Montana has a broad spectrum of citizen-based, volunteer water quality monitoring programs. Many volunteer monitoring (VM) programs are administered by watershed groups, conservation districts, local water quality protection districts, non-governmental organizations or other entities. Each group is driven by a unique set of monitoring objectives which may include watershed education for youth and adults, collection of baseline data to study water quality status and trends, or monitoring to evaluate the effectiveness of conservation practices and restoration projects. Volunteers collect a variety of chemical, physical and biological parameters to characterize water quality and associated habitat and flow conditions. DEQ has funding to fund the laboratory analysis and sample shipping costs of water and sediment chemistry samples collected through volunteer monitoring efforts. This funding supports projects designed to gather water quality data related to  nonpoint source water pollution. Applicants can request up to $3,000 per project. See the Call for Applications for more information.