Clean Water

Stream Team

Missouri Rivers Community network

• Stream Team #: 549
• Date formed: February 2000
• Location: Missouri River from the Iowa State Line to the Mississippi River
• Missouri River Communities Network: 200 Old 63 South, Columbia, MO 65201, 573-256-2602 or visit them online.
• For more info about Stream Teams: see links listed below.
  

The devastating Great Flood of 1993 prompted communities, farmers and commercial interests along the Missouri River to form the Missouri River Communities Network.

A few of the group’s objectives include:

• Increasing public awareness of the Missouri River and involvement in its management.
• Reconciling the interests of navigation, agriculture, recreation, riverfront development, tourism, historic preservation, flood prevention, land use, ecosystem restoration and water quality.
• Promoting water quality improvement and maintenance of water supply from the river.

They pursue these goals through river cleanups, cultural and historic education and partnerships to balance competing river uses.

Confluence symposium

The future of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers.

If you have an interest in the history, ecology or economic development of the Missouri-Mississippi river confluence, don’t miss Meeting of the Waters: Cooperative Conservation, Recreation and Economic Development in the St. Louis Region. The symposium, May 9–11, will bring together diverse interests for information sharing, dialog and time on the water. Fifteen multiple-track workshops will cover water quality, floods and flood plains, parks and trails, education, river culture and policy and the proposed Lewis and Clark Water Trail. For more information or online registration, call 314-516-5655 or visit online.

Stream Team Annual Report

2005 was a busy, productive year for stream lovers.

Record keepers still are compiling reports of 2006 Stream Team activities, but if 2005 was any indication, citizen-led efforts to keep Missouri streams healthy are going great guns. The annual report shows that 300 Stream Teamers took basic water-quality monitoring workshops, 97 moved on to Level 1, and 49 completed Level 2 training. Two were certified by state water-quality professionals in Level 3 training, allowing data they collect to be used for official purposes. To date, nearly 5,000 Stream Teamers have taken water-quality monitor training, putting thousands of miles of streams under the watchful eyes of those who love them best.

Also in 2005, Stream Teams removed more than 750 tons of trash from streams, conducted nearly 300 educational events, planted more than 4,000 trees and completed more than 30 fish habitat improvement projects. In all, Stream Team members devoted 134,964 hours to stream-related projects ranging from adopting stream accesses to zebra mussel monitoring. The value of those hours topped $2.4 million.