That was awesome!

Finally after months of planning, Kaven, the District Technician from Soil and Water, Lesly from MDC and I, gave presentations to the 5th graders in Texas County. The kids didn’t know what they were in for when we told them if they didn’t pay attention and answer questions correctly, they’d get their fingers bitten off! Their eyes got big, but they watched closely as our “Keller-ville” had a big rain storm and all the “fertilizer” and “top soil” and “sludge” from the local factory went into the streams and lake in the sad, un-planned city of Keller-ville. Of course they immediately perked up when they realized that really, the bad pollutants were actually Kool-aid! But let me back up a few steps. The presentations given were a part of the poster contest that the Soil and Water Conservation District in partnership with Top of the Ozarks RC&D organized for Texas County. We discuss how all things eventually lead to the water sources, and how we have to be careful of what we do and even what type of cleaners we use. Farming and logging are big sources of revenue down here, so we also discussed how while those things are necessary, the operators of those businesses need to have an environmentally safe plan. The kids got it, they asked questions, and ultimately realized that without water, we have no life. They also had great ideas of what they can and already do, to help keep our waters safe, because after all, it's our job! After the Summersville presentation yesterday, I asked one of the boys if he enjoyed our presentation. He enthusiastically answered, “That was awesome!” He kept his fingers.

january: Matisse Creek Cleanup Level 2 WQM

Hey Everyone!

So 2010 was kick started with a lot of Stream Team activities going on. I am now a Level 2 Water Quality Monitor and will soon a level 3, which means my data can and will be used by the state and other authorities. My most recent event was a big clean up at Matisse Creek in South County. It was cold, muddy and fun! Especially since I got to play with some heavy equipment!

Aside from that, I have been working with the folks at the Confluence to plan a huge Trash Bash coming up on March 27th. Locations include the Confluence, Creve Couer Park, and St. Charles. After the clean up there will be lunch, Trash Artists, and raffles; so if you're interested come join us!

Bonkers 4 Birds!

January found me Bonkers 4 Birds!

Our partners at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' National Great River Museum http://www.mvs.usace.army.mil/rivers/museum.html developed the program for 4th and 5th grade classrooms as part of their educational outreach programming. I enjoyed co-teaching the program to ~150 area students.

Bonkers 4 Birds teaches students basic bird identification techniques utilizing things like bird posture, size, color, and field markings. Students learn to use binoculars and to sketch birds using what they have learned about field markings.

Each class chooses a bird species that they research together, then each student individually submits a drawing of the class bird. Student artwork is judged, with 2-3 winners per class chosen for inclusion in this years Bonkers 4 Birds book published by the Corps. Students with published artwork are celebrated with a book signing event at our annual Wings of Spring Migratory Bird Festival in May.

The Wings of Spring Migratory Bird Festival is week long celebration of the annual migration of hundreds of species of birds along the Mississippi River Flyway, one of the most significant in the world. For more information please visit this site: http://www.ngrrec.org/index.php/education/168

January Blog about the Food Bank.

Volunteering at the Central Missouri Food Bank

by Lance Mallette

For Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service the MRCN staff volunteered at the Columbia Food Bank. We were to meet at 9AM at the Food Bank and volunteer until noon. I had been there only once before and was reminded of how many people the Food Bank serves. The Food Bank is the huge warehouse that distributes food to the various Food Pantries in the Columbia Area. The MRCN staff joined about 15 other volunteers and bagged frozen noodles from 800 pound boxes on pallets to smaller bags then re-boxed and stacked on a pallet for distribution. We took turns scooping, bagging, twist-tying and labeling. The Food Bank always accepts volunteers and I could tell some of the people that were there volunteering had done so regularly. They knew one another and knew where the break room was located.

The Food Bank is one of my favorite entities on the planet, as America has an excess of food, it frustrates me to see people being hungry or food insecure (not knowing where your next meal is coming from). The Food Bank is supposed to be used as an emergency food, for when food stamps run out or when the food budget gets compromised due to unforeseen expenses. As the economy continues to not recover, the Food Banks needs rise as more people have food emergencies/financial troubles. Americans have a funny way of dealing with the food insecurity and hunger in their nation. We generally say hunger does not exist in America and ignore the problem, or we blame the hungry for lacking the merit necessary to succeed and thrive in life. Food insecurity and hunger has drastic affects on kids. Normal cognitive and physical development is hinged on meeting daily nutritional requirements. I have always felt strongly that people deserve to be treated with dignity when in financial trouble, both adults and kids, and the Food Bank strives to do that for its clients. I encourage everyone to check out the links below, especially the Missouri Hunger Atlas.

This is a link to the World Health Organization’s Health Impact of the Global Food Security Crisis. http://www.who.int/food_crisis/en/index.html

This is a link to the Central Missouri Food Bank’s web site. www.centralmofoodbank.org

This is a link to see how your county is doing on the Food Security front. I really like this map! http://missourifamilies.org/mohungeratlas/counties/.

The UN FAO now estimates that about 1.02 billion people go hungry each day. That is about 1 in 7 globally. The UN goal is to eradicate hunger by 2025. Here is a link about this. http://www.un-ngls.org/spip.php?article1399.

This is another link about global food security. http://www.un.org/issues/food/taskforce/index.shtml. The UN website is a good place to start research if anyone is interested.

Have a great February AmeriCorps!

Lance

Missouri Smallflows Annual Conference

At Table Rock Lake Water Quality, I also help organize events for the Missouri Smallflows Organization. For the last couple of months I have been preparing for the annual conference in Columbia. The conference was held January 18-20. This event is hosted to provide educational opportunities for onsite wastewater professionals to learn about new technology in their field. We had speakers from many different areas, including Joyce Hudson from the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington D.C. It was interesting speaking with her about the steps that MSO is taking to promote education for our wastewater professionals. She was impressed with how the organization is taking steps to accomplish this. Vendors from the onsite wastewater field also participate to promote their products. This event allowed me to gain knowledge on the different types of advanced treatment systems available for wastewater treatment. The MSO Conference was a great success and many participants stated that it was great conference. For more information about the conference, go to the Missouri Smallflows Organization website, www.mosmallflows.org.

My First Stream Team cleanup of 2010: Matisse Creek

Hello Everybody,
A significant portion of my time at the Missouri Natural Resources Conference at Tan-Tar-A Resort in Osage Beach, Mo, was spent learning about various riparian related projects throughout the state; so I was rather eager to get directly involved on a stream clean up, as soon as I got back home. My previous stream cleanups have been on branches of the River des Peres on Engelholm Creek and the River des Peres in University City. My focus had been in the mid county region of St. Louis County; So I welcome any opportunity to learn and explore rivers and streams in the St. Louis area. I joined Mo Stream Team 211 and volunteers from Meramec Community College-South County Campus for a clean up of two sites in South St. Louis County. The first site was on Matisse Creek and the second site was near the soccer fields bordering I-55 (A stone’s throw from the Meramec River). Matisse Creek flows behind the community college separating it from the surrounding residential properties. The south county campus of Meramec Community College, like many schools in the area (elementary, secondary, and collegiate) can be considered a “streamside school” in that it is located near a water source. Before Saturday’s clean up event, Matisse Creek had not been a site of a cleanup, so we did not know what we expected to find. Despite the lower, but fortunately above freezing temperatures, more than 15 volunteers contributed their efforts to dirtying themselves cleaning the stream (At least I know I did, I believe at the end of the cleanup I was wearing more mud than I had anticipated). The creek seemed typical of most urban streams in the area, with signs of moderate stream bank erosion, and both household and automotive litter. The trash found along the bank was mostly items from the community college such as Styrofoam cups, aluminum cans, plastic bottles, and nacho trays. Other items included, oil containers, miscellaneous barrels, an old fire hose, and other everyday items; In addition to the garbage found on the stream, there were A LOT of vehicle tires. At the stream behind the campus, I personally found and hauled out at least 4 tires (not an easy task when filled with water, mud, and concrete). I believe it is safe to say that in all we found over 10 tires and multiple bags of trash that we removed from the two sites. Though we did find a lot of trash, we also found what we believed to be a natural spring located behind the campus. The second site was pretty interesting as well, as it contained an abandoned bathhouse, a Ford Gran Torino (yes a car), and a substantial amount of bottles, cans, and Styrofoam. I felt that this cleanup was a great opportunity for me to get out of my neck of the woods, meet new people and go to a new area and contribute my time and effort along with people concerned about their environment. Though we volunteers got a significant amount of litter removed, there is more litter removal to be done. It is my hope that with the discovery of the spring and Spring time approaching more cleanup efforts will be undertaken along the Matisse Creek.

MLK Day of Service

The week of Martin Luther King Day, I headed just down the street to Operation Food Search, a St. Louis area food bank, the largest distributor of free food in the bi-state area.

Operation Food Search (OFS) is comprised of small offices tacked onto a humungous warehouse, approximately half of which is full of food. One function of OFS is to distribute the food it receives in bulk to shelters, food pantries, soup kitchens and senior centers. In addition, OFS conducts “Operation Frontline” to educate families about nutrition and healthy cooking. In one corner of the warehouse is a small test kitchen in which volunteer chefs and nutritionists create healthy meals from items commonly found at a food bank.

Another project OFS heads up is “Operation Back Pack,” which endeavors to make sure that children who rely on meals from their schools don’t go hungry over the weekend. Each Monday, these children return backpacks to OFS. Throughout the week, volunteers and OFS employees pack these backpacks with food for the weekends, and they are returned to the kids on Friday afternoon. When I was there on Thursday, the tally of bags that had been packed was almost two thousand!

OFS also endeavors to be as eco-friendly as possible. Cardboard boxes and mixed paper are recycled. Additionally, OFS accepts unwanted furniture and scrap metal that they sell to organizations that either reuse or recycle them. The money they get from these green initiatives also goes to buy food to feed the hungry in St. Louis.

My job for the day was to tackle the bins of food donated from various food drives across the area and sort them into emptied banana boxes. Each of these boxes went to a needy individual or family, and in two hours, I filled close to twenty! It was great cause and an awesome organization, and I’m glad I got the opportunity to be of service in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.