September 2002 Trip to 142-Mile Creek
Sierra Torrens
Mr. Jordan's Ecology Class
Northern Heights High School, Allen, KS

In the out door experiment that we did on Monday, September 30, 2002 at 142 Mile Creek. We did a number of different activities that have to deal with a visual, chemical, and a macroinvertebrate assessment.

In the visual assessment the past couple of days have been clear. From what could be seen there was mostly cropland and grazing land (and) a few roads. In the stream bed there ewere mostly pools right now but come spring there will be ripples. Things that could be seen were large branches, sticks & twigs and fallen leaves and spots of algae on the rocks.

In our chemical assessment we were testing many different areas to see what chemicals were in the stream. In our testing we found that the temperative of the stream was about 19.5 C and that there was 4 ppm of dissolved oxygen in the stream. We found that there was about 43% O2 saturation and <5 ppm of Nitrates in 142 mile creek. The phosphate level was about 0.5 ppm and the pH was 7, which isn't really that great. The turbidity in the stream was about 40 JTU. The coliform test came out to be positive. The streams flow right now was at 0 when we were there.

In the macroinvertebratre assessment we found 6 caddisfly, 3 mayfly nyphms, 3 stonefly nymphs, these three different macroinvertebrates fall under the sensitive category. We also found 1 clam and 3 crayfish. These macroinvertebrates go under the somewhat sensitive category. We also found 5 pouch snails in the stream and they go under the tolerant macroinvertebrates. So overall our stream came out to be fair.

So from the results of (the) stream (assessment) we can say that our stream is not moving right now, but there is some life in the stream.

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