spring Edition

laundry detergents - without the plastic

By Coralynne Westcott, Missouri Stream Teams #3491, #4343, #4707 in the Grand Glaize Creek Watershed 

Featured above is Peanut the Turtle, famous for having a 6-pack plastic soda ring trapped around her middle, that she grew around, causing her shell to take the shape of a peanut.

There’s no other readership that understands the importance of limiting our use of plastics than the very people cleaning up our state’s streams.

Allow me to offer you some alternatives to buying another big jug of laundry detergent.

For years, we’ve chopped up a Fels Naptha bar and combined it with a cup of Arm & Hammer’s Sudsing Soda and a cup of Borax. My husband has sensitive skin and this soap gets our clothes clean without any skin irritation.

The environmental concerns are that Borax is a product that is mined. Consequently, there’s the usual impact from mining such as high clay tailings. They are trying to sell the tailings to brick makers. There’s evidence to suggest the clay tailings enhance the quality of a brick.

Sapindus is a genus of small trees and shrubs that live in temperate regions of the world. The berries are called soap nuts. They hold saponins. Sapo is the latin word for soap. The soap nuts are dried, hollow shells of themselves. They’ve been de-seeded. You’re supposed to put 4-6 in a satchel and drop into your machine’s tub. Those soap nuts are good for 5-6 loads (in soft water). Saponins leave your clothes feeling so clean and, get this, it’s so mild (hypoallergenic), you don’t have to remove the satchel for the rinse cycle. Talk about easy-peasy!

The environmental impact has to be the carbon footprint left by carting the soap nuts here from India. Western Soapberry (Sapindus saponaria) grows in the southern states and Florida up to the Carolinas. To my knowledge, no one is farming and producing soap nuts for North American markets yet.

These two soap alternatives cost less than a dime per load. Compare to liquid Tide at .38 per load or powdered Tide at .30 to .60 per load depending on what kind you use.

I should say that we have surface water from the Missouri River. That often suggests soft water. I don’t know how these two soap options work in hard water from wells.

I don’t have experience to share with the following suggestions. I have found two stores that specialize in providing soap ingredients only. The buyers must bring in their containers. Visit SOAP (Save Our Ailing Planet) Refill Stations at 1912 East Sunshine St. in Springfield and 7441 Broadway St. in Kansas City. Visit online at GetMoSoap.com. If you’re in St. Louis, the Refill Effect is at 204 North Clay Avenue, Kirkwood. Visit online at therefilleffect.com.

It’s time we all start the journey to cut down the use of plastics in our households. We must always find ourselves as part of the solution, not the problem.

- Cori Westcott

meet the newest member of our team

A Foreword by Rebecca O’Hearn, Volunteer Programs Supervisor

We are excited to welcome our newest team member Pam Taylor! Pam will be serving as our Volunteer Education and Citizen Science Assistant, focusing on water quality monitoring. Pam grew up in a family that appreciated the outdoors and camped and fished often. This love of the outdoors inspired Pam to pursue a Bachelor of Science degree in Environmental Science from Bradley University. Pam’s experience in a freshwater ecology lab grew a great appreciation for the often overlooked, beautiful, and diverse aquatic ecosystems of the Midwest. This led Pam to pursue a career in natural resources, serving first as a volunteer at Shaw Nature Reserve before joining the Missouri Botanical Garden as a restoration assistant through the Outdoor Leadership Corp. While at Missouri Botanical Garden, Pam worked with Missouri Stream Team partners and volunteers on invasive plant removal and litter pickups and gained valuable perspectives while working with urban teens. Pam is excited to be working with Stream Team serving our Midwest streams!

Pam Taylor teaching an interactive station on macroinvertebrates in the spring of 2025 at Marsh Madness.

Meet Pam Taylor, Volunteer Education & Citizen Science Assistant

I grew up in a family that appreciated the outdoors and camped and fished often. Originally from Illinois, I attended Bradley University in Peoria Illinois along the Illinois river. While there I was enrolled in a freshwater ecology lab where I explored many topics but grew a great appreciation for the often-overlooked, beautiful and divers, ecosystems of the Midwest.

After graduating in 2022 with a Bachelor of Environmental Science, I tried everything I could to work outside. From volunteering and then eventually getting a seasonal position at Missouri Botanical Garden, I was determined to work outside, even if I had to work part-time retail in the meantime. Through these opportunities I learned more about speaking to the public and sharing something I loved with those who may not have been exposed to it the way I have. I also developed a great respect for the work volunteers accomplish though my time as one, and then as a part of the leadership team for volunteer groups as a restoration assistant.

I moved again to central Missouri to accept this position working with the Stream Team. I worked in many different ecosystems, but I’m excited to be back working with streams.

- Pam Taylor

Phone: (573) 522-4115, Ext. 3598

Email: Pam.Taylor@mdc.mo.gov

Moving on Downstream!

By April Sevy, Volunteer Education & Citizen Science Coordinator 

April Sevy and her family are pictured above, enjoying the outdoors and our beautiful waters.

For the last 12 years, I’ve seen the power of volunteers – the power of creating community, protecting water, educating friends, family, and strangers, and fostering the good in the world. While my position was to train these volunteers, the education was reciprocal. Not only did I learn lots of fun facts, but I also learned about how to serve this selfless, passionate group of people. I learned that each and every volunteer brings their own experiences and values to the program. Each one of these volunteers then helped me develop new perspectives on stream stewardship, citizen science, and life.

I became a Stream Team staffer in January of 2013, straight out of college. During this time, you got to watch me grow as a professional and grow my family. In working with you, I realized my passion for educating volunteers – mostly adult volunteers. This led me to pursue a graduate degree in Adult Education and Training, which I am completing in Spring 2025. Just like most of you, I believe learning is a lifelong endeavor. The next step in my life journey is to expand my skills and views (beyond the water). I am leaving the Missouri Department of Conservation and the Stream Team program as a staffer to continue this journey.

Thank you for all that you’ve taught me and the support you’ve given me. I’ll see you downriver!

- April Sevy

Farewell anna swearengen

By Anna Swearengen, Volunteer Engagement Assistant

For those who might not know me, my name is Anna Swearengen and I have been working with Missouri Stream Team volunteers in the Southwest and Ozark regions since April of 2024. I am writing this to inform everyone that on April 1^st I will be starting a new position as the Environmental Planner for the Harry S. Truman Coordinating Council. I hope I will continue to work with many of you in my professional endeavors as well as my own work as a Stream Team volunteer. It has been such a pleasure to work for you all over this past year, and I will sincerely miss this program and all the people involved!

Thanks again,

Anna

#38 fish advisory

Learn more about healthy fish in Missouri, and what a fish advisory means, in our latest Fact Sheet, provided by our wonderful partners at the Department of Health and Senior Services. 

Select the image to enlarge. Download the PDF here.

the little known hyporheic zone

By Garrett Frandson, Stream Team Volunteer Water Quality Monitoring Program Coordinator

The picture above is a small pool at the bottom of a depression in a gravelly stream. This suggests water lurking beneath the surface of the rest of the stream channel, hidden away in the hyporheic zone.

Beneath the surface of a stream bed, water continues to flow, chemical processes carry on, and macroinvertebrates still scuttle among the substrate. This distinct environment, where surface water and groundwater meet, is called the hyporheic zone, an important but often overlooked component of stream ecosystems. Like we encourage when sampling for macroinvertebrates, let’s dig in!

Stream beds are generally loose mixtures of rocks ranging in size from sand to boulders. They might feel tightly packed beneath your feet, but usually the bits of substrate don’t fit perfectly together: there’s space left over between individual particles. With fine material that packs tightly, like sand, there’s less room, but more coarse material, like gravel and cobble, leave more room since they don’t pack together as well. The space between the substrate fills up with water flowing back and forth in a constant exchange between the stream above and groundwater below, similar to how streams are in frequent exchange with wetlands next to them. Obstacles like fallen trees, boulders, or even larger features shaping the stream channel itself, can help force water downward instead of downstream. With the water goes carbon, nutrients, dissolved gases, pollutants, microorganisms, and even some macroinvertebrates, plunging into the depths of groundwater to carry out some parts of their life cycles. In more extreme cases, the hyporheic zone may be dozens of meters deep—good luck trying to do the Benthic Boogie so far down!

You’d be right to think things are a bit cramped in the hyporheic zone. While there is room enough for water and what it carries, all of the packed substrate still poses a significant barrier to smooth motion. Water may only creep along, slowing down processes that depend on flow. While surface waters are often more rich in oxygen but lower in nutrients, the opposite is true of groundwater, which can result in conditions in the hyporheic zone going from one end of the range to the other. Some macroinvertebrates, over time, find that being “macro” might not be all that great. Over generations, some stoneflies, for example, have adapted to this environment by becoming smaller, shrinking their cerci (“tails”), and even losing their wings as adults—similar to how cave-dwelling animals evolve away from where eyes are just a liability.

If the hyporheic zone is this tough environment, why would so many organisms call it home? Despite the hardships it can pose, sometimes conditions are even more rough toward the surface! If you’re a stonefly on the stream bed, you’re at risk of being eaten by a fish, of drying out if your stream is affected by drought, of getting hit by high concentrations of pollutants, of boiling in the afternoon sun or freezing in the depths of winter. If you move down below the stream bed, however, suddenly these problems seem far away: fish can’t follow you into this confined space, there’s still water deep down if not at the surface, pollutants have a harder time making it down with you, and, like the steady temperatures of caves, you’re insulated from extreme variation in temperature. Sounds kind of cozy, actually!

…That is, until some volunteer water quality monitor comes along and starts dancing on you! They know that while plenty of life may be visible atop the stream bed, even more may be found just below, if only they can reach it! The next time you’re monitoring a stream for macroinvertebrates, be sure to put some energy into your legs and tap into an aquatic world hidden right below your feet!

Riffle Review - 6923 Teams strong

A quarterly glimpse of Stream Team activities - in the last quarter, Missouri Stream Team volunteers reported:

• 207 Total activities
• 1,287 Total participants
• 3,634 Hours
• 29 Tons of trash collected
• 29 Water quality monitoring trips
• 172 Trees planted
  

Team Snapshots

The 100 Club

A highlight of Teams that have contributed more than 100 hours in the last quarter -

Follow this link to our Calendar of Events to find out about upcoming events near you!

Please join us for a special event this summer, in the month of June: National Rivers Month!

QuarterLY Activity Prize Drawing

Semi-Annual Canoe Prize:

• Pelican Canoe

Quarter Prizes:

• Backyard Essentials, Solar Birdbath Bubbler
• Squirrel Buster, Standard, Bird Feeder
• Strike Force, FHDR Gen 2 Night Optics, Game Camera

Quarter Youth Prize:

• Spikeball, The Weekender

Fill out an Activity Report for your past or upcoming events, and you could win a prize next quarter!



If you ordered supplies in advance, please don’t forget to report your accomplishments after your event. Missouri Stream Team relies on your reporting to continue to get funding! 

Coalition corner

Show-Me Less Plastic Missouri: A Call to Action for Missouri Stream Teams to be Part of the Plastic Pollution Solution

By Mary Culler, Executive Director of Stream Teams United 

Missouri Stream Team volunteers are pictured above, picking single use plastic out of the Missouri River floodplain.

If you are a Missouri Stream Team, the chances are pretty good that you have picked up plastic from Missouri waterways – more than once!

The facts and numbers about plastic pollution are daunting:

• An estimate of 51 trillion pieces of microplastics (pieces <5 mm in size) currently in our oceans;
• A projection that by the year 2050, the weight of plastic in the ocean will be greater than the weight of fish in the ocean;
• Currently, approximately 8-15 million tons of plastic enter the ocean each year (a ton is about the size of an adult male polar bear). Imagine 10 million male polar bears entering the ocean each year!
• Annual plastic production has increased 230 times since the 1950’s from 2 million metric tons of plastic in the 1950’s to 460 million metric tons in 2020 and is on track to triple by 2060.

Wow! How did we get here? Over half of the plastic ever made has been produced in the last 20 years. I think back to the days of my college education and master’s degree research in the early 2000’s, and at that time the problem of plastic pollution was not being widely discussed as an imminent threat to our water resources. An article, Plastic Pollution: An Ocean Emergency, was published in 2010, and its article citations include many studies and articles published in 2009. Many articles before 2010 focus on plastic effects on sea turtles and entanglement to marine life. The issue of plastic pollution has grown so much in these past 20 years.

When we think about conservation efforts in Missouri, each generation has faced different challenges. Decimated wildlife populations of the 1930’s led to the formation of the Conservation Federation of Missouri in 1935 and the Missouri Department of Conservation in 1937. Many wildlife species have rebounded in these past 90 years due to the work of previous generations. The bald eagle was declared endangered in 1967, but today it is a common experience to see these winged creatures fly above Missouri’s rivers and streams.

Tackling plastic pollution is one of the greatest environmental challenges of our generation, and the next generation. It is a Missouri issue, a national issue, and a global issue. But how do we tackle the mountain of plastic pollution? We invite you to learn more at our Show-Me Less Plastic Pollution website, and consider your Stream Team becoming a Beyond Plastics Local Group or Affiliate. The national organization, Beyond Plastics, provides resources, tools, and training to everyday community members interested in helping reduce plastic use. If you are interested in being a part of the team of Missourians working to reduce plastic use in Missouri, connect with our team here. You can be a part of our team in raising awareness, collaborating, advocating, and taking action to reduce plastic use in our Great Rivers State.