strategically selected in each of the four river watersheds in LaGrange County. That includes the Fawn, Pigeon, Little Elkhart and North Branch Elkhart Rivers.

Samples will be drawn from these locations once per week for twenty consecutive weeks beginning in May 2024, and tested for various characteristics indicative of water quality, including bacterial and chemical compounds known to be harmful to water quality.

Franke says in the past, they’ve typically only been able to sample water for quality testing sporadically or limited by the duration of a specific grant project in a small area. He says this will give them the data continuously throughout the warm weather season to better support all users of the natural water resources in LaGrange County.