Stream Care Guide
The St. Charles County Soil and Water Conservation District in partnership with the city of Wentzville and St. Charles County's Community Development Department has create a county-wide STREAM CARE GUIDE. Learn about streams and rivers in the county, and find out how you can help protect them. Read about the qualities of a healthy stream, locate your watershed and find parks and conservation areas to enjoy, and learn important steps you can take to help protect the health and beauty of our streams and rivers.
St. Charles County Soil and Water Conservation District Available Resources
Here is a list of available resources that SWCD offers. If you would like to check out or borrow one of these informational resources, please get in touch with Ally Hecht by email Alexandria.hecht@swcd.mo.gov or call 636-922-2833, ext. 3
Soil and Water Conservation Information
The District can offer information and advice to county residents regarding soil erosion concerns. Call 636-922-2833, ext. 3.
View this brochure for Homeowners to learn how you can protect soil and water resources on your property - /sites/mosoilandwater/files/Tips for Homeowners.pdf
2024 Poster Contest - May The Forest Be With You Always
Winners of the 2024 poster contest can be viewed in the album "Poster Contest 2024" on our Flickr website, (link below).
Photos
View photos of St. Charles County SWCD activities on our Flickr website.
St. Louis Regional Envirothon
The Envirothon is a high-school-level natural resources-based competition. The North American program includes teams from most of the United States and several Canadian provinces. The competition has three tiers, beginning with the regional events.
The St. Charles County SWCD hosts the regional contest in an 8-county area in the east-central portion of the state. This regional competition can accommodate up to 21 teams. The top three teams from the region go on to compete at the Missouri state level, which is the competition that decides which team of five students represents Missouri at the national level.
To learn more about Envirothon, visit the Missouri Envirothon page at: Missouri Envirothon
Dardenne Creek Stream Gages
The St. Charles County Soil and Water Conservation District has collaborated with other agencies to fund two stream gages in St. Charles County. Both gages, operated by the U.S. Geological Survey, are located on Dardenne Creek in the central part of the county, and provide stream stage (water-surface elevation) and discharge data. The upstream gage also provides rainfall information. Data is collected every 5 minutes and transmitted every hour and uploaded to a website where it is available to water-resource managers as well as the public..
Stream gages provide information about stream stage and discharge which are useful in mapping flood hazards and floodplains. Data over time provides information for understanding the magnitude and frequency of flooding and for improving flood warning and forecasting. Civil engineers can then use the information for road and bridge design.
Information from the Dardenne Stream Gages were used for the Dardenne Creek Watershed Study, a comprehensive Hydraulic Study of Dardenne Creek and its tributaries, performed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Final Report, January 10, 2007.
Each gaging station consists of a shelter, data collection platform, electronic stage sensor (pressure transducer), reference stage gage and rain gage. Discharge measurements are made routinely and a stage-discharge relationship (rating) was developed and is maintained for each site. These relationships are used in the USGS National Water Information System (NWIS Database) to compute instantaneous and daily mean discharge values. The stage, discharge, and rainfall values are displayed in real time on the USGS public web page.
Other funding partners for these two stream gages are:
- Missouri Department of Natural Resources - Soil and Water Conservation Program
- City of St. Peters
- City of O'Fallon
- Missouri Department of Natural Resources - Water Resources Center
- United States Geological Survey (USGS) - Cooperative Water Program
If you wish to view the data collected by the stream gages, follow the links to the USGS website: