Partner Spotlight – Stream Teams United

Mary Culler, Executive Director, Stream Teams United

The Missouri Stream Team Watershed Coalition, also known as Stream Teams United, works throughout the state of Missouri to promote and facilitate education, stewardship, and advocacy for Missouri’s river, stream, and lake resources.

The story of the Missouri Stream Team Program begins on the banks of Roubidoux Creek, which flows through Waynesville, Missouri. In 1989, a group of local fly fishermen, including men who had explored this Ozark stream during their youth, noticed a problem with their cherished stream. Simply, it had become trashed. They decided to do something about it. With the partnership of the Conservation Federation of Missouri and the Missouri Department of Conservation, the Missouri Stream Team Program was born, and the Roubidoux Fly Fishers Association signed up as Stream Team #1.

Fast forward 31 years, and the Missouri Stream Team Program, which now also includes the partnership of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, has undoubtedly been one of the most successful programs in Missouri’s history of conservation within our state. To date, there have been 6,256 volunteer Stream Teams register for the program, with each of these teams representing an individual, family, school, church, scout club, business, or other group of interested individuals.

Together, Missouri Stream Teams have volunteered over 3 million hours and through those volunteer efforts have tallied an incredible amount of on-the-ground restoration of our state’s water resources. Those efforts include the removal of 26 million pounds of trash, the planting of over 371,000 trees, more than 32,000 trips to monitor water quality of local streams, and over 10,000 public education presentations. Through the support of state agency partners, Stream Team volunteers receive free training workshops, water quality monitoring equipment, trash bags and gloves, educational materials, and guidance for how to adopt and care for a local stream.

Ten years after the formation of the Missouri Stream Team Program, as hundreds of teams had formed throughout the state, there was a need to connect these teams within their watersheds and across the state, to increase the ability of Stream Teams to collaborate for larger projects. Stream Team Associations, or groups of individual Stream Teams located within the same watershed, formed, and in 1999, the Stream Team Associations throughout the state joined together as a 501(c)3 Coalition – The Missouri Stream Team Watershed Coalition, which also became known as Stream Teams United in 2017.

Today Stream Teams United works with Stream Team Associations to help increase communications and collaboration of Stream Teams throughout the state of Missouri. Programs initiated by Stream Teams United in the last 10 years have included the Missouri Clean Marina Program, which provides a designation to marinas that operate with environmental stewardship practices, and Paddle MO, which provides unique multi-

day educational river adventures on our state’s great waterways. Stream Teams United also currently serves as an AmeriCorps project sponsor, facilitating the placement of AmeriCorps members at Stream Team Associations throughout the state and increasing the capacity of these regional Stream Teams to build their capacity for water education in their communities.

Learn more about the Missouri Stream Team Program and Stream Teams United at mostreamteam.org and streamteamsunited.org.

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