As a kid in the 1950s and ’60s, Jim Foryst spent frigid winter days ice skating on Salt Creek in Wood Dale. Foryst still lives in Wood Dale; Salt Creek runs through the back yard of the home he owns today. But the creek, like Foryst, has seen changes.
Population increases and a corresponding increase in effluvia from area water treatment plants have turned the creek into a bigger and faster-moving waterway than the one Foryst skated on as a boy.
“It hardly ever freezes over enough to ice skate on around here now,” Foryst said of the creek, which has its headwaters in Palatine and runs south through DuPage County and back into Cook before emptying into the Des Plaines River.
Foryst, who helped coordinate a Salt Creek cleanup during the recent DuPage County River Sweep, suspected from personal observation that the stream in his back yard had grown more polluted and less hospitable to aquatic insects and animals over the years.
“I didn’t want to go with gut feelings or shoot from the hip, though,” said Foryst, who installs alarm systems when he’s not involved in area rivers projects. “I wanted to learn to measure and monitor the stream’s health scientifically.”
So, Tuesday afternoon, Foryst found himself donning rubberized wading overalls and sloshing around in Salt Creek under the direction of a similarly garbed crew from the Illinois RiverWatch Network.
Headquartered at Oakton Community College in Des Plaines, the Illinois RiverWatch Network adores folks like Foryst.
“The state set us up to find volunteers who will monitor area waterways,” RiverWatch’s Michelle Szulczynski explained.
“Volunteers get a nice education in how to monitor stream habitats and insect larvae,” added RiverWatch instructor Ron Sorin, “and the data they collect is really valuable to the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency and the state’s Department of Natural Resources.”
Currently, approximately 20 volunteers monitor waterways in northern Illinois. Foryst, who plans to coordinate Salt Creek efforts with volunteers in Elk Grove and Addison, hopes to put together a group of stream monitors in the Wood Dale area. In future years, Foryst will monitor the health of his back yard stream in May and June.
“We chose those months because they’re good bug periods,” instructor Melissa McCoy said. “We’re looking for long-term trends.”
How do you assess stream health? Water appearance, sediment samples and the number and kind of aquatic organisms all play a part in whether a stream is deemed excellent, good, fair or poor.
After measuring the stream’s width and depth-hip deep and 51 feet wide as it runs past his back yard-Foryst was given a small cloth net for scooping up samples of sediment and aquatic organisms. Later, by consulting the Stream Monitoring Manual provided to all volunteers, he would identify the minuscule critters and file a report.
Ideally, samples are taken from what are known as “ripple sections,” shallow stream areas with rocky bottoms and plenty of oxygen to support aquatic life.
With no ripple sections to be found, Sorin plunged his hands in along the stream bank, looking for “leaf packs,” clumps of decaying leaves considered the next best scooping site. When only a raccoon skull surfaced, the crew gave up on leaf packs and settled for a “snag area” in the form of a clump of branches.
As Foryst wielded his cloth net under Sorin’s watchful eye, McCoy cautioned that monitors should always work in pairs.
“They always tell us that, and I realized why after Ron and I were doing an educational demonstration for 7th graders in a drainage ditch in Grayslake and I slid down in the water,” she said. “My waders filled up with water and Ron had to pull me out. None of the 7th graders laughed, though.”
Foryst had no such problems as he moved sure-footed through the stream, periodically dumping his catch into a bucket. “Getting the samples won’t be too difficult,” he said. “But I’m going to have to get out my bifocals to identify these things.”
Later that afternoon, more than three hours after his training session began, Foryst and the RiverWatch crew counted up the aquatic organisms-there were more than 100 to identify-and came up with a final stream rating.
“Overall, this part of the stream would be rated on the low side of fair,” Foryst said.
“I didn’t know what we would find,” he added. “I wanted to know where we stood. Now that I know what to do, I want to start doing some monitoring farther upstream. We’re just starting, and the more people we can get involved in this, the better. Salt Creek definitely needs some help.”
