Biological Monitoring
Pleasure Creek
| Monitoring Location | at 86th Ave NW, South end of Coon Rapids Dam Park, Coon Rapids |
| Monitored By | Blaine High School |
| Number of Years Monitored | 2.5 yrs |
| Background: Pleasure Creek originates in the Blaine and flows through southern Coon Rapids. It enters the Mississippi River in the southern end of Coon Rapids Dam Regional Park. The sampling site is the area between 86th Avenue and the outlet to the Mississippi. This site is highly wooded with an overstory of mature trees. Immediately upstream the streamside is heavily developed. The stream channel is approximately 10 feet wide and 0.5-1 feet deep at baseflow, and is predominantly sand and silt. A disadvantage of this site is that the Mississippi River has a considerable influence, especially during flood events when it backs up into Pleasure Creek. This site is also not representative of the highly developed watershed. | |
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| Results Blaine High School classes monitored this stream in both spring and fall 2006, supervised and quality-checked by the Anoka Conservation District. Overall, the biologic data indicate slightly below average condition. Across all years monitored, EPT has been consistently below average, FBI about average, and total number of families usually slightly above average. Invertebrate abundance has been low each time this stream has been sampled. Typically a crew of 25 students works for over two hours to capture 100-200 invertebrates. This is extremely poor. In 2005 the results were similar to previous years. EPT was below average and FBI average but the number of families was lower than usual. The families found were generalists that survive in a wide range of conditions. Water chemistry readings taken at this site indicate serious water quality problems. |
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| Discussion Despite the indications that stream health is only slightly below average based on biomonitoring data, overall the stream is severely polluted. The conductivity and salinity readings taken in this stream are some of the highest ever recorded by the Anoka Conservation District throughout Anoka County (one other higher was Springbrook, just south of Pleasure Creek). These readings could be the cumulative result of several chemical pollutants including road salts, untreated wastewater, industrial chemicals, and/or miscellaneous road runoff. The watershed is highly developed and the list of likely pollutant sources is long. It is suspected that the relatively good habitat at the sampling site, compared to all other upstream portion of Pleasure Creek, causes the quality of this stream to be overestimated by biomonitoring. Most other reaches of this stream are relatively devoid of habitat, and in many places the stream is confined in concrete channels or buried storm water pipes. |
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