About Samantha Baxter

Samantha M. Baxter is a Writer and the Managing Editor for Fondriest Environmental. She is in the process of obtaining B.A. degrees in Integrated Language Arts Education and Political Science at Wright State University. She was hired as an intern in the spring of 2022 and has continued to work as a writer and editor for the Environmental Monitor, FishSens Magazine and other Fondriest Environmental pages. As a writer, Samantha works with researchers from across the country to craft stories that highlight their work and its impacts. As an editor, Samantha works with graphic designers, fellow writers, and various environmental professionals to create unique content for Fondriest Environmental. Samantha enjoys swimming, running, reading and playing video games in her free time.

Articles By Samantha Baxter

Lakes

Source Water Monitoring in Albany, New York: Tracing Water Quality throughout Tributaries

Thousands of US cities pull their drinking water from natural source waters like reservoirs, rivers, and streams, making overall watershed health a key consideration for water providers. In Albany, New York, the Albany Department of Water and Water Supply delivers drinking water to over 100,000 residents as well as...

  • Posted May 19, 2025
A local prescribed fire crew (First Rain Land Stewardship) burning piles at the Yuba Watershed Institute's Little Deer Creek Landscape Resilience Project.

Earth

Wildfire Prevention in the Sierra Nevada Region with the Yuba Watershed Institute

Though recent wildfires have sparked new conversations about wildfire management and response, groups like the Yuba Watershed Institute have been monitoring the forests and water resources of the Sierra Nevada region for decades, managing approximately 5,000 acres of land with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and about 7,000...

  • Posted May 14, 2025
Overhead view of multiple article spreads from the 2025 Spring edition of the Environmental Monitor.

Earth

Spring 2025 Environmental Monitor Available Now

In the Spring 2025 edition of the Environmental Monitor, we highlight partnerships across the world and the importance of collaboration between government agencies, universities, environmental groups, local communities, and other stakeholders. From great white shark research in Cape Cod to monitoring fisheries in Lake Erie, this latest edition underscores...

  • Posted May 7, 2025
MarRecon partner farm, Spinnaker Sea Farms, on a snowy spring day. This farm is located in Kachemak Bay near Homer, Alaska.

Earth

Monitoring Mariculture in the Gulf of Alaska

The mariculture industry in the Gulf of Alaska has been steadily growing in recent years, guided by ongoing research to help refine farm location and cultivation practices. A subset of aquaculture, mariculture focuses on rearing organisms in the open ocean. In Alaska, finfish farming is illegal, so most farms...

  • Posted May 5, 2025
A CB-950 and CB-25 deployed on site at Port Everglades. The sensor buoys are protected by white buoys on the sides to prevent collisions with boats in the area.

Oceans

Expanding the Port Everglades: Real-Time Monitoring of Water Quality Conditions from Planned Dredging Operation

The Port Everglades in Broward County, Florida, serves large trade vessels and cruiseliners and incoming and outgoing recreational boaters. However, as cargo ships become larger, the port must expand. A dredging project led by the US Army Corps of Engineers will substantially deepen and widen the port’s navigation channel...

  • Posted April 21, 2025
NexSens data buoy deployed at the Keweenaw North Entry (NDBC 45023). The northern shoreline of the Keweenaw Peninsula is in the background.

Earth

Great Lakes Research Center: Designing Targeted Monitoring Solutions

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Great Lakes have more miles of coastline than the contiguous Atlantic and Pacific coasts combined and contain 20 percent of the world’s freshwater, making it a critical region to protect and conserve. Continuous monitoring and data-informed resource management are...

  • Posted March 17, 2025
An overview of the Fellows Ave monitoring station along Meadowbrook Creek.

Earth

Monitoring Meadowbrook Creek: Real-Time Data Collection in an Urban Creek

Meadowbrook Creek in Syracuse, New York, has been monitored by Syracuse University (SU) faculty and students for over a decade. Originally established by Dr. Laura Lautz in 2012, the early years of the program focused on collecting grab water samples for laboratory analysis and evaluating the impact of urban...

  • Posted March 10, 2025
First telemetry unit installed at LCCD along the Little Conestoga Creek.

Earth

Lancaster County Makes the Switch to Real-Time Water Quality Monitoring Systems

Continuous data collection in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, started about 5 years ago, and the county will be making a major upgrade over the next year—switching from relying solely on the internal storage of water quality sondes to telemetry units that enable real-time data viewing. Telling Lancaster County’s Story Through...

  • Posted March 3, 2025
Clendenen and Brenner collecting two samples at each site.

Earth

Watershed Stewardship in Minnesota: Protecting Valley Creek in the Land of 10,000 Lakes

The Saint Croix Watershed is home to dozens of lakes, rivers, and streams that host an abundance of aquatic life from its tributaries. Valley Creek, a tributary of the St. Croix River, is a designated trout stream and while it is a pristine waterway, ongoing monitoring and stewardship establish...

  • Posted February 24, 2025
Buoy on Choke Canyon Reservoir.

Earth

From Pans to Buoys: Advancing Reservoir Evaporation Rate Monitoring in Texas

In warmer climates like Texas, high reservoir evaporation rates can lead to declines in water level and water availability during droughts, making monitoring essential in order to ensure water security during times of scarcity. According to the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB), evaporation rates in Texas were previously based...

  • Posted February 19, 2025
Rocky shallow portion of the Arroyo Seco stream which flow south from the San Garbriel Mountains where the rainbow trout translocation occurred during the wildfires.

Earth

Wildfires and Wildlife: Relocating Coastal Rainbow Trout to the Arroyo Seco Stream

Human interaction has negatively impacted the hundreds of streams that run through Southern California. Man-made river and stream diversions, channeling, and damming have changed the physical and chemical characteristics of these waterways. In addition to physical impairments, climate change is increasingly impacting the ecosystems of streams. To evaluate and...

  • Posted February 10, 2025
Barge electrofishing by state and federal employees prior to habitat restoration on Wiscoy Creek which is a tributary to the Genesee River. 

Earth

Monitoring and Facilitating Habitat Restoration Efforts in the Great Lakes

While human infrastructure, urbanization, and industrialization have advanced human societies, the natural environment has suffered due to constructed impediments and deteriorating architecture. In order to combat this degradation, habitat restoration programs across the US work to remove impairments and improve damaged waterways. Habitat Restoration Efforts in the Great Lakes...

  • Posted January 27, 2025
A NexSens buoy deployed on the Kentucky River during a recent training exercise conducted by Kentucky’s Emergency Response Team.

Earth

Buoy-Based Solutions: Strengthening Kentucky’s Emergency Response Efforts

When Kentucky’s Emergency Response Team (ERT) has to act quickly in response to chemical and oil spills in the Commonwealth, they rely on small, easily deployable buoys to collect critical data that help minimize and evaluate damages in environmental emergencies. With a background in geology, Robert Blair primarily worked...

  • Posted January 6, 2025
Sequoia team members installing the NexSens X3 datalogger to enable remote monitoring of sensor outputs.

Earth

Monitoring OAE Efforts in Halifax: Fighting Climate Change with Emerging mCDR Strategies

Marine carbon dioxide (CO2) removal (mCDR) is an emerging strategy that aims to fight climate change by taking advantage of the carbon capture potential of our oceans. There are multiple types of mCDR approaches being evaluated globally, one of which is ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE). According to NOAA, OAE...

  • Posted December 23, 2024
HRWC citizen science volunteers measure stream velocity across a subsection of Woods Creek, a tributary of the Huron River near Belleville, Michigan.

Earth

Lake Erie Volunteer Science Network: Building Trust in Citizen Science Programs

Citizen science programs have popped up across the United States, focusing on connecting local communities with nearby water resources and building a trustworthy data pool over the sampling period. While commonly utilized as a means of ensuring that large watersheds or lake regions are adequately sampled, the credibility and...

  • Posted December 16, 2024
The Dunkirk Buoy located in the eastern basin of Lake Erie viewed from the research vessel after being deployed in early spring.

Earth

Monitoring Lake Erie’s Eastern Basin: Building Long-Term Data and Real-Time Public Solutions

In the eastern basin of Lake Erie, off the coast of Dunkirk, New York, a data buoy collects valuable water quality, weather, and wave data that inform residents and regulatory groups of conditions on the water. Since 2011, Buffalo State University’s Great Lakes Center has maintained and operated the...

  • Posted December 9, 2024
DOW bathymetry team assisting Abandoned Mine Lands in collecting depth/volume data at a coal pond retention basin. The image is take from above with a drone

Earth

Monitoring Kentucky’s Water Resources with Drone Imaging and Unmanned Surface Vehicles

Wesley Turner, an Environmental Scientist Advisor with the GIS and Data Analysis Section of the Watershed Management Branch in the Kentucky Division of Water, spends his days researching current technology and developing various drone programs for the Division of Water. Having grown up during Love Canal and Valley of...

  • Posted November 25, 2024
BS1 sampling platform in its deployed position. The site is powered by a solar-powered battery, connects to the WQDataLive cloud service with a cellular modem, and collects temperature, salinity, oxygen, chlorophyll, turbidity, pH, and weather parameters. The site is located between two oyster aquaculture facilities in Morro Bay, CA.

Earth

Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo Manages Monitoring Efforts in Morro Bay

California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly, SLO), has been monitoring Morro Bay for decades, and while the monitoring program has changed over the years, the dedication to monitoring the bay has remained the same. The project started in 2006 as a Packard Foundation-funded initiative to monitor...

  • Posted November 18, 2024
Gleaming and new, the first LoRa buoy is deployed in lower Green Bay, ready to collect valuable, real-time surface algal pigment, temperature profile, and dissolved oxygen data for its first season.

Earth

Green Water in Green Bay: Using Data Buoys to Monitor the Southern Bay

While the bay of Green Bay has been referred to as the largest freshwater “estuary” in the world, the watershed hosts intensive agriculture and contributes one-third of Lake Michigan’s total phosphorus load.  The Fox River flows into the bay, carrying excess nutrients largely the result of non-point source runoff...

  • Posted November 11, 2024
The Tijuana River Estuary monitoring station, including solar panel, logger and telemetry.

Earth

Cross-Border Sewage Contaminated Flows: Monitoring the Tijuana River

The Tijuana River runs across the US-Mexico boundary, flowing into and throughout southern California, carrying with it nutrients and contaminants throughout the estuary. In recent decades, the flows have been heavily polluted with untreated sewage from the City of Tijuana. The wastewater enters the greater Tijuana River estuary, impacting...

  • Posted November 4, 2024