Stacy Arnold, Missouri Botanical Garden's Watershed Planning Coordinator, received a Missouri Stream Team Ambassador Award for her outstanding work on special projects in the Deer Creek Watershed in 2021. This award was presented to her by Randy Sarver of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources’s Environmental Services Program, Water Quality Monitoring Section at the 26th Annual Missouri Stream Team Watershed Celebration at Meramec State Park on Saturday, July 23, 2022.
She has been collecting water samples on a monthly basis since March 2021 as part of the first ever Deer Creek Watershed Cooperative Stream Investigation (CSI) Project Monitoring Plan. These CSI monitoring plans will continue to be developed in cooperation with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources and Missouri Botanical Garden on an annual basis to monitor E. coli and other identified pollutants in Deer Creek and its tributaries in relation to Section 319 nonpoint source project planning and implementation efforts within identified priority areas. Steve McCarthy, a Stream Team, Level 3, Volunteer Water Quality Monitor (VWQM) of Stream Team 5099 that lives close to Deer Creek, has been generously volunteering his time to assist with the collection of samples for the Deer Creek Watershed Alliance Initiative since March of 2021.
Stacy is a Missouri Stream Team Program, Level 3, VWQM, a member of Stream Teams 2926 and 4149, and she serves on the Board of Stream Teams United. She joined the Missouri Stream Team Program in 2005, was a Stream Team AmeriCorps Assistant for the Missouri Coalition for the Environment in 2007 and 2008, and in 2010, she started working on the Deer Creek Watershed Alliance project which is a Missouri Stream Teams United Association.
To help facilitate cleaner, safer water in the Deer Creek Watershed, Missouri Botanical Garden established the Deer Creek Watershed Alliance in 2008. The mission of the Alliance is to assess and improve the Deer Creek Watershed, with a focus on plant-based solutions. Since the Deer Creek Watershed Alliance Initiative began, four Section 319 Nonpoint Source Implementation Grants have been received from US EPA Region 7 through the Missouri Department of Natural Resources and more than 447 rainscaping installations have been completed in the watershed to date, currently resulting in load reductions of 187 tons of sediment, 92 lbs. of nitrogen, and 18 lbs. of phosphorus per year from Deer Creek. To view photographs of rainscaping by types of projects that have been funded and installed, visit deercreekalliance.org/rainscaping_projects.
