Plainfield ‘citizen scientist’ monitors stream health at Midewin by collecting aquatic insects

Wading into a stream to collect and analyze aquatic bugs isn’t fun to some people, but the activity has absorbed Plainfield resident Jim Pustz for 20 years.

Each spring, Pustz, 63, helps The Nature Conservancy in Illinois “monitor the once heavily contaminated waterways in and around Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie” to “determine stream quality, according to a news release from The Nature Conservancy.

A “red water” pink byproduct of TNT production once polluted the waterways at Midewin, the former the site of the Joliet Army Ammunition Plant, according to the release. The plant was declared inactive in 1993.

The Nature Conservancy, in partnership with the U.S. Forest Service as part of the Illinois RiverWatch program, trains its volunteers “to collect, identify and analyze data” for Illinois RiverWatch so as to understand how the streams are responding to climate changes and recovering from the “lingering effects of pollutants,” according to the release.

Pustz recently received the RiverWatch Lifetime Achievement Award.

Allison Cisneros, The Nature Conservancy’s Midewin project manager, said longtime volunteers such as Pustz, known as “citizen scientists,” help The Nature Conservancy observe changes over time. Seeing the presence of certain macroinvertebrates suggests many cannot tolerate certain levels of pollution, she said.

“You contantly have to be aware and paying attention,” Cisneros said. “And our volunteers help us pay attention.”

Cisneros said Grant Creek and Prairie Creek, two of the four at Midewin, received the healthiest ratings of RiverWatch Illinois’ 50 sites. But monitoring still is necessary.

“Everything can look great for years, but if you’re not monitoring it you also cannot detect when something is wrong,” Cisneros said, “If you have a major pollution event, how would we know if not for the volunteers?”

‘I just like being outdoors’

Pustz’s love for nature began in childhood. His parents belonged to the Braidwood Recreation Club, where Pustz enjoyed camping, fishing, hiking and the “nice beach.”

He earned a degree in wildlife science with the goal of working for the Illinois Department of Conservation. Pustz was “put on the list” for the conservation departments in Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Missouri and Michigan, but a job opportunity never opened up for him. Pustz returned to school and earned a degree in computer science and subsequently enjoyed a “challenging and gratifying career” in the computer industry, he said.

Shortly after Pustz moved to Plainfield in 1995, he learned the newly formed RiverWatch program was looking for volunteers. So Pustz attended the training, received his certification and started monitoring the waters at Midewin with two other volunteers, he said.

“I just like being outdoors and I thought this would be a good way to use it,” Pustz said.

The monitoring starts in May, ends in June and takes two separate days to complete, he said.

Collecting, analyzing, logging

On the first day, Pustz takes his kit and wades into Prairie Creek to get samples from a stream that he’s monitored over the years. One area has a nice riffle – shallow water running over rocks – and another has an undercut bank, he said. Undercut banks are found in calmer, deeper water, he said.

Pustz said he shuffles his feet to kick up soil and rocks, moves his net through a 2-foot section and dumps the contents into his bucket. He gets two samples from the riffle and two from the undercut bank, he said. He also measures the stream’s width and velocity and then logs the information. That takes an hour, he said.

Pustz then leave the water, sifts through his bucket of rockets to remove and separate the aquatic insects into trays and covers the insects with isopropyl alcohol, a process that takes two to three hours, he said. Pustz said he typically gets 100 insects.

On the second day, Pustz identifies and logs the insects. Good indictors of stream health are the presence of mayflies – and he may find up to nine different species – and stoneflies. His collection also may include water-penny beetles, riffle beetles and “stuff not on the list” of 30 aquatic insects on the log sheet, he said.

The unknowns go into the “other” column, Pustz said.

But Pustz isn’t just paying attention to the insects.

“We also get snails, crayfish, and the small minnows are increasing,” he said.

Pustz said he saw a smallmouth bass for the first time last spring, which indicates improved stream health.

“There’s more food sources for the smallmouth bass,” Pustz said. “So that’s a good sign.”

More ways to help

Pustz said he also is part of a team that monitors stream health at five sites at Midewin once a month from April through October. The team checks for water velocity and depth, pH, turbidity, nitrates and temperature, he said. Midewin and Illinois RiverWatch both receive reports, Pustz said.

This “biological monitoring” is gratifying to Pustz, he said. “We’ve become little stewards of the waterway there.”

For information, visit ngrrec.org, nature.org and fs.usda.gov/main/midewin/home.