volunteer monitoring – Page 3 – Prairie Rivers of Iowa

Fall 2020 Water Quality Snapshot finds sensitive critters

by Dan Haug | Oct 28, 2020

Thirteen volunteers braved the cold on October 24 to test water quality in Squaw Creek, the South Skunk River, and their tributaries. For some, this was their 14th Fall Water Quality Snapshot. For others it was their first time doing stream monitoring. What we found defies easy categorization.

Update: The name “Squaw Creek” was officially changed to “Ioway Creek” in February of 2021, to be more respectful to native peoples. Over the next year, expect to see some changes to the names of the Squaw Creek Watershed Coalition and other groups that have formed to protect the creek, as well as maps and signs.

volunteers collecting invertebrates in Squaw Creek with a kick-net — Volunteers Diane Birt, Paul Readhead, Liz Calhoun, and Rick Dietz take turns brushing off rocks to capture bugs in our net. The water was freezing!

By some indicators, water quality in Squaw Creek was good. Since I wasn’t sure how many creeks would be flowing when I planned this event, I added bug collection to the agenda to keep us busy. Excuse me. Benthic macroinvertebrate sampling. We were pleased to find tiny stoneflies and mayflies. They’re good fish food, ask any fly fisherman! Excuse me. An important part of the aquatic food web. These insects also act as a sort of canary in the coal mine. They need water with a lot of dissolved oxygen so will be rare or missing in streams with too much pollution, murky water, or not much in the way of habitat.

Fun fact: while the adult mayfly is notorious for living only 24 hours, the juvenile form (naiad) lives in the stream for several years. If you’re curious what adult mayflies and stoneflies look like, I found some photos from our neighbors in Missouri.

Vials containing tiny mayflies and stoneflies

By some indicators, water quality in Squaw Creek and it’s tributaries was bad. As in, there’s poop in the water. Excuse me, fecal indicator bacteria. This month, E. coli bacteria in Squaw Creek continued to exceed the primary contact recreation standard, and College Creek jumped above secondary contact standard. I wondered if this spike might be due to accumulated… debris… being washed out of the storm sewers and off the landscape by the 1.25 inch rain we received Thursday and Friday, but the lab samples were actually collected on Wednesday Oct 21, so I’m not sure. Anyway, covid-19 is not the only reason I bring hand sanitizer to these events!

By some indicators, water quality was unusually dry this fall. Nitrate was too low to detect at 13 of 16 sites we tested. Under wetter conditions, as we had this spring or last fall, nitrate in these same streams was higher and differences due to landuse or conservation practices in the watershed become more apparent.

Site	Watershed	Fall 2020	Spring 2020	Fall 2019
Squaw Creek @ Duff Ave	Rural and urban	0	10	5
Bluestem Creek @150th St	Rural	2	10	5
Glacial Creek @ U Ave	Rural (with a constructed wetland)	0	2	2
College Creek @ University	Urban	0	2	2

Nitrate-N concentrations, in mg/L

Water quality is rarely all good news or all bad news. Citizen science can us a more complete picture.

Thanks to all our intrepid volunteers!

2020 Spring Water Quality Snapshot

by Dan Haug | Jun 2, 2020

It turns out that stream monitoring is quite compatible with social distancing. 28 volunteers participated in the Squaw Creek Watershed Coalition’s 13th spring water quality snapshot on May 30 and 31. Together we tested water quality at 43 sites on Squaw Creek, its tributaries, and the South Skunk River! This time, Prairie Rivers of Iowa assembled the equipment, organized the event, and entered the data. We’re happy to support this dedicated group of citizen scientists in better understanding and drawing attention to our local rivers and creeks.

Here’s a few selfies taken by participants, a mix of long-term volunteers and new faces.

The Kopecky family by the South Skunk River

Jeff White at Gilbert Creek

Kelly Nascimento Thompson at Glacial Creek

Kurt Plagge and Mary Burnet at Onion Creek

As the name implies, this is a snapshot in time. The water quality on one sunny weekend in May is not necessarily representative of the month, let alone the year. As described here and here, water quality can change dramatically in response to a big rainstorm. But for this moment in time, testing many sites gives us a very detailed picture of the Squaw Creek watershed.

For example, during May 30 and 31, nitrate in Squaw Creek at Moore Park and other locations in Ames was quite high (11-12 mg/L) exceeding the drinking water standard (10 mg/L). Where is that nitrate coming from? All over its 147,000 acre watershed, but in some tributaries more than others, as you can see in the color-coded chart below. Nitrate was especially high in the upper reaches of Squaw Creek, Gilbert Creek and Clear Creek and especially low in Glacial Creek (which has a series of constructed wetlands and a lot of pasture) and College Creek (which has an urban watershed). The upstream, rural parts of College Creek and Clear Creek have higher nitrate, which appears to be diluted they move through town.

For phosphorus some of the patterns are flipped. Glacial Creek has especially high orthophosphate (the dissolved form of phosphorus) while Clear Creek is especially low.

There’s lots of interesting patterns to explore, and more data from this and previous snapshot events here. If you’re curious about water quality, subscribe to our blog, I’ll be continuing to interpret data from this and other sources.

Thanks to all our volunteers for collecting it!

Questions about stream monitoring, or observations from our volunteers? Post a comment.