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Sifting through mud and mire Photo by Jim Craven Mark Wiest, left, of the Oregon State University experiment station, and Caitlyn Quinby, a water quality specialist with the Rogue Valley Council of Governments, take measurements Thursday in Jackson Creek near Hanley Farm, west of Medford. Researchers dig deep trying to get to bottom of Bear Creek pollution By PAUL FATTIG CENTRAL POINT -- Mark Wiest and Caitlin Quinby have gotten used to long looks from passersby. After all, they know that folks are apt to wonder a bit about two otherwise normal-looking adults mucking about the mud and mire of a local stream. "Yeah, we get a lot of long, steady looks from people driving by," Wiest said. "There we are with our little plastic sampling containers and measuring devices. "People ask again and again, `What are you doing?"' What they are doing is conducting a water quality and stream flow study on four Bear Creek tributaries. Wiest is a research technician at Oregon State University's Southern Oregon Research and Extension Center; Quinby is a water quality specialist for the Rogue Valley Council of Governments. The project, which began earlier this year, is in response to Senate Bill 1010, which created three local advisory committees to look at pollution problems in Bear Creek and how to solve them. The committees were formed to look at urban, forest and agricultural concerns. The latter committee, dubbed the Bear Creek Agricultural Local Advisory Committee, has developed several educational programs to reduce potential pollution. The group's members are local residents involved in commercial agriculture. The group wanted to know how much pollution the agricultural community was contributing to the stream, explained Rich Roseberg, an OSU soil scientist at the research center. "Nobody can really say with authority what portion of the pollution problem is due to agricultural activity," he said. "Certainly some part of it is, but no one knows how much. "They wanted to see some good numbers, whether those numbers were favorable to agriculture or not," he added. The experiment station worked with RVCOG and three local irrigation districts to determine which areas were predominantly agriculturally influenced. They decided that sections of Jackson and Griffin creeks, as well as Butler and Kenutchen creeks, fit that description. During the summer, the water in each of those streams consists mostly of runoff from irrigation. The Oregon Department of Agriculture, the state Department of Environmental Quality and the federal Bureau of Reclamation are providing some $55,000 for this year's study. Roseberg said he hopes to continue the study next year, Roseberg said. Each day, Wiest and Quinby gather water samples which will be tested for fecal coliform bacteria, phosphorus, sediment and turbidity. Water temperatures and flow are also checked. The goal isn't to point fingers but to work together to minimize stream pollution, Roseberg stressed. "This is agriculture trying to determine how much of an input, or effect, they have in our local streams and waterways," added Bill Meyers, head of the Water Resources Program at RVCOG. All but one of the roughly two dozen private property owners the group approached agreed to participate in the study. "It's a positive project," Meyers said. "When it comes down to it, we all care about our streams and waterways and water quality. No one is out there to do damage." The goal is to get an accurate reading of pollution problems, Roseberg stressed. "If we can be assured of that, then we can look at the practices," he said. Once people understand the point of the study, they usually step forward for a chat, Quinby said. "One of the best parts is talking to people along the streams," she said. "I've talked to people who have lived along them for 60 plus years. It's interesting to talk to them about how things have changed." As for the streams, they change daily, she observed. "One day there will be so much flow that we have to be real careful," she said. "And the next day there is hardly any water." The two will continue their stream work through November. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA