Stream Teams Unite to Protect
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Big County Piney River, Texas By Peter Maki, Stream 4623 Team September – October 2012 4654 Stream Teams Information for and about Missouri Stream Teams Strong! INSIDE Stream Teams Unite to Protect THIS ISSUE Big Piney River 2 Stream Team Awards By Susan Higgins, DNR VWQM Coordinator Monitoring Minutes: n May 24th, after several false starts, the Equipment Reorder & Return Big Piney Watershed Committee finally Level 1 VWQM Ocame together to start a Stream Team Workshops Scheduled Association, adopting the name Big Piney River Stream Team Watershed Association. Peter Team Snapshots Maki (Stream Team 4623) of Top of the Ozarks 3 Riffle Review The Houston Scouts – ready to get some garbage! Resource Conservation & Development, Inc. has Team Calendar been serving as meeting facilitator since January well as free shuttle service and the use of 20 4 Teams in Action and is very happy with the success they have had canoes for the river cleanup. getting organized. All in all, the volunteers covered 18.6 miles Activity Report 5 They got off to a great start with a of river and brought in 55 tires, 215 pounds of Osuccessful Big Piney River Cleanup on June scrap metal, and 1,466 pounds of trash. Adding 7 Activity Prize Winners 23rd, organized by Debbie Miller from the Kabul to the total pulled from the river were things Things You Find When Waterdogs (Stream Team 3419). The Boiling like chairs, carpet, a burn barrel, and a car the Water Goes Down Springs Access was the starting point for the trunk lid. Of the tires retrieved, five were large Reminder: Stream Team cleanup and they registered 72 volunteers on site. truck tires and one was a skidder tire estimated 8 License Plates Those volunteers included members of Houston to weigh over 400 pounds. That was a major Coalition Corner: News Cub Scout Pack 62 and Girl Scout Troop 70166. accomplishment! After the cleanup, volunteers from MSTWC Since the cleanup, the Scouts have jointly gathered back at Boiling Springs for a BBQ adopted the Dog’s Bluff and Mineral Springs lunch complete with prizes. Accesses on the Big Piney River, pledging to With one successful event under their belts, help keep them clean and green. Scott Wade the Big Piney River Stream Team Watershed (Stream Team 1622) of Raftville Canoe Company Association now plan to turn their attention to offered volunteers free campground space, as the problem of household pharmaceuticals in rivers and streams. To address this issue, they Our Stream Team will host a DEA Drug Take-Back Event with the Annual Report Houston Police Department on September 29th IS HOT OFF at the Houston Wal-Mart. It is easy to see that THE PRESS! this ambitious group will go far in protecting the Filled with Stream Team data, water quality of the Big Piney River. accomplishments, and YOUR photos, the 2011 Report is free for the asking. To request a copy, call 1-800- Did you know . ? 781-1989, or look online at www.mostreamteam.org. Continued on page 2 Rolling one of five large truck tires out of the river. Stream Team Awards For Activities Conducted in 2011 Stream Team Ambassador Awards By Amy Meier, MDC Stream Team Biologist l Billy Backues Stream Team 4193–Missouri Master Naturalists–Lake Ozark Area Chapter Equipment Reorder & Return l Sam Allison erhaps it has been a while since you last visited your Stream Team 4169–Big River Baggers Padopted stream, but you’re ready to get your feet Stream Team 4520–Four Rivers Stream Team Association wet again. Fall is upon us and the weather is perfect l Stuart Caswell for monitoring. In preparation, if you begin sorting Stream Team 2264–Brush Creek Mid-Shed Project through your chemical equipment and realize that your Stream Team 3949–Prairie Creek Stream Team buffers and reagents are outdated–no problem! There Stream Team 4503–Platte River Rats are several easy options for replacing your expired VWQM Ambassador Awards chemicals: l John Rothgeb • Visit www.mostreamteam.org and find the Chemical Stream Team 2958–Missouri Master Naturalists–Ozark Chapter Equipment Reorder Form under the “Forms” tab. Simply Stream Team 3798–White River Hills Stream Team Association fill out and submit the online form to request replacement l Don Pierpont monitoring equipment; Stream Team 2898–Wheaton School FFA • Send an e-mail listing the materials you need to [email protected] or [email protected]; or • Leave a voicemail at 1-800-781-1989 to request equipment and chemical replacements. Remember to include your full name, phone number, and shipping address. Maybe you have a lot of expired chemicals, but are just not sure what to do with them. The only materials that must be returned to the VWQM Program for disposal are expired Nitrate Reducing Reagents in the small brown bottle, NitraVer 3 and 5 reagents for the nitrate colorimeter, and any waste generated from nitrate tests. All other reagents may be disposed of at home, either in the trash (such as those in powder- pillow form) or down the drain with water, including: Congratulations to our 2011 Ambassador Award winners! From left to right, John • All Dissolved Oxygen, Phosphorus, Ammonia, Hardness, Rothgeb, Billy Backues, and Sam Allison. Not pictured are Stuart Caswell and and Alkalinity reagents and test wastes Don Pierpont. • Yellow (7.0) and blue (10.0) pH buffers • Conductivity calibration solution • Mixed Acid reagent • Chloride test strips Level 1 Water Quality Monitoring If you no longer intend to monitor, we understand and strive to make the equipment return process simple. Workshops Have Been Scheduled Test kits, meters, and nitrate waste can be returned (Intro Level Workshop is prerequisite.) to any MDC or DNR regional office in a box marked “Stream Team” with a label stating what the box Sign up soon! contains. You may also contact VWQM staff to request See calendar on page 4. a pre-paid shipping label to return equipment by mail. If you choose this option, please remove any expired reagents that can be disposed of at home. This will reduce the weight of the package and shipping costs. As always, we encourage seasoned volunteers to . the large, predacious . attend a Level 1 workshop as a refresher. You might be Continued on page 3 surprised how much you learn the second time around! Channels 2 September–October 2012 Team Snapshots The Riffle Review a bi-monthly glimpse of Stream Team activities Since our last issue of Channels, Stream Team members reported: l 1,223 total activities l 276.9 tons of trash collected l 19,314 total participants l 300 water quality monitoring trips l 113,848 total hours l 3,242 trees planted Check out more highlights below . Team 246 Ozark Sunrise Expeditions planted 125 tree seedlings and 25 shrubs, including willow pegs and wildlife bundles, along Shoal Creek in Newton County. Stream Team Assistant Darlene Haun helps Garvey’s Team 463 Greenway Network’s 9th Annual Spring Dardenne Creek Crawdads (Team 2160) measure dissolved oxygen in a Monitoring Day was a success. Sites were tested over a 27 mile stretch of tributary to Dardenne Creek. creek, from the headwaters to the last road crossing before the confluence with the Mississippi River. Team 1995 Tom Mazurek and his grandson, Trevor, collected one bag of trash, a tire, and two pillows during a floating and fishing trip on Big River. Tom says, “I’m very proud of him. He doesn’t like to see trash on the water, be it lakes or streams.” Keep up the good work, Trevor – every little bit helps! Team 2145 Cub Scout Pack 202 spent the 10th Annual Waynesville Pride Day cleaning an illegal dump site full of trash and tires along Roubidoux Creek. They collected three truckloads of trash, including 19 tires, a television, and a tricycle. Now that’s something to be proud of! The USDA Forest Service Team (Team 4442) in Houston Team 3381 45 students helped build a new duck habitat, repair duck houses shows off the haul from their annual Big Piney River Cleanup. and docks, and trim trees at the Bootheel Youth Museum Pond in Malden. They rewarded themselves with two hours of fishing on Combs Lake. Not too shabby! Team 3879 ADM Mexico collected 12 bags of trash from Teal Lake and a small tributary. Brooks Pettit reports, “The weather was great and four of the nine volunteers were kids. They had a great time and it was good to see how they enjoyed picking up litter and making the lake safer and cleaner.” Team 4031 It was Linda Bishop’s first time monitoring her adopted stream when there was no flow. She was able to conduct chemical monitoring in a pool, but the macroinvertebrates had to wait for another day. Team 4369 During their first storm drain stenciling outing, the Missouri Master Naturalists–Hi Lonesome Chapter marked over 60 storm drains This family brought their homemade wooden kayaks to around Sedalia. the Scenic Rivers Stream Team Association’s (Team 674) 6th Annual Current River Cleanup. Team 4473 The River Rovers joined Teams 211 and 3917 for a cleanup on the Big River in St. Francois County. They pulled 38 tires out of the river but, Bo Jarvis reports, are “finding fewer and fewer tires along this short stretch of river. We are seeing progress!” That’s what we like to hear! Team 4606 Jennifer Eyers said, “This was our first trash pickup event as a Stream Team! It was a lot of fun. Anytime we would spot trash we would shout, ‘Stream Team!’ and someone would pick it up.” 12 Team members picked up trash while floating eight miles of the Current River.