The Central Iowa Group is sponsoring a series of water quality monitoring
events -- on Walnut Creek in western Polk County.  Peggy Murdock and Debbie
Neustadt are leading the series -- can you tell us if you've found any
"macro invertebrates" in Walnut Creek?

Jane Clark
=======================================================
Sierra Club Action Daily
 Vol. II #103
 June 16, 1999

 BUG CHECK IN THE BIG SIOUX:

        Most of the time, things that have many legs and make their way
from
 place to place by flying or crawling give most of us humans the
creeps...most
 of the time.
        But when Sierra Club activist Mandy Hall went to the Big Sioux
River
 in South Dakota, she was looking for bugs -- on purpose!
        The Sioux Falls paper, Argus Leader, reported on the Bug Check in
the
 Big Sioux, the Sierra Club's program to monitor water pollution by
checking
 for bugs -- because water bugs don't tolerate pollution well. The more of
a
 certain kind of bug, the cleaner the water!
        The fancy word is "macro invertebrate" and their populations told
 Sierras that the water quality on the river should improve.
        "By looking at the macro invertebrates, we've got an indication
that
 there are some problems here," said our very own Kirk Koepsel, a regional
 Sierra Club rep from Sheridan, Wyoming.
        And here's the kicker:
        "We don't think the state is doing an adequate job of improving
water
 quality on the Big Sioux.
        The state argued about that, but Sierranss stood firm, and said
that
 in fact they'd chosen a stretch of the river that might be better, not
worse,
 than the rest.
        Hats off to the Sierrans who made this innovative program happen.
And,
 by the way, it strikes this Daily Writer that the "macro invertebrate
check"
 may also prove something else: that even though Kirk lives in Wyoming, he
 bugs people all the way to South Dakota.

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