Illinois Stream Team

What is the Stream Team?

The Illinois Stream Team is a volunteer monitoring program that allows citizens from across the State of Illinois to monitor the water quality in their local stream or river by testing certain chemical and physical parameters. Stream Team volunteers are provided with training and a monitoring kit, which includes equipment to test for pH, temperature, dissolved oxygen, phosphate, nitrate, alkalinity, total suspended solids, and stream flow.

Why Should You Join Stream Team?

Joining Stream Team is a fun way to get involved in protecting your local river. If you are already a member of a local group that cares about river conservation; if you are trying to get a new group started; or if you're simply concerned about the health of your stream, the Stream Team can help. As a member of the Stream Team, you can:

• Raise awareness about the water quality of local streams
• Increase local interest in the protection of your watershed
• Investigate potential impacts of pollution
• Increase interest and participation in your river conservation group
• Identify potentially degraded waters as well as the healthiest waters in your watershed
• Identify priority areas demanding better protection
• Document trends in water quality over the long term
• Compare water quality in your stream to water quality in streams around the state

The Stream Team enables volunteers to design a monitoring plan that fits their needs and answers questions of concern to them. Some of our volunteers are from urban areas and are concerned about runoff. Others live in the country, around septic tank systems and farmland. The monitoring kit our volunteers use allow them to determine the quality of their streams in a variety of areas. Volunteers are asked to sample at least four times per year, but decide when and where they will monitor. Currently we are also working with experts from the University of Illinois to create an online database for volunteers to store, share, and analyze data across the state.

What Will Stream Team Data Be Used For?

Prairie Rivers Network is working with Illinois EPA to develop a quality assurance plan for data collection to demonstrate that the data collected by our volunteers is reliable and, therefore, informative for the Agency. Additionally, participants at our trainings have enthusiastically discussed their uses for the program, beyond any uses that the state may have for the data. Some intend to evaluate the effectiveness of practices to minimize siltation from construction activities; others hope to increase interest and participation in their watershed organizations; still others plan to investigate the effect of a variety of pollution sources on water quality.

Further, with the online data entry, retrieval, and analysis system that Prairie Rivers Network is developing in partnership with University of Illinois, College of Library and Information Sciences experts, people will be able to review and compare water quality in watersheds throughout the state.

How Can You Join Stream Team?

We are always looking for more volunteers to join the Stream Team. Volunteers are required to attend a day long training session, which includes discussions of goals for monitoring, instruction on designing a sampling plan, and demonstration of and hands on experience conducting tests offered in the monitoring kits. The training sessions are held twice yearly, generally once in the spring and once in the fall. The fee for both the training as well as the monitoring equipment is $100 per group, though the cost of the kit is actually much more. The monitoring kits are yours to use on an ongoing basis, provided you go out and monitor your stream at least four times a year.

If you want to join the Stream Team and help protect the rivers and streams in your watershed, contact Prairie Rivers Network at (217) 344-2371 or info@prairierivers.org for information on upcoming trainings or other questions.

Stream Team Data Sheets

Already a member of Stream Team and in need of more data sheets? Click here to download the Stream Team data collection sheet.

Stream Team Handbook

• Handbook.pdf
• Appendix A.pdf
• Appendix B.pdf
• Appendix C.pdf
• Appendix D.pdf

Stream Team Funding

Funding for the Illinois Stream Team is made possible through the generosity of the following organizations:

• Lumpkin Family Foundation
• Patagonia
• Illinois Indiana Sea Grant
• Decatur Audubon