Every volunteer group has some great individuals, and due to this Butler County Stream Team would like to hightlight some of our volunteers.

Travis

A nice treat ths year at the Stream Team lab has been some of the new IES students who have continued to help out each month. Travis Drury is one of those.  Travis graduated from Ohio Northern University with a B.S. in environmental studies in 2009.  Stream team, as well as other activities he has participated in at Miami, is helping him focus on a career in water resource analysis.

Travis has had some interesting postions in his journey into environmental science.  While at Ohio Northern, Travis was an intern at the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. Upon graduating, he interned for a year in resource management at the Cumberland Gap National Historical Park, then remained  for another yearlong internship working with geographic information systems (GIS).

So if you've ever been to Cumberland Gap, or want to go, give Travis a holler next time in

iMarion- Stream Team Lab Manager

Marion Wellss a 2011 Miami U. graduate with a B.S. in Zoology and Environmental Science and a Geology minor. For the last 2 years she has conducted physiological ecology research in Dr. Paul Schaeffer’s lab, focusing on the metabolic ability of birds in various climates to adapt to climate change. She also has studied the effects of climate change on butterflies, dragonflies, and damselflies as a wildlife research intern at a MA wildlife sanctuary and conservation center.  She is extremely excited about becoming a part of the Stream Team, welcoming the opportunity to combine her love of science with  monitoring stream quality and education. Her interests for the future include restoration, conservation, and habitat management. 

Jeff- Stream Team Lab manager

Jeff Babb is a MI native who graduated in 2011 with degrees in Chemistry and Environmental Science from Lake Superior State University.  Jeff’s interest in science led him to college but he had no plans in pursuing more than a Bachelor’s degree until he was selected for an REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) internship at Jackson State University in summer 2010.  There, Jeff realized his focus should be on graduate school... so now he gets to join us!  Jeff not only helps with Stream Team, but also is in charge of Miami's weather station.

Angela

Angela Defenbaugh graduated from Drake University in 2011 with a B.S. in Environmental Science and minors in Biology and Environmental Policy. While at Drake, she was able to participate in research that focused on invasive species management, avian breeding patterns, and efficiency of herbal medications. She plans to put her experience in environmental education to work with Stream Team, on a road that combines her passions and experience towards a career in environmental consulting.

Bob

Many of you have met our Butler County Storm Water District partner, Bob Lentz.   Bob has been the Storm Water District Coordinator since it was created in 2003.  He is responsible for implementing and managing the district's storm water management plan, especially in the areas of public education and outreach, illicit discharge detection and elimination, and pollution prevention at public facilities.

Bob was one of the original creators of the Butler County Stream Team and is an active participant each month, bringing the cooler from the Engineers Office and working in lab. The lab work is not a big stretch for Bob, since before joining the Storm Water District, Lentz worked as an Environmental Specialist at the Regional Air Pollution Control Agency, as a chemist at Cargill, Inc. He graduated from the University of Dayton and did graduate work in Environmental Sciences at Wright State University.

Bob's family (dad and brothers) are in law enforcement, and sometimes give him a hard time for his "cushy" job.  But don't you worry Bob, we all understand that  trying to improve the handling of storm water in the whole county is just as hard or harder!  

In his "spare" time, Bob enjoys his two young children and works with a variety of other civic organizations.  He's on the  boards of the Mill Creek Watershed Council, Ohio Stormwater Assoc., and Greater Hamilton Safety Council.  For several years he organized the Great Miami River Days Festival - a great opportunity to spread the word that water is important!

Charlie

Some of you may have noticed a quiet, distinguished man working in the Stream Team lab some days.  It might have been Charlie Saunders, a volunteer who first found out about Stream Team at the Great Miami River Days in 2007 and has been collecting 4 or 5 samples in the Pleasant Run Creek basin ever since, often with his friend Kent Ernsting.  Charlie has become one of our "consistent samplers", which means he collects the same sites every month, or if he can't collect them, he gets someone else to.  He also is one of the folks who joined us in our training day last June to become a level two sample collector; this adds validity with OEPA.

Charlie not only collects samples, but he often makes it to lab to help do the analyses, too.  Although you don't need any science background to join us in the lab, Charlie's training as a microbiologist helped Stream Team in revising the bacteria protocol last year.  When we suddenly had a few months where NO bacteria showed up in our cultures, we realized we needed to do a "positive control", a culture known to contain bacteria, to be sure the media we use is working.  So, thanks Charlie! That's become standard protocol. 

Pleasant Run, where Charlie samples, is a really important creek, as any lawmaker in Fairfield would tell you, because it drains the highly suburbanized area of western Fairfield.  This area has been plagued by flooding for decades, so Pleasant Run has been altered by building some levees, widening some channels, and even giving the stream a "cement corridor" to travel in some stretches.

Chelsea

On her vacation, Stream Team volunteer Chelsea Obrebski spent 32 hours at a native plant nursery run by the Sanibel-Captiva Conversation Foundation in Sanibel, Florida.  She  also helped build an oyster reef and planted mangroves (see local news article where Chelsea is quoted and filmed). This was a great learning experience for Chelsea and a lot of fun, since she got to do a lot of kayaking!

Chelsea and her mom, Jean Ann, collect samples from 3 or 4 sites every month for Stream Team, as well as from 2 sites for the Friends of the Great Miami on another Saturday.

Dick Haid

Dick Haid, one of the Stream Team’s consistent volunteers, who, with his granddaughter, has been collecting samples from two sites on the Great Miami River and in Hack Wilson Park for about 2 years.  In his own words, “I enjoy being a stream sampler”. 

But that’s not all he does by any means!  Dick has been part of Imago and their planning team for the first Earth Spirit Rising conference, is a member of the
Friends of the Great Miami River, and he and his wife, Leslie, have participated in the Clean Sweep of the Great Miami River with his granddaughter for a number of years.  He was part of the Friends of the Great Miami and EPA Oversight team for the EPA clean up of the A K Steel site in New Miami.  Beyond his environmental interests, Dick is a life coach, particularly interested in helping people get the most from the “third quarter of life”.   And he is a shining example of answering one’s “call”, since he received his Ph.D. degree and his Medicare card within two years of each other!  Great guns, Dick, what a lot of hats you wear!
 
One final cool thing is that Dick is always thinking about how to make things better and getting the right people together to try to make it actually happen.  Through casual conversations about the state of the lakes at Berkeley Square, a lovely retirement community in Hamilton, he has marshaled the needed forces to do a pilot planting of wetland plants in one of the lakes.  If this project is approved, the hope is that residents will like the results and will want to see more plants added in the future to havea more ecologically active system, rather than something that just “looks pretty”. Through imaginative people like Dick, we may be onto a new way to make retention basins ecologically meaningful and retirement communities greener!

Students

You may remember that the Stream Team is coordinated by three partner organizations: the Institute for the Environment and Sustainability (IES) at Miami U., Butler Soil and Water Conservation District (BSWCD) and Butler County Storm Water District (BCSWD).  Part of IES's contribution is to run the lab. Each year as a new crop of IES students enter the program, we initiate them by having them "volunteer" to do the analyses at River Days.

All these students are enrolled in a 2-year Master of Environmental Sciences program (M.En.).  They are preparing to enter environmental careers at mid-level management levels. These careers may include anything from environmental education to environmental science editing to regulation or policy-making.

Sarah and our Lab managers (2010-11)

Sarah Van Frank has been the Stream team lab manager for several months. The Butler County Stream Team lab manager position is an important role that Miami University - IES graduate students play.  They are in charge of all operations needed to maintain a Level 2 laboratory. 

Sarah says "As I complete my coursework for my M.En. I am looking for internships to begin the professional practice part of my degree and, hopefully, my next career (so....if you know anyone who's hiring ...!)" As Sarah's time as Stream Team lab manager is ending, she wants to use this time to introduce the two assistant lab managers who have been training with her since August.  Both Chad and Beth have been great additions and I have truly enjoyed working with both of them.

Chad Toussant is a graduate of Ohio University (2008) with a B.A. in environmental geography.  He is currently pursing his M.En. with a focus in water resources and environmental geology.  After graduation Chad plans on pursing a career with the EPA working with acid mine drainage reclamation.

Elizabeth Downs, originally from Doylestown, PA, graduated with honors from Otterbein College in 2009.  Awarded a B.S. in Environmental Science, she also studied earth science and economics.  At IES she  is concentrating on resource analysis and biological conservation.