Our chapter participates in the Missouri Stream Team program. 

Missouri Stream Team is a working partnership of citizens who are concerned about Missouri Streams. The Stream Team Program provides an opportunity for all citizens to get involved in river conservation.

 

Stream Team goals:

1. Education: Learning all you can about Missouri's 110,000 miles of flowing water is as easy as it is fun. Stream Team provides training and information to better understand our stream systems and the problems and opportunities they face.

2. Stewardship: "Hands-on" projects such as litter control, stream bank stabilization, stream side tree planting, water quality monitoring, and storm drain stenciling, are all possibilities. Stream Team can help you plan a project or match you with an agency or organization effort.

3. Advocacy: Speaking on behalf of your adopted stream when development or harmful activities tamper with them is not as difficult as you might think. Those who have gained firsthand knowledge of problems, solutions, and needs are best equipped to speak out on behalf of Missouri's stream resources. You want to write a letter, attend a meeting, or find another way to get involved.

 

Several Springfield Master Naturalists are active Stream Team members. They monitor water quality regularly on streams near their homes, and participate in special water quality monitoring projects. One of those projects is sponsored by Ozarks Water Watch, and it entails sampling streams in the White River Basin. Master Naturalists have volunteered to test water quality at seven of the twenty-four stream sites in the project. Testing occurs each quarter on each of the sites.

 

The annual The James River Basin Partnership (JRBP) River Rescue Event is popular among our local chapter members. 

 

Several members also present information about stream monitoring and macroinvertebrates to area schools, as well as at the Watershed Center at Valley Water Mill in Springfield which is an ongoing project of the Watershed Committee of the Ozarks.  

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