Story by Jim Hinds
Photos by Melanie Myers, Scott Hatcher, and Shannen Cisneros
On a beautiful Saturday afternoon, February 7, seven Master Naturalists went to Indian Creek at 99th & Holmes in South Kansas City to do our winter monitoring and clean up.
Our usual path through a scrubby forest was now a walk through a bulldozed area. Some of the dirt bulldozed was pushed almost into the streambed, but our water testing showed no adverse effects yet from this construction/destruction.
Our testing showed the usual winter higher levels of conductivity. This test detects levels of chemical ions in the water. Higher levels in the winter (I believe) is due to the use of road salt.
Several members of the group will be taking the Stream Team Level One certification in April. Three of the people helping are from the 2025 class, and are doing their capstones for Stream Team.
The capstone for John Church is to plan and create an outreach team for stream team to represent Stream Team at community events. See the February 24 and April 22 listings for an opportunity to help.
Nate Blanton‘s capstone is locating and coordinating a third monitoring site for our team north of the river.
For the third project, Shannen Cisneros will be creating and installing signs at our monitoring sites, letting the public know that the site is monitored by the Osage Trails Stream Team. The signs will include a QR code that will direct people to a website that Shennen and I are creating. The site will include basic information about Missouri Stream Team, what species can be found in the two areas, and have charts showing our results on the creeks in the past two years.
We also always include a stream cleanup as part of our trips each time. Beyond the usual plastic trash, this time we collected a tire rim, two shopping carts, and a massage table.
