Clean Water

Stream Team

Jeff Barrow Team

• Stream Team #: 738
• Date formed: February 7, 1996
• Location:Hiller’s Creek, Callaway County
• For more info about Stream Teams: explore the links listed below

Jeff Barrow thinks globally and acts locally. He looked at an eroding creek bank on his family’s farm near New Bloomfield and decided that was a good place to start saving Missouri streams. He and his family stabilized the eroding bank with a cedar tree revetment. Working with other Stream Team associations put him in touch with Chad Pregracke, founder of Living Lands and Waters. Barrow was so impressed with the nonprofit environmental group’s work cleaning up the Mississippi and Missouri rivers that he coauthored From the Bottom Up: One Man’s Crusade to Clean America’s Rivers, with Pregracke. In February, Barrow became director of Missouri River Relief, but he still finds time to work on his family farm, where he wants to create profitable pastures with native grasses and broadleaf plants.

Don’t Flush Meds

Prescription drugs are serious pollutants.

Flushing old or unneeded prescription drugs is a bad idea unless the label says to do so. Most municipal water treatment plants are not equipped to remove medications, which can harm wildlife and end up in drinking water. Instead, remove medications from their original containers and mix them with an undesirable substance, such as cat litter or used coffee grounds. Put this mixture into a disposable container with a lid, such as an empty margarine tub, or seal it in bag and put it in the trash. For more information, visit the links listed below.

Tips for a Healthy Pond

What grows around ponds is as critical as what’s in them.

If you are planning to build a pond, be sure to include landscaping in your plans. Before construction, get your soil tested so you know how much lime and fertilizer you need. Immediately after construction, lime and fertilize any bare soil, then plant cover crops to prevent soil from washing into the pond. The pond basin should be planted with oats, Sudan grass, rye or wheat, depending on season. In the area around the basin, plant grass and cover with straw or other mulch. Native, warm-season grasses require less maintenance than introduced, cool-season grasses, such as fescue. Windbreaks of cottonwood and cedar trees planted along the south and west shorelines reduce wave action that can erode banks and cause muddy water. A wealth of detailed information about pond construction and management is available in the 64-page Missouri Pond Handbook. You can access this publication  through the links listed below.