by Angel Kruzen, Sierra Club Water Sentinel
My new job as Sierra Club Water Sentinel for Missouri has introduced me to a whole new world of water quality work in Missouri. I had never before known the waters that grace the Kansas City metropolitan area. They come with such beautiful names, the Blue, the Little Blue, Indian Creek and Brush Creek. Unfortunately, these urban streams are terribly compromised and impacted by human activities. Like all streams, they represent the sum of all our activities in their watersheds. My goal is to have these streams placed on the Missouri Impaired Waters List: the first step in healing gaping wounds.
The Blue River Parkway parallels the Blue River through town, complete with soccer parks, fishing spots and picnic areas. Although my husband Tom and I have observed many bicyclists on that road, it remains too narrow to be as a safe as a bike path. Without much expense the city could remedy this and make this tree-covered road a real joy to traverse. A widened path would encourage pedestrians and cyclists to become familiar with this unexpectedly pleasant wild area in urban Kansas City. Prompt garbage pick-up at these parks would also make them more appealing to use. No one wants to frequent a park with garbage ballooning out of the open trash cans!
Further downstream, this delight turns to horror as the city government and the Army Corps of Engineers is engaged in a costly boondoggle to channelize the Blue. Monster machines are creating an artificial stream more closely resembling a superhighway than a river. A straightened stream causes more potential damage as it increases the water’s speed and carrying capacity, enabling it to do more damage further downstream. This impairs the river’s ability to act as a safe conduit for storm water runoff and is money not well spent. Riverbank junkyards, cement and rip-rapped banks, and mountains of garbage turn the pretty Blue into a nightmare. Projects like this on the Blue have been promoted as “flood control” projects by the city government, developers, and Army Corps of Engineers. I was told that many projects were begun without any storm water permits from the MDNR – only to be given permits after the project had been inaugurated! This is government in reverse!
Indian Creek, which begins in Kansas and is listed as an impaired water there for fecal coliform loads, passes the magical Missouri State Line, which “cleanses” this water body of all its ills. It is not listed as impaired by Missouri but undergoes no treatment to make it purer – just the magic of the Missouri State Line! This should be a “no brainer” for MDNR. This stream and the others in the Kansas City region seem to be suffering from bureaucratic and political bungling.
Brush Creek too often deserves the disparaging local name “Flush” Creek. We didn’t expect an urban stream that meanders through the urban core to be pristine, but we did not expect to see an open sewer either. Strong human sewage odor made this one of the nastier streams this side of Calcutta’s open trench sewers – and this was after a flood water event. This poor stream also boasts a totally cemented bottom and embankment, occasionally broken to reveal a bedrock bottom. The water quality is frightfully impaired as are the fluid dynamics of the stream. Once again, verification of its impaired status hasn’t been officially recognized. Sadly, all one would really need is a nose and average eyesight to accomplish this!
All is not doom and gloom. These streams can be brought back to functional and even aesthetic levels. A week ago our Scenic Rivers Stream Association got over 100 volunteers to pick up garbage in the Jacks Fork River. Over a ton of garbage was collected and a fun time was had on the river and it is an even more desirable place to play today. Care for our streams like care for our democracy cannot be spectator sports; they call for intimate participation.