Abigail McCabe, Brayden Lucas, Kendall Humphreys, Matt Houseman, Ryan Miller  

Fall 2025 Stream Testing

We are studying the health of Crockery Creek at the Ravenna Conservation Club.  Ravenna Conservation Club is a shooting range that teaches hunter safety. It is located in our town of Ravenna.  It is a very popular area during the fall for the Buck Poll. This creek is mostly sand with a lot of vegetation on the shores.  The creek is shallow, and lots of water striders are on the surface.  Potential sources of pollution could include suburban runoff, rain, sediment runoff, or malfunctioning septic tanks in the area.  This park is also located in our small downtown, which could have left over industrial runoff. 

We tested the water for pH, conductivity, salinity, and total dissolved solids. We also tested for E. coli and collected macroinvertebrates. The methods we used to collect data were to test the stream water for E. Coli using the left, right, and center method. We gathered our macroinvertebrates by checking leaf packs and moving rocks in the water, to gather sample insect populations. The water quality tests were conducted using a PCTS Testr 50. We used a turbidity tube to determine the turbidity levels. We used a GeoPack flow meter to determine the stream flow of the creek. While onsite, we wrote down the data that we collected in our field books, then we returned to the classroom and imported it into a Google form, which filled out a plot chart for us to show our data with both present and past dates. 

We analyzed the data by having Dr. Buday explain what the good ranges are and some reasons changes could have happened. The claim my group has made is that the reason the E. coli levels are lower in the spring vs the fall is because the water is cooler, and the E. coli grows better in warm water. The reason that we get more macroinvertebrates in the fall is that the water is warmer and the bugs are more active, which makes it easier for us to locate them as they move.

Questions we still have about the health of our stream site include: 

1. Are fish and insect populations increasing, decreasing, or staying the same over time?

2. Does the E. coli data have anything to do with the weather and season, or even the temperature around the stream?

3. Why is the population of the scud so high in our stream?