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Introducing the Walnut Creek Watershed Photo by Jim Riggs Unless otherwise credited, all photos & text by Lee Searles
Location in the Raccoon Watershed WALNUT CREEK Map source: IA DNR
Tributaries Map source: IA DNR
Tributaries, contd. LITTLE WALNUT NORTH WALNUT CUMMINS LIVING HISTORY BLUE KAREN ACRES ROCKLYN LITTLE WALNUT CREEK INDUSTRIAL
Des Moines Waterworks Independent public utility, formed 1871 Serves over 400,000 people Water sources: Raccoon & Des Moines Rivers Direct intakes Parallel floodplain intakes
Water quality assessment parameters: Known pollutants: agricultural & urban Hydrology: flood stages, particle loads Emerging contaminants Pharmaceuticals: livestock & human Graph source: DMWW
DMWW Water Works Park: about 1500 acres Public events, such as the Asian Festival Environmental education Bill Riley Trail Arie den Boer Arboretum www.dmww.com
Des Moines Wastewater Reclamation Authority
Communities Clive Dallas Center Des Moines Grimes Johnston Urbandale Waukee West Des Moines Windsor Heights
Communities Clive Greenbelt
Communities Des Moines Ashworth Park & Pool Bill Riley Trailhead Greenwood Park DM Art Center Seven southwestern Neighborhood Associations Ingersoll Park, Linden Heights, Salisbury Oaks, Waterbury, Waveland Park, Waveland Woods, Westwood Waveland Golf Course Glenwood Cemetery
Communities Windsor Heights Corporate presence: WalMart Hy-Vee Kum & Go Parks: Colby & Lions Also elementary school grounds (pocket parks)
Communities Clive Corporate presence Retailers BP-Amoco storage & distribution
Communities Urbandale Corporate presence Retailers Stew Hansens Car Sales Flying J Truck Stop Menards Residential areas & associated uses Parks & schools
Ecosystems Biodiversity is present Birds Woodland flora Prairie savannah & tallgrass prairie Mammals Insects Microscopic life
Ecosystems Benthic macroinvertebrates: annelid worms, mollusks, arthropods  Snailcase Caddisfly larva (Steve Witmer) Soldier Fly larva (Steve Witmer)
AMERICAN COOT at DMWW
BLACK SNAKEROOT
GREEN DARNER  Two kinds of time pass here: sitting at the edge of a sun-warmed pool watching blue dragonflies and black tadpoles.   And the rapids: down the glassy-smooth tongue into a yawning trench, climb a ten-foot wall of standing water and fall into boiling, ferocious hydraulics, sucking whirlpools, drowned voices, stopped hearts.  -- Barry Lopez
BROWN CREEPER, Ashworth Park
CHINSTRAP (CANADA) GOOSE
BROWN SNAKE, South-of-Grand, Des Moines
CICADA KILLER
COMMON MULLEIN, Norfolk-Southern Rail Grade
CRANEFLY, South-of-Grand, Des Moines
SCAT OF WHITE-TAILED DEER, Bill Riley Trail
Unidentified DRAGONFLY It was sunny one evening last summer at Tinker Creek; the sun was low in the sky, upstream.  Again and again, one fish, then another, turned for a split second across the current and flash! The sun shot out from its silver side.  Something broke and something opened.  I filled up like a new wineskin.  I breathed an air like light; I saw a light like water.  I was ether, the leaf in the zephyr; I was fleshflake, feather, bone.  -- Annie Dillard
EASTERN KINGBIRD, Glendale Cemetery
FOX SNAKE, South-of-Grand, Des Moines
FOX TRACKS, Greenwood Park  I think of two landscapes--one outside the self, the other within.  The second landscape I think of is an interior one, a kind of projection within a person of a part of the exterior landscape.  The shape of the individual mind is affected by land as it is by genes.  -- Barry Lopez
COMMON HEMLOCK & GARLIC MUSTARD
GIANT LACEWING (rare?), South-of-Grand, Des Moines
OVENBIRD (window-kill), South-of-Grand, Des Moines
POKEWEED or INKBERRY
AILANTHUS or TREE-OF-HEAVEN (exotic), Norfolk-Southern Rail Grade
WHITE-TAILED DEER, Bill Riley Trail  I love any discourse of rivers.  -- Izaak Walton
TRACKS OF RACCOON, Clive Greenbelt
HAIRSTREAK BUTTERFLY
Ecosystems BENTHIC, AQUATIC, SURFICIAL STREAM EDGE, BANK, TRANSITIONAL SAND & GRAVEL BAR BOTTOMLAND FOREST UNDERSTORY CANOPY FLOODPLAIN  AERIAL
TUFTED TITMOUSE, South-of-Grand
RING-BILLED GULLS, DMWW  Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it.  -- Norman McLean
Ecosystems OUTSIDE CUTBANK PROFILE  In the world there is nothing more submissive and weak than water.  Yet for attacking that which is hard and strong, nothing can surpass it.  -- Lao-Tzu
WHITE-THROATED SPARROW, South-of-Grand
Agricultural Environments Reduced biodiversity Cropland Pasture & animal feeding lots Fencerows Wooded & cleared ravines
Agricultural CAFOs (2005) Surface destruction: topsoil, excessive organic matter Pollutant runoff State permitting & regulation
Agricultural Close grazing Surface runoff & sheet erosion Hoof damage to cover & overgrazing Bulldozing & clearing Exotic pasture species, e.g., crown vetch, birds-foot trefoil, red clover, sweet clover Overpopulation by cool-season grasses, including exotics Brome, orchard grass
Cropland Row crops: soybeans, maize Chemical pesticides & herbicides Fertilizers Water & wind erosion Soil compaction Agricultural
Agricultural History of conservation practices Grassed waterways through fields
Agricultural Crop stubble: low-till & no-till
Agricultural Crop terracing
Suburban Development Destruction of native remnant habitats Exotic landscaping species Loss of fencerows, woodlots, grassy streambanks
Development Residential topsoil stripping & soil disturbance Subsoil compaction
Development Multiple-use siting
Development Erosion barriers
Development New park lands
Urban Environments Residential areas: Exotic lawns: bluegrass, fescue Nonnative landscape plantings Corporate neighbors: nonnative landscaping
Development Stormwater management
Urban Recreational uses: bike trails
Urban
Urban
Urban
Urban Photo by Jim Riggs Recreational uses: water trails Inhibited by log jams, highly variable water levels
Urban Asphalted parking & streets: runoff Stormwater management Extremes in water levels after heavy rains
Urban Raccoon/Walnut confluence with Union Pacific rail line in foreground, late spring 2008 RAIL RIGHT-OF-WAYS ARE COMMON LOCATIONS FOR WATER PONDING & MOSQUITO BREEDING, ALONG WITH DENSE GROWTHS OF INVASIVE PLANTS.
Urban Hazardous materials spills FLYING J TRAVEL PLAZA HAS BEEN SUED BY THE IOWA ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR REPEATED SPILLS INTO WALNUT CREEK.
Urban Lowhead dams & other obstructions Downstream from South Valley Drive

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