November 1, 2000

Shedding light on watershed

MSU Extension holds water quality workshop at Kids Creek

By JUSTIN CARINCI
Herald staff writer
       Those adults in hip-high rubber waders splashing around Kids Creek last week had a serious mission: identifying and counting macroinvertebrates.
      The Grand Traverse Bay Watershed Initiative held a stream monitor training workshop last Wednesday at the Michigan State University Extension office in Traverse City. The program taught area teachers and volunteers to assess local creek quality by evaluating the tiny creatures that live there.
      Participants sifted through the downtown Kids Creek looking for macroinvertebrates such as mayflies, crane flies and stoneflies. Nicole Vidales of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality helped the teachers identify the insects and assess the stream quality.
      The teachers, in turn, will educate their students about the area's water ecosystems. "Students take an interest in learning more about the aquatic bugs," GTBWI executive director Christopher Wright said. "It heightens their interest in the natural sciences."
      Area students already learn hands-on with the tributaries: using math to estimate their flow and velocity, testing for nutrients and water chemistry, and assessing the physical condition of the streams and their adjacent environments. Macroinvertebrate analysis gives students another tool with which to asses creek quality.
      The GTBWI will post results of their research on the Internet for students, teachers and others interested in the area's water. This will make it easier to identify and address potential problems with the water and its fauna.
      Counting the number of insects in a stream can indicate the quality of that stream, Wright said. Healthy streams have a large number of sensitive insects, Wright said, and the opposite holds true: "Where you find a majority of tolerant, less sensitive insects, there may be some problems with the water quality or other such conditions."
      Though Kids Creek is only a small tributary, Wright considers it important because it flows into the Boardman River, which in turn flows into the Bay. "If you want to know what's going to happen to the water quality of Grand Traverse Bay in the future look at the condition of your small tributaries in the present," Wright said.
      Casual observers might overlook stream problems, Wright said. "You may look at a small tributary and the water could be flowing very clear, but if it is all laden with sand and there's no aquatic insect population there, then it's unlikely that that tributary is going to be a healthy ecosystem."
      From the preliminary data available that day, Kids Creek did not appear to be a healthy ecosystem. Workshop participants found few sensitive invertebrates. Vidales of the DEQ expected to find the more common crane flies, but did not.
      Noting that disruptions of the food chain affect all animals, Wright offered this dire warning to anglers and environmentalists alike: "No insects, no fish."
      Though ailing tributaries can indicate a larger problem, they also provide an early warning for those who enjoy Grand Traverse Bay. And damage done may be reversible.
      "There are measures that could be taken to restore some of the conditions of this tributary," Wright said. "It could maybe even support better fisheries."