Content - On the Water with IDEQ — Living Lake Project

Living Lake Project artist fellows spent the morning on Coeur d'Alene Lake with the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality and CDA Cruises for a hands-on look at water testing in action.

The group boarded at Boardwalk Marina at 8:00 a.m. and headed out to Site C-1 near Tubbs Hill, where Jason Fales led a full water monitoring demonstration: a water column profile with a Eureka water quality sonde, a Secchi disc reading, water sample collection with a Kemmerer and churn splitter, chlorophyll a sampling, and a discussion of the data and trends behind it all.

Regular water testing like this is what keeps our waterways boatable, fishable, and swimmable — now and for future generations. And while a lot of progress has been made on Lake Coeur d'Alene, generations of work remain.

That's part of why this fellowship exists. Our artist fellows are in the process of learning the complex history of this watershed in detail, so they can create projects that make that information accessible and digestible for the public. It's all part of the larger mission: caretaking our watershed for the benefit of all living things.

After the demonstration, the group enjoyed a social cruise on the lake before docking and disembarking at 10:30 — a morning that mixed science, story, and a little time to just be out on the water.