AMESBURY - The boat looked just like every other pleasurecraft in the water on the Merrimack River.
But while others were focused on enjoying the sunny summer day yesterday, it was all work aboard the boat used by the Merrimack River Watershed Council.
The group, formed to protect the river and draw attention to the watershed, began a long-term, detailed study last month. The study brought volunteers - led by Tracie Sales, the water resource manager - to Amesbury yesterday.
There, the three tested the water for a range of conditions, among them clarity, temperature and acidity as part of the study, monitoring the Merrimack from the New Hampshire border to the point where it meets the sea in Newburyport.
The council will continue to use the data to keep track of the state of the river and track any problems or signs of pollution.
While the river has been getting cleaner in recent years, "the water has historically been pretty dirty," Sales said.
The Merrimack River has been listed as an "impaired" body of water, and the Mother's Day flooding last year sparked worries of sewage overflows and highlighted a need to begin testing near the river's tributaries, such as the Powow River, Sales said.
The weekly tests will record conditions so, if there are any changes, the Merrimack River Watershed Council would know and work to address them.
Sales, joined by Lewis Zediana, chief operating engineer at the Tewksbury Water Treatment Plant - who also offered the use of his boat for the daylong trip - and volunteer Peter Quirk of Dracut, used several tools to conduct the studies. Among them, a rope that was tossed in the water, shows the river's clarity and depth, and a handheld probe that measures the temperature, salt, dissolved solids, oxygen and conductivity of the Merrimack.
"It's all technical these days," Sales said.
A global positioning system shows each of the sites that have been tested, Quirk said.
After the initial study is completed this year, Sales said, the council can use the data to determine the river's "hot spots" and points of interest for continual monitoring.
Levels at the different sites are recorded weekly, and water samples are sent monthly to a local Environmental Protection Agency lab in Chelmsford for testing. High bacteria levels can be an indication that sewage is being improperly dumped, either from boats or land. A high pH level can mean the water's acidity is lower than normal, meaning chemicals, such as fertilizers, might have been improperly dumped.
The council can then work to learn where the pollution is coming from in order to find a way to clean it up and educate people about the river.
The project is supported by the state Department of Environmental Protection and the federal Environmental Protection Agency, which is donating the GPS and testing equipment along with lab time to process the samples.
