By The Watershed Center - Grand Traverse Bay 

What is Stream Search?

You can Adopt-A-Stream! 

The Watershed Center held our annual Fall Stream Search this October.  A total of 21 volunteers and 8 team leaders turned out for a sunny day of wading in the stream.  Besides catching a doughnut or two at check-in, volunteers also caught a lot of bugs and had a great time as they assessed the health of our area streams.

Eight teams of volunteers, led by trained team leaders, took an inventory of aquatic insects at sixteen sites on nine streams in the Grand Traverse Bay region for the event.  "Fall Stream Search was a blast!  Mother Nature gave us a beautiful day to spend sampling our local streams and all of our teams did a fantastic job.  We had eight team leaders volunteer this time, so we had just enough to sample all of the streams on our list," says Sarah U'Ren, Program Director with The Watershed Center.

Streams sampled include: Acme, Baker, Brewers, Cedar, Jack's, Kid's, Miller, Mitchell, and Yuba Creeks.  Of the sixteen sites sampled, 11 ranked fair and three ranked good.  None fell in the excellent category, but two ranked as poor.  The top ranking sites were the upper section of Baker Creek near Holiday Hills, Cedar Creek at its outlet to Grand Traverse Bay, and Miller Creek (tributary to Boardman River).  The two poor sites were Mitchell Creek at Townline Road and Yuba Creek south of M-72.  Many factors contribute to stream rankings; the most common reason for lower site rankings is sand in the stream bed, which creates a poor living environment for aquatic insects and reduces spawning areas for fish.  Many urban streams are subjected to high levels of sediment input from stormwater runoff during rainfalls.

Stream Rankings Through the Years