The Story of Muddy Creek
Since 2003, the snapshots of Johnson and Iowa Counties, special sampling, testing, walks and educational teaching has used over 6,500 man hours of volunteer time. The time spent doing the Muddy Creek study is not known except to say that 34 different people plus two different Junior High Science clubs and one High School Science club helped. The project could not have been done without the professional and technical support from the City of North Liberty Staff, City of Coralville Staff, Iowa DNR, University Hygienic Lab (UHL) and IOWATER staff. For creditability purposes IOWATER trained volunteers were required to be with every volunteer team that tested the creek.
Since the Iowa River is on the 303(d) list a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) report had to be written. To provide data for the report, Iowa DNR Water monitoring division staff collected data in the Iowa River Watershed. Muddy Creek is a tributary to the affected portion of the Iowa River therefore was also sampled by DNR staff. Originally the sampling was done only at the Muddy Creek MC3 test site. In order to gain a better understanding of the creek, sampling was expanded to include the Muddy Creek MC2 site.
There was talk late in 2006 that Muddy Creek might go on the 303(d) list. Therefore the UHL was assigned to do an assessment of the creek.