Volunteer Water Quality Monitoring

Ozarks Water Watch is helping develop a Volunteer Water Quality Monitoring Network throughout the Upper White River Basin. The data collected will not only be used in our annual Status of the Watershed Report, but by the various local, state and federal regulatory agencies and other watershed organizations. This volunteer network will identify priority areas needing additional attention, develop trends over the years to establish if water quality is getting better or worse and to encourage citizen involvement in our water quality efforts.

Typical Ozark stream.

There are many partners in the project! I am going to name them as I feel the partnership aspect of this project is one of the most important parts. Partners include: Missouri Department of Conservation, Missouri Department of Natural Resources, Missouri Stream Teams, Missouri Stream Team Watershed Coalition, Lakes of Missouri Volunteer Program, Arkansas Game & Fish, Arkansas Stream Teams, Arkansas Stream Smart, Arkansas Water Resources Center, Beaver Water District, Beaver Watershed Alliance, Friends of the North Fork and White Rivers, Table Rock Lake Water Quality, James River Basin Partnership and of course Ozarks Water Watch. My greatest apologies if I have left anyone off the list!

Anna Nowack with MO DNR points to a potential monitoring site. It should be noted that the water is higher than normal due to the recent rain event.

Last Tuesday Susan Higgins and Anna Nowack from the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, Holly Neill from the Missouri Stream Team Watershed Coalition and myself loaded up and set off to survey potential stream monitoring sites. It was a beautiful, beautiful spring day. We visited at least one or more monitoring sites on Bull, Swan, Roark and Beaver Creeks.

Notice the antenna and solar panel to the right of the Beaver Creek sign. This is a USGS gauging station providing continuous water quality data on the creek.

When looking for potential sites we must consider the safety of the volunteer not only in the stream but to make sure they are not tresspassing on private land! Plus how deep is the creek and are there riffles for collecting macroinvertebrates.

Holly, Anna and Susan survey the creek from a bridge while I take the picture and try not to get hit by a car!

We even took time to get out the net and collect a few bugs. Being a normal boy, I collected a crawdad and a couple of tadpoles!

Collecting bugs for use in the classroom.

While I didn't get a picture of the hundreds of dogwood and redbud trees we saw blooming along the road, I did take a closeup of a patch of bluebell flowers. And we got paid to do this!

Bluebells.

Be watching for more information on the Volunteer Monitoring Project as it develops.

What do you think? Is this worth protecting.........

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Quote of the Week

"A person should go out on the water on a fine day to a small distance from a beautiful coast, if he would see Nature really smile. Never does she look so delightful, as when the sun is brightly reflected by the water, while the waves are gently rippling, and the prospect receives life and animation from the glancing transit of an occasional row-boat, and the quieter motion of a few small vessels. But the land must be well in sight; not only for its own sake, but because the immensity and awfulness of a mere sea-view would ill accord with the other parts of the glittering and joyous scene."

- Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare

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Floating Wetland Seminar

WHERE: Lake Fayetteville Environmental Study Center, Fayetteville, AR WHEN: Saturday May 5, 2012, 9:30 am to 1:30 pm
COST: $20 (lunch provided)
WEAR: Comfortable clothes & shoes--may get wet or dirty

YOU'LL LEARN:

History and overview of constructed floating wetlands and their benefits forwater quality and habitat
Hands-on experience building and planting a floating wetland
Take-home materials list for everything you'll need to build one yourself

The floating wetland built will be installed in Lake Fayetteville, providing wetland habitat and becoming part of environmental education programs.

WORKSHOP LEADERS: Dr. Steve Patterson, Restoration Ecologist, Bio x Design, and Dr. Bob Morgan, Manager of Environmental Quality, Beaver Water District

For more information or to register for the seminar, Click: HERE.

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Indian Ridge developers sentenced for clean-water violations at Table Rock Lake

SBJ.NET,

Geoff Pickle, Web Editor

3/30/2012

Jim Shirato and Donald Snider, whose companies are involved in the Branson West-based development Indian Ridge Resort Community, were sentenced yesterday in federal court for violations of the Clean Water Act.

Shirato, owner of Indian Ridge Resort Inc., and Snider, owner of Denver-based North Shore Investments LLC, broke ground in 2005 on the planned $1.6 billion, 850-acre development in Stone County. North Shore Investments purchased a portion of the land that year to build 13 townhouses.

A lawsuit had claimed that between August 2006 and June 2009 the developers failed to abate, control or slow erosion from the site construction, which had disturbed roughly 600 acres of land southeast of Highway 76 and Highway 13, according to a news release from the office of the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Missouri. In November guilty pleas, Shirato and Snider admitted they failed to prevent storm-water runoff at the construction site from pushing silt into Table Rock Lake.

The sentence enforces the terms of the guilty pleas with fines of $215,000 and $100,000 for Shirato and Snider, respectively. The sentence terms also include five years of probation, which includes a compliance clause to prevent further erosion and discharge of sediment from the construction site into the lake and its tributaries.

To read more, Click HERE.

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With The Water Calculator

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Estimate daily and annual water use with the Water Calculator.

Answer a few simple questions and the Water Calculator does the rest.

It's quick and easy.

To try the Water Use Calculator, Click HERE.

Contact Info
OZARKS WATER WATCH MISSOURI OFFICE ARKANSAS OFFICE

David Casaletto, President PO Box 636, 2 Kissee Ave., Ste. C 1200 W. Walnut, Ste. 3405
(417) 739-5001 Kimberling City, MO 65686 Rogers, AR 72756

contact@ozarkswaterwatch.org