Hurds Creek Monitoring

Opeongo High School students monitor Hurds Creek

The benthic macroinvertebrates in Hurds Creek in the autumn and spring in the vicinity of the Augsburg Rd culvert. Benthic macroinvertebrates are used as biological indicators of water quality and stream health. Typical stream-bottom invertebrates include snails, clams, worms, leeches, and the larval stages of dragonflies, mayflies, stoneflies and caddisflies. Measuring the density and diversity of benthic invertebrates provides valuable clues when assessing the quality of surface water. Benthic invertebrates serve as a barometer to changes in water pollution over time, and exhibit a wide-range of sensitivity to various levels of environmental stress. The absence of sensitive benthic species or the dominance of pollution-tolerant species can indicate that water quality is degraded.

Student Report

2004-05

We spent one morning going through the protocol for properly collecting the samples from Hurds Creek. We spent the second day in the classroom identifying the benthics that we had caught, tabulating the number of each then analyzing the results. As with the results found at the same site in the Fall using this technique the results indicated that the site was unimpaired.

The most dominant species of benthics found were stoneflies. Stonefly, Caddisfly and Mayfly all require gravelly stream bottoms with good concentrations of dissolved oxygen and are typically found in high quality stream environments. These three species at the rates found in the sample serve as indicators of both good water and habitat quality status.

Benthic Macroinvertebrate Analysis was used to collect baseline data over time. Although no major conclusions can be drawn from the past year's work it does set up the opportunity to view the site over the next several years at which time a more definitive conclusion can be made.

2005-6

As has been the case with each sampling effort the students found new things within the sample and noted the changes in the sample site. This year the student’s found a large number of mayflies and stoneflies and noted some clearing that had taken place on the site over winter. The students were also able to see a crawfish carrying eggs, live fish eggs and woodland flowers in bloom.

The experiment continued in class with the students taking a closer look at their sample and bringing those results together for the analysis. The water quality in the creek appears to be good based on the benthic macroinvertebrate study which is consistent with the results found in both previous occasions.

Hurds Creek 2009-2010

Hurds Creek (Point A) 2011

Hurds Creek (Site B) 2011

Site B is marked with X in above photo

Lake Clear Water Quality Study

Lake Clear Water Quality Parameters BW6, BW7, BW19