The icky quotient in our waters and why we must rely on volunteers to tell us about it.

Last Earth Day, 120 volunteers fanned out to watersheds that drain into the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary to see just how our rivers and sloughs were doing. And now the results of their hard work--the largest single water quality monitoring event in California history--are in.

Brady Phillips, the sanctuary''s media affairs director, says that based on the testing of 122 sample sites on 89 rivers and creeks last April, the areawide grade is something like a B.

"Overall, the water quality is fairly good in a number of areas in the sanctuary," he says. But the results from "Snapshot Day" also reveal some definite trouble spots to watch out for in this diverse region, where urban and suburban developments compete with irrigated fields, timberlands and grazing areas. Thanks to the region''s many uses, the creeks and rivers have the chance to pick up any variety of sediments, oils, pesticides and pathogens as they wind their way toward the ocean sanctuary.

Of all the sanctuary waterways--spanning 300 miles of coastal land from the Marin headlands south to Cambria--Monterey County claims some of the most troubled waters. High levels of coliform, nitrates and phosphates and low levels of dissolved oxygen spell bad news for aquatic flora and fauna in our watersheds.

Coliform bacteria--something of a buzz word during this past year due to Alco water supplier mishaps and Pacific Grove and Monterey sewage spills--remains a problem on the Peninsula. The indicator, which measures disease-causing bacteria originating from the feces of warm-blooded creatures, was high in Pacific Grove and watersheds draining into Moss Landing. It could have been worse: At Pilarcitos Creek in San Mateo County, coliform levels were 60 times greater than the safe limit for swimming. High coliform levels can cause Hepatitis A and other health problems.

Also of serious concern were high levels of nitrates and phosphates, which can stimulate excessive algal and weed growth in streams, contributing to higher temperatures and less oxygen for fish. High amounts of nitrates, often caused by runoff of manure, sewage and fertilizers, were recorded in the Alisal and Tembladero sloughs near Salinas and in a creek at 13th and Central in Pacific Grove.

And after all the effort to protect the threatened steelhead trout with a bevy of rules prohibiting the disruption of its habitat, it now appears the levels of dissolved oxygen in many local waterways are low enough to threaten steelhead and many other fishes'' chances for easy breathing, feeding, spawning and incubating. Among the worst are Salinas River, Atascadero Creek and the Elkhorn, Tembladero and Alisal sloughs.

Phillips notes that a high concentration of volunteers and the generous participation of CSU Monterey Bay means more sites were tested in Monterey County than in other counties. On the other hand, he points out that Monterey has the largest watershed and "a combination of lots of people living here and land under agriculture."

At first glance, it may seem odd that volunteers are entrusted with the crucial task of testing the sanctuary''s watersheds for such important problems. But the reality is that monitoring the Monterey Bay Sanctuary--whose 5,300 square miles of ocean, 11 major watersheds, and 500 aquatic species form the largest sanctuary in the country--is a monstrous task, far beyond the capacity of the 16 sanctuary staff members.

A decrease in available funding statewide keeps the percentage of California rivers and streams tested down to below 10 percent. And locally, a confluence of jurisdictions between the county health department, the Environmental Protection Agency, the forest service, state parks, and regional water quality control boards means often the tests that are done are not compatible. The bottom line, says Phillips, is that "we''re in a situation where we don''t know the status of the water quality from streams and waterways that drain into the sanctuary."

But water monitoring has been a focal point of the sanctuary since its designation in 1992. "The Peninsula had fairly good water quality [in 1992], and tourism was up because of wildlife viewing and surfing, snorkeling and other water activities," explains Phillips. "People wanted this area to remain clean. You don''t have to go far--up to San Francisco or down to Los Angeles--to see what happens when pollution becomes a big issue. You start to lose some of those things that make Monterey so attractive."

So the grand idea was borne to recruit and train volunteers to perform tests that could establish a baseline of data as a reference for future results. Working alongside two nonprofit organizations, the Coastal Watershed Council and the Center for Marine Conservation, the sanctuary''s Water Quality Protection Program stockpiled test tubes and thermometers and sent its trained volunteers out into the rain and sun last April.

And considering that all was accomplished with a mere $4,000, the sanctuary folks are planning to make Snapshot Day a regular event. "It''s my job to make it sustainable and long-term so that we can have years and years of consistent and reliable data that resource managers can use," says Bridget Hoover, coordinator of the Sanctuary Citizen Watershed Monitoring Network.

The data gathered by the volunteers will just be the beginning. "This is not the end-all in terms of monitoring--it''s the initial snapshot," says Phillips. "If it''s found that a stream is exceeding its coliform standard, then either the sanctuary working with county health or another group can go back and more closely monitor these areas to find out if there is really a problem and to get to the source of issue."

Phillips posits that overall, things aren''t looking too bad. While local population growth threatens to compound the issue of urban pollution, Phillips says, "the good news is that [the high indicators] are all things that can be reduced through education and citizen awareness. It''s simple stuff like what are you putting in the yard, making sure to curb pet waste. We''re already working with agricultural industry to implement the best land management practices to reduce erosion and to determine how much of certain fertilizers to use."

For info on this year''s Snapshot Day on April 21, call 883-9303. To read the Snapshot Day report, go to www.mbnms.nos.noaa.gov/ Resourcepro/reports/snapshot2000/ .