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1. Stream care program going strong
2. MDC releases conceptual plan for Columbia Bottom
3. Pond stocking applications due by July 15
4. Time changed for Commission's conference call
meeting
5. Outdoor Calendar
Available via Internet at: http://www.mdc.mo.gov/news/out
"Most of us will never kill the great stag. Yet we have all taken deer that held special trophy value for us, and such value is not always a measure of tine and beam. It may be just a measure of hard, solid hunting in which both man and deer conducted themselves well, so that neither was ashamed."John Madson, Why Men Hunt, from "A Hunter's Heart"
Ninety-six percent of Missourians are concerned about water quality.
JEFFERSON CITY--A program that allows people to volunteer to improve local creeks and streams continues to be popular with Missourians. The Missouri Stream Team Program grew to 1,212 teams during 1998 with more than 35,000 members who are active in habitat surveys, stream cleanups and water-quality monitoring. A master's degree thesis was even written about the program.
Stream Teams is a volunteer program that is jointly sponsored by the Conservation Department, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources and the Conservation Federation of Missouri. Teams adopt specific streams and care for them.
Reported volunteer hours in 1998 totaled more than 62,300. At a rate of $13.73 per hour (the estimated value of volunteer time in 1998, according to the U.S. Department of Labor), that means that volunteers contributed more than $856,000 worth of labor on behalf of Missouri streams last year.
Stream Team volunteers are motivated by several things. Some want to see streams in their communities as attractive as possible, and that means removing trash, from paper cartons to old tires and used appliances, from the stream.
Others are concerned with clean water because of an interest in wildlife. Some are anglers, and still others are canoers who want the streams they float and paddle on to be as clean as possible. Many teams involve children who are stretching the bounds of their knowledge of the science of biological and chemical water monitoring.
Team members perform many functions but seem to be most interested in monitoring the purity of the water in their adopted streams. They checked the water at 419 sites in 1998. The program trained more than 230 new volunteers, bringing the number of citizen water-quality monitors in Missouri to more than 1,500.
Stream Team volunteers use two methods to assess water quality. One is biological monitoring, which involves surveying the insect life of the stream to obtain an indirect measure of water quality. The other is chemical monitoring, where water samples are analyzed to determine their purity directly.
Aquatic insects such as mayflies, stoneflies and caddis flies are sensitive to pollutants. Healthy streams have a large number and wide variety of such insects. Polluted streams may have only fly larvae and a type of aquatic wormor no life at all.
Removing trash from streams is the second-most-popular activity after checking on the purity of stream water. Last year Stream Teams collected tons of trashenough to fill 441 pickup trucks. Stream Teams also conducted 80 educational projects, mapped a watershed, conducted a student exchange between a northern Missouri and a southern Missouri middle school, helped sway a community to upgrade its waste water treatment plant and completed a stream bank stabilization project. One team traveled to Washington, D.C. and brought home an award for a Stream Team display.
The program also held workshops to show people how to plant trees, which is one way to return a stream to health. Trees hold soil in place, filter out pollutants and moderate water temperatures. Stream teams planted more than 14,000 trees last year.
Stream Teams formed the Missouri Watershed Coalition during 1998. Representatives from Stream Team Associations fill out the coalition and are currently establishing a watershed system they will use to bring more extensive representation to their board. This organization will help guide the Stream Team program in the future.
Information about Missouri Stream Teams is available by calling a toll-free voice mail telephone line, 800/781-1989. Leave your name and mailing address and ask for a Stream Team information packet. It will be mailed to you the following business day.
- Jim Auckley -
State officials say they need citizens' ideas about how the area at the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers should be developed.
ST. LOUIS--The Missouri Department of Conservation has released a conceptual plan for development at Columbia Bottom Conservation Area (CA). The next step, say agency planners, is to ask the public what it thinks of the plan.
The Conservation Department will hold a public meeting at 7 p.m. June 22 at Powder Valley Conservation Nature Center in Kirkwood to explain tentative plans for Columbia Bottom CA. Conservation Department officials say they hope the meeting will be well attended and will encourage those who attend to make comments on how the area should be developed.
The Conservation Department bought the 4,300-acre area from the City of St. Louis in 1997. Since then, Conservation officials have been studying the land to learn what development and activities are compatible with its physical characteristics.
Deer, turkey, waterfowl, shorebirds and other fish and wildlife offer a wide array of recreational opportunities within sight of the Gateway Arch. Columbia Bottom's location at the confluence of the nation's two largest rivers adds historic and geographic interest to its potential drawing power.
The Conceptual Plan for Columbia Bottom CA outlines what the
Conservation Department hopes to achieve on the area four miles
north of St. Louis. General goals listed in the plan include:
--Enhancing and restoring the original ecological characteristics
of the area,
--Providing recreation compatible with the area's natural characteristics,
--Creating educational opportunities based on the ecological,
cultural and historical significance of the area at the confluence
of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers.
Managers envision a mosaic of wetland, forest, grassland and cropland. The existing levee will be maintained on most of the area to protect conservation area facilities and adjacent landowners.
A little more than a mile of flood-damaged levee along Columbia Bottom's southeast side needs repairs. The Conservation Department is considering moving this levee back from the river approximately 1,000 feet. This would restore the area outside the new levee to more natural conditions, enhancing fish and wildlife habitat.
Setting back the levee would also provide flood-control benefits, giving the Mississippi River more room to spread out harmlessly during floods. With the setback, a little less than one-third of Columbia Bottom CA would be outside levees.
Facilities contemplated in the conceptual plan include a visitor center on the northeast part of the area. Hiking and biking trails would ring the area, and a disabled-accessible trail and boardwalk would lead to a viewing platform overlooking the river confluence. A boat ramp and disabled-accessible bank fishing facilities would further enhance recreational opportunities.
The conceptual plan also mentions a self-guiding auto tour, a trail from the visitor center to a bluff-top overlook, picnic and wildlife viewing facilities and special use areas. Activities envisioned in the plan include hunting, fishing, hiking, biking, dog training, horseback riding birdwatching and other wildlife viewing.
To date, the Conservation Department has met with interest groups, community leaders and neighboring landowners to get suggestions about managing Columbia Bottom CA. Ideas also have come by letter, phone, e-mail and the Conservation Department's web site. The Conservation Department hopes to generate more public interest through release of the conceptual plan.
"The area's location in the flood plain puts some constraints on development that is practical there, but it still has enormous potential for St. Louis area recreation and tourism," says Conservation Department Policy Supervisor Dan Zekor. "We're especially excited about the area's historical prominence as we approach the bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark Expedition's passage through the area. During the next year we will zero in on the details but not until we hear more from the public. We need to know if they like the concepts we have proposed."
Copies of the conceptual plan are on file at Powder Valley Conservation Nature Center in Kirkwood and at August. A. Busch Memorial Conservation Area near Weldon Spring. You can also access the plan on line at <http://www.mdc.mo.gov/areas/areas/bottom/>. Comments can be made directly through this web site.
Comments also can be sent to Columbia Bottom Planning Team, Missouri Department of Conservation, 2360 Highway D, St. Charles, MO 63304. To make suggestions by phone, call (636) 441-4554. Or, send comments via e-mail to <Dan.Zekor@mdc.mo.gov>.
- Jim Low -
Private ponds that meet certain requirements may qualify for stocking with bluegill, bass and channel catfish from state hatcheries.
JEFFERSON CITY--Missouri has thousands of acres of public reservoirs and hundreds of miles of streams where anglers can follow their bliss. But the state's most abundantand arguably its most productivefishing waters are its more than 300,000 privately owned ponds. To help realize the potential fishing benefits of these prolific waters, the Missouri Department of Conservation provides fish for stocking private ponds.
The Conservation Department provides fingerling fish at no cost to pond owners. Not all ponds qualify, however, and the fish do come with a few conditions.
Pond owners who accept fish from the Conservation Department retain full rights to control access to their ponds. Accepting the free fish doesn't obligate them to allow fishing or other uses on their land by the public. But ponds stocked with state fish are subject to provisions of the Wildlife Code of Missouri. They can't be bought or sold, and statewide fishing regulations must be observed. Those restrictions don't apply to pond owners who buy fish from commercial sources.
Each year hundreds of Missouri pond owners accept nearly a
million fingerling fish that add significantly to angling opportunities
statewide To qualify for Conservation Department stocking, they
complete written applications. Conservation Department personnel
visit each pond to be sure it meets the following requirements:
--The pond or lake must be at least eight feet deep.
--If the pond is smaller than five acres, livestock must be excluded
from the pond area.
--Ponds must not have existing fish populations, except for fathead
minnows.
--The dam must be built for permanency and water-tightness.
Pond owners who qualify can receive a bluegill sunfish, largemouth bass and channel catfish. Sunfish and catfish fingerlings are distributed from a central location in each county in September or October. Largemouth bass are distributed the following June. This gives the other fish time to grow before the hungry, predatory bass arrive.
Anglers can harvest bass in most ponds by the third summer after stocking. Natural reproduction replaces bluegill and bass removed by fishing. Catfish must be restocked periodically.
Pond stocking applications must be in by July 15. For application forms or for information about commercial fish suppliers, contact the Missouri Department of Conservation, Fisheries Division, Pond Stocking, Box 180, Jefferson City, MO 65102-0180.
- Jim Low -
JEFFERSON CITY--Due to a scheduling conflict, the time for the Missouri Conservation Commission's special telephone conference call meeting has been changed from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. June 22, 1999.
At this time, the main subject of the meeting will be approval of comments on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' draft supplemental environmental impact statement on the Saint John's Bayou/New Madrid Floodway Project.
This is an open meeting. The public can attend and hear the Commission's discussion in the Upper Missouri River meeting room at Conservation Department headquarters at 2901 W. Truman Blvd., Jefferson City.
- Jim Low -
Copyright ©2008 Conservation Commission of Missouri. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms of Use