Water Quality Monitoring on Jordan Creek

In October 2022, James River Basin Partnership (JRBP) staff and volunteers conducted water quality monitoring on Jordan Creek in central Springfield for the City of Springfield.

JRBP partners with the City's Department of Environmental Services as part of their outreach and education efforts for their Municipal Separate Storm System, or MS4, permit, which requires communities of 10,000 people or more to maintain a separate infrastructure that removes stormwater runoff from urban and suburban areas.

Benthic macroinvertebrates, those bottom-dwelling river critters lacking a backbone, tell us a lot about the overall health of rivers and streams. A more diverse macroinvertebrate population, one that includes macroinvertebrate species sensitive to pollution, tells us that efforts are working to protect our most valuable resource – our local water.

This theory was confirmed in the mid-2000s when the City removed South Creek in Southwest Springfield from its concrete channel and restored it with native plants and trees to create a healthy corridor. Not only did the macros diversify, but waterfowl and fish also returned.

Stormwater runoff picks up and carries a variety of pollutants into local creeks and streams. According to Missouri Stream Team, "Since urban and suburban areas have large areas of land covered with pavements or buildings, stormwater is not allowed to soak into the ground."

Not only does this untreated water end up in our local streams, but it can also damage stream habitats and increase erosion in the process.

Jordan Creek has always been a "flashy" stream. A series of floods in the late 19th and early 20th centuries eventually caused the citizens of Springfield to support putting the Jordan in to an underground concrete "box" in the 1920s as a form of flood control.

The fact that the stream was also used as a de facto sewer made the box an "out-of-sight, out-of-mind" measure for many years. The site where John Polk Campbell established a homestead that became Springfield in the 1830s was, a hundred years later, a "death-breeding cesspool", according to the City's engineer.

A reporter and photographer for the Springfield Leader & Press attempted to find the source of the Jordan in the 1930s and reported that the stream was where "cars went to die," given the number of tires and debris littering its banks.

The local chapter of the Izaak Walton League warned in 1925 that the pollution of the Jordan was causing fish kills "by the thousands and can be scooped up in baskets in the James River", blaming oil, gas, and other foreign substances being dumped in the creek by local businesses.

But those days of "Jordan's Stormy Banks" are numbered.

The City of Springfield is planning to "daylight" Jordan Creek, removing a good portion of the 3,520 foot-long "aqueduct" in downtown Springfield and restoring it to a more natural state.

JRBP's monitoring of Jordan Creek helps establish a "before" picture as part of the daylight project. The City hopes to see population diversity as they did in South Creek.

Not only will this beautify downtown Springfield, but it will also help reduce flooding, promote native Ozark landscapes, and create greenspace that can be enjoyed by all.

Both the Watershed Committee of the Ozarks and JRBP have been giving tours of the Jordan Creek "box" for many years, drawing attention to the effects of nonpoint source pollution in stormwater runoff.

It's surreal to think that the tour's days may be numbered, but at the same time, it's satisfying to see the Jordan return to a more natural state.

And, what goes into Jordan's waters eventually ends up in the James River and, after a long journey, all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. This makes it even more important that the Jordan rises again out of its concrete tomb.

Todd Wilkinson