Learning the name of a person is a first step to building a relationship with them. It’s the same way with natural features. Learning to distinguish and name Iowa’s species of trees and wildflowers helped me me deepen my awareness of the landscape and seasons. That’s the thinking behind the road signs we helped Story County install, marking the creek crossings and watershed boundaries. Once you know the name of a creek and where it flows, you pay a bit more attention to it. If you begin to see the creek as something more than a garbage dump or drainage system, maybe you’ll take some steps at your home, farm, or business to make the water cleaner.
Now, the name of one of those signs is a word that is disrespectful to Native Americans. We apologize for perpetuating its use. We are delighted to hear that the U.S. Board of Geographic Names has approved changing the name of “Squaw Creek” to “Ioway Creek.” We commend the Story County Supervisors, Ames City Council, and others who pushed for this issue. It will take a little time and effort to change the signs, the logo and legal documents for the Watershed Management Authority, and our habits, but it’s a necessary and overdue change.
Time to replace some road signs. It’s shows respect and is not that big a hardship.
If you’re inclined to roll your eyes at this “political correctness,” hear me out. My white Norwegian-American elders did not share stories of racism and oppression, but they did teach me about pride in our heritage and showing respect for others. And since I have a hard-to-pronounce last name, I understand that when people take the trouble to get a name right, it’s a sign of courtesy.
The settlers who adopted the word “squaw” for place names did not take the trouble to get it right. According to a group that works to preserve indigenous languages:
“Squaw” is not an Indian word. It was probably invented by European colonists who could not pronounce a longer Indian word… The likeliest thing is that those original colonists were not being insulting and were just trying and failing to use an Indian word for “woman.” … However, since then the word has been used in a very racist and sexually abusive way, so it definitely has negative implications now.
-Native Languages of the Americas
Here’s a little thought experiment for white Iowans who enjoy, as I do, the celebrations of Dutch heritage in Pella, Norwegian heritage in Story City, etc. Imagine that there was no-one of Norwegian heritage left in Story City. Imagine they had all been killed or driven out generations ago, and there was no one left there to celebrate Syttende Mai, or paint rosemaling, or roll lefse, or bake sandbakkels. Imagine that instead of being celebrated in the town square, those customs had been suppressed by the US government and religious schools, and had only recently been revived by my Norwegian-American community in exile. Suppose that all that remained to acknowledge that Norwegian immigrants once lived here was a creek or housing development named “Sunbucker,” a corruption of the dessert “sandbakkel”, now understood to mean “those backward people.” Suppose I’d grown up being called a “Dirty Sunbucker” or worse because of my ethnicity. How would I feel about these place names? Uff da! Would I appreciate if people showed me the courtesy of using Norwegian words correctly, and talking about my ancestry without resorting to crude stereotypes? You betcha! It’s a silly analogy for a traumatic history, but you get the point.
At this point the etymology of the word “squaw” is beside the point.
“It’s not a positive term. The continued use of it is not appropriate and disrespectful to the people of native tribes.”
-Lawrence Spottedbird, executive director at Meskwaki Nation, as quoted in the Gazette
If you can bring yourself to change your seed cap from “Monsanto” to “Bayer” over a corporate merger, surely you can get used to saying a different creek name to show a little more respect for the people who used to live in Story, Boone, and Hamilton County (the Iowa or Bah-kho-je people) and to avoid insulting our Meskwaki neighbors.
Recently, the students of Newton High School, having cleaned up their neighborhood creek, campaigned to change its name from Sewer Creek to Cardinal Creek. It was a way of changing the way people thought about the place. Water matters to us. Names matter too.
The Iowa Department of Natural Resources is seeking public comment on the newly released draft impaired waters list. Prairie Rivers of Iowa will be recommending that Squaw Creek and East Indian Creek be added to “Waters in Need of Further Investigation.” We’ll also take this opportunity to try to demystify a topic that can be confusing, using examples from the South Skunk River watershed.
Every two years, the DNR is required to assess the available data to determine whether Iowa’s lakes, rivers, and wetlands are meeting their designated uses. About half the rivers, and a bit more of the lakes have enough data to assess. Since new waters are considered each cycle, the length of the impaired waters list doesn’t really tell us whether water quality is getting worse. Since nutrients aren’t considered for most uses and the data used for the 2018 assessment is from 2014-2016, it doesn’t tell us whether the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy is working. What it tells us is the extent and severity of local water quality problems that have been officially vetted.
Recreational Uses
A river segment, lake, or reservoir that gets use by paddlers or where children play would be designated A1 (primary contact recreation use) or A3 (children’s recreational use). To determine whether the water quality is good enough to support these uses, the DNR compares E. coli bacteria to the state standard (a geometric mean of 126 organisms per 100mL). If the stream consistently exceeds the standard, that means there could be enough human or animal waste in the water to pose a health risk to anyone that swallowed some–a child splashing in the creek, or a paddler who tipped their canoe might get exposed to a waterborne illness.
Fully supporting: None of the lakes or rivers in our watershed appeared on this list
Partially supporting: The South Skunk River above Ames was slightly impaired with high E. coli levels in one of three years. Indian Creek near Maxwell, the upper part of Long Dick Creek in Hamilton County, Montgomery Creek in Boone County, Hickory Grove Lake in Story County, Lake Keomah and White Oak Lake in Mahaska County all have moderate E. coli problems.
Not supporting:Prairie Creek in Boone County has consistently high E. coli levels. The data was collected through an agreement between Iowa DNR and volunteers with the Squaw Creek Watershed Coalition.
Not assessed: This includes Squaw Creek, East Indian Creek, McFarland Pond, and many others.
Wait a minute, Squaw Creek and East Indian Creek? Didn’t we work with City of Ames and Story County Conservation to collect three years of monthly E. coli samples, starting during the assessment period? Wasn’t the 2016 geometric mean ten times higher than the standard? Yes, but DNR never approved a quality assurance plan, so under Iowa’s Credible Data Law, they can’t use our data. However, we will write to DNR to recommend that they add those streams to Iowa’s list of waters in need of further investigation (WINOFI). We’re aware that bacteria cleanup plans for large rivers are difficult to do and are a low priority for the department, but we want people to be more aware of the health risks.
Aquatic Life Uses
The South Skunk River is a warm water stream with a smallmouth bass fishery, so is designated B(WW-1). Most of its perennial tributaries don’t have enough water or habitat for gamefish so are designated* B(WW-2) for other aquatic life. Fish kill reports, biological monitoring of fish and invertebrates, and monitoring of dissolved oxygen and some toxic chemicals are used to assess whether water quality is good enough to support these uses.
*Adding to the confusion, smaller creeks are given a presumptive A1 B(WW-1) designation until a Use Attainability Assessment proves otherwise. This change supposedly gives them extra protection, but I don’t see how that would work in practice.
Waters in Need of Further Investigation:Onion Creek, Worrell Creek, and College Creek had some low scores for fish or invertebrates, but DNR hasn’t worked out an appropriate threshold for these headwater creeks. The lower part of Ballard Creek was removed from the impaired waters list and placed in this category when DNR discovered an error in the previous assessment.
Not Assessed: This includes several segments of the South Skunk River, Dye Creek, Clear Creek, Keigley Branch, West Indian Creek and many others.
Takeway message:
If a river was added to the impaired waters list, don’t assume it’s gotten dirtier. Maybe it was always polluted and we hadn’t bothered to look. And by the same token, if a river is not on the impaired waters list, don’t assume it’s clean.
This post is part of a series for 2019 Watershed Awareness Month, comparing water quality in a pair of local creeks to learn how land and people influence water.
On May 20, the Skunk River Paddlers launched their canoes and kayaks on Squaw Creek at 100th Street in Hamilton County and paddled down to 140th St in Boone County. The recent rains made it a fast ride!
However, the rain also washed a lot of sediment and quite likely some land-applied manure into the stream. I collected a water sample just before I took this photo and had a lab test it for E. coli bacteria, an indicator of fecal contamination: 2,390 CFU (Colony Forming Units)/100mL. That’s 10 times the primary contact standard for a single sample (235 CFU/100mL) and just shy of the secondary contact standard (2880 CFU/100mL).
Later that day, I collected a sample from Brookside Park in Ames with the help of my son. The lab results came back at 12,800 CFU/100mL, well above the secondary contact standard!
I don’t want to discourage people from recreating in Squaw Creek but I think a safety reminder is necessary:
Squaw Creek has consistent fecal contamination that could pose a risk of acquiring a waterborne illness. The risk is higher after heavy rains when the water is muddy—consider wearing waterproof boots when wading under these conditions. If you come into contact with the water, wash your hands or apply hand sanitizer before eating and take precautions to avoid getting river water in your mouth or on an open cut.
The numbers above are high, but not unprecedented. Over the past three years, City of Ames staff have been tracking E. coli, nitrogen, and phosphorus in Squaw Creek at Lincoln Way and we’ve been sharing the data on our website. 46 out of 48 samples exceeded the primary contact standard for E. coli!
Yes. Yes there is.
The pattern is also not unusual. In our Snapshots, we see that Squaw Creek usually exceeds the standard by the time it reaches Ames and picks up additional fecal contamination by the time it reaches Duff Ave.
The Ames City Council, Public Works Department, and Water & Pollution Control Department are concerned by the data and committed to helping find and address sources of contamination within city limits. The City of Ames spends $3.5 million a year repairing and upgrading its sanitary sewers. However, the data point to multiple sources of E. coli that will make this a difficult problem to solve. In addition to sewer leaks, we probably have some failing septic systems in the upper watershed, cattle in the stream, land-applied manure carried by runoff, pet waste, and wildlife. E. coli can also persist for a while in the sediment, and gets stirred up again after a rain.
In June, I went back to Brookside Park to demonstrate some water quality testing for kids enrolled in the Community Academy summer program. In addition to exploring nature and food systems, the kids have been hard at work improving removing invasive species, planting pollinator gardens, improving trails, and coming up with interpretive signs for Brookside Park. I’m pleased to see that one of the signs is about water quality, including a reminder to wash your hands after entering the creek, and tips on how to reduce pollution. Look for the signs to go up later this summer.
My son Leif shares a draft of a water quality sign at the Community Academy’s open house
