Greetings from the Cascade High School Advanced Biology Mud Creek Group. This water quality group consists of five main members: Rachel Basey, Kimberly Brown, Jordan Garrand, Charlie Jarvis, and Jake Verdini. T.J. Bingman, Annie Whitehead, Steve Cimbalic, and Nekolla Lindsey maintained the Mud Creek Group in previous years. The goal of our Mud Creek Group is to improve water quality in Lake Cascade Reservoir by improving the water quality of Mud Creek, a small tributary that contributes excess amounts of phosphates to the Reservoir. This year, in order to help full fill our goal, we did a project with Tamarack Resorts Inc. in which the Advanced Biology Class built ten El W’d structures along the banks of Mud Creek in order to help stabilize the stream bank. We also run SITE tests from both the north and south ends of the creek in order to monitor nine different water quality contributors.

The SITE test kits measure Phosphates, Nitrates, Dissolved Oxygen, pH levels, Biological Oxygen Demand, Total Solids, Temperature, Turbidity, and Fecal Coliform. We then take the data obtained from running all of these tests and calculate a measurement know as Q-Value. The Q-Value is a number that helps us determine the overall “quality” (hence the “Q”-Value) of Mud Creek. On a scale of Bad (0) to Excellent (100), Mud Creek is usually Fair or Good (70). Site Testing will become invaluable this next year when we are testing to see how the El W’d structures are affecting the water quality as well as stream bank erosion. We are also looking into helping our assistant principal, Mr. Leaf, implement water quality improvement that will help him maintain good water quality on his property and the creek itself as it flows into Mud Creek. We hope that by helping Mr. Leaf with water conservation techniques, which more ranchers will want to follow. Mr. Leaf’s property also has a plot of land on his property that contains native plants, which have been surviving for around a hundred years. These plants will be useful in possible transplanting experiments to see if we can reintroduce a few native plants to places that have been heavily over grazed or trampled. The Mud Creek group plans to work in close association with Tamarack, who has helped The Mud Creek group in numerous ways. Tamarack helped us obtain money when Hilary Smith allowed the previous group members to participate in achieving the money. The 319 grant provided our group with money that we used to help build El W’d structures.

Mud Creek is an ongoing project that is carried on by both new and old group members year by year. At the end of each year, the senior members of our group graduate, and leave group management to the junior members. This brings up the issue of recruiting new group members every year, and instructing these new members on how to run the tests and collect accurate data. This year, the group was led by Juniors that had not been instructed by Seniors. Thus, the group spent about 15 weeks learning how to do the water tests. Our group was taught how valuable taking accurate data was. We found that collected over several years will be absolutely necessary in making accurate data comparisons. In past years, we have had the issue of flawed data.

The data collected had inconsistencies, and because of this, the results of the tests were inconclusive. Nearly two years worth of data collecting was wasted because future groups will not be able use that flawed data to make statistical comparisons. We hope to continue to recruit more students to be in the Mud Creek Group, and we also aspire to leave behind a legacy worth remembering.

 

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