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Hinkson Creek monitoring group says health is on the way

Clyde Bentley
/
Flickr

A multi-disciplinary group of city, county and environmental leaders monitoring Mid-Missouri's Hinkson Creek say the watershed is on its way to good health again.

"Help the Hinkson" is a project that started two years ago to improve the Hinkson Creek watershed. The watershed serves as a drainage point for a portion of Boone County.

The Missouri Department of Natural Resources declared the creek unfit to sustain aquatic life in 1998. In 2012, a group of citizens came together, with help from city, county and federal officials, to improve the quality of the water.

Karl Brooks is the Midwest regional administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency. He says the reason the creek was declared unfit is not clear, but the team is working hard to find a solution.

"There was clearly a stream that needed some help," he said. "You could see that it was degraded. The reasons for the degradation were unclear, and I think the community partners put together a team to use the best science to find out what was going on. "

The group is taking field trips to the creek, conducting research, and conducting water assessments. After this research period the group will decide what actions to take in the future to improve the creek.

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