water quality

"We're probably 90 percent to where we were 200 years ago when
Tecumseh was running around trying to save his homeland,"
...Eric Partee,
executive director of Little Miami Inc.


Water quality 90 percent of what it was 200 years ago? Hard to believe isn't it?
Just a decade or two ago the Little Miami was full of old car parts and trash and the waste water coming from area towns was full of phosphorus poisoning the once proud river. Since then the Little Miami has experienced one of the most amazing turn arounds of any river in the United States. Look at the Little Miami's sister rivers that flow thru southern Ohio and the quality of the Little Miami becomes even more apparent. The Scioto has no mussel colonies in the river alive south of Columbus anymore. Sure you can find hundreds of old shells but no live ones. And the Great Miami? Well heres what the Hamilton Journalnews had to say: "...one of the more frequent overflow sites — on the West side of the river just south of the High/Main Bridge — accounted for more than 11 million gallons of wastewater going into the river in 2008.That wastewater contains bacteria and pathogens that pose serious health risks to people who come in contact with it, said Ned Sarle, who oversees the city’s compliance and enforcement for the Ohio EPA." Even smaller cleaner streams such as the Stillwater River and Seven Mile Creek need significant reductions in phosphorus discharges, fecal coliform bacteria and excessive nitrate concentrations.

Nowdays you dip a minnow seine in the Little Miami, kick around a few rocks and you have a net crawling with life. The Little Miami is home to 113 species of fish. Several pollution intolerant species of fish – including slenderhead darters, northern madtoms, mountain madtoms, and black redhorse have expanded their numbers dramaticaly in the river since 1998. There are 36 species of mussels in the Little Miami(5 of which are endangered). Did you know that collecting shells from the river was once a thriving industry and that the Little Miami is probably one of the best places in the world to find a freshwater pearl? (collecting mussels from the river is now illegal BTW) Oliver Watson wrote in the Dayton Sunday News, September 3, 1925 that: "Of all pearl producing streams in America, the Little Miami stands first in point of production, quality and value. One reason is that conditions are more favorable for the formation of a pearl on account of the pure condition of the water and the strong limestone deposits which add materially in the coating and polishing process through which the pearl passes." Israel Hopkins Harris operated the Little Miami Pearl Fisheries company in Waynesville and in 1888, he sold over 2,000 pearls to Tiffany & Company of New York, which were put on display at the Paris exposition. This collection of pearls was awarded a gold medal and was viewed as the finest collection of fresh water pearls ever assembled. Many items of jewelry made out of pearls and shell from the Little Miami have been excavated from Indian sites throughout the midwest. Israel Hopkins Harris also collected fossils, amassing from the Little Miami one of the finest fossil collections in the world. Upon his death his entire collection, except for his pearls, was left to the Smithsonian Institute and consisted of more than 20,000 specimens. Harris's collection of pearls was also exhibited at the World's Fair at Chicago and St. Louis, and the Pan-American exposition at Buffalo. Something to think about when your sitting on a sandbar in the Little Miami waiting for a channel cat to bite and look down and see a shell. The biggest danger faced by mussels in the river today is not water quality but instead invasion by two non-native species the Asian Clam and the Zebra Mussel which are rapidly spreading throughout the entire drainage. We may end up more total mussels in the river in a few years but much less diversity if they outcompete native mussels.

Just a bit over a decade ago only around fifty percent of the sites tested by the EPA in the Little Miami met water quality standards. In 2010,only one, the most extreme downstream site in the whole river did not fully meet EPA standards and it was close! Mind you, not "acceptable levels" but "FULLY MEETS"!

Some pics of a few minutes spent dipping a net in a riffle above Halls Creek. Every scoop was simply crawling with life from aquatic insects and worms to snails, mussels, crayfish, and minnows:





































Several fish that are endangered are making a comeback in the Little Miami for example the mountain madtom(a tiny catfish) is actually expanding it's population in the little miami as is the pollution intolerant blue sucker which was absent from the river for 35 years. The northern madtom is found in only a few places in Ohio with the Little Miami being one. Another tiny fish, the slenderhead darter has experienced a virtual population boom since the 1980's as the river has gotton cleaner. In 1998 the EPA collected a brindled madtom from the Little Miami which had not been collected since 1954.Species that are considered threatened but have found a refuge in the river include the tonguetied minnow, bigeye shiner and american eel.

What the fish in the Little Miami actually eat has allways been of interest to me and over time the Department of Natural Resources has built up a pretty good picture of this. Using their figures I have compiled this list:

Bottom-dwelling invertebrates (An invertebrate is an animal without a backbone, insects, nymphs, worms etc) are eaten by 35% of the fish in the river, these include sculpin, madtoms, many minnows, and most of the sucker and darter families.

Invertebrates from all levels of a stream are eaten by 10% of the fishes, mudminnows, a number of true minnows,and many of the sunfishes.

20% of the fish,(the real exciting ones) feed on fish and, infrequently, other aquatic vertebrates. These include crappies, basses, gar, muskellunge, green sunfish,warmouth, sauger, walleye, drum, and flathead catfish.

The rest of the totals are taken up by fish that eat algae, plankton, plant debris,or are omnivores such as carp that eat a bit of everything. It should be mentioned that this group includes the biggest fish in the river, the paddlefish, which feeds on plankton and can grow as big as a man.

The Little Miami was one of the first streams named as part of the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System created by Congress in 1968. To show just how rare an honor this is nearby Kentucky has only one National Wild and Scenic River, while Indiana has none.Two other Ohio streams are recognised as National Wild and Scenic Rivers, Little Beaver Creek and Big & Little Darby Creeks.



It is hereby declared to be the policy of the United States that certain selected rivers of the Nation which, with their immediate environments, possess outstandingly remarkable scenic, recreational, geologic, fish and wildlife, historic, cultural or other similar values, shall be preserved in free-flowing condition, and that they and their immediate environments shall be protected for the benefit and enjoyment of present and future generations. The Congress declares that the established national policy of dams and other construction at appropriate sections of the rivers of the United States needs to be complemented by a policy that would preserve other selected rivers or sections thereof in their free-flowing condition to protect the water quality of such rivers and to fulfill other vital national conservation purposes. (Wild & Scenic Rivers Act, October 2, 1968)





Probably now that the river has really been cleaned up the biggest reason we are stuck at 90% of the original water quality totals and may never get much higher is the amount of runoff and silt in the river. The earliest explorers continuosly remarked on the clarity of the river and how even in flood it remained clear. The huge primal forest that protected the river and kept soil in place during floods simply cannot be replaced. Several of the early explorers stated the Little Miami watershed was covered by the grandest forest they had ever seen.(mind you this was in a time of great forests) The Little Miami can get awfully clear now in normal flows, just the other day my six pound test line was starting to look like rope and I bought a spool of four for times like that, but when the water is up it still turns into chocolate milk. The work of groups like Little Miami Inc. in trying to protect the river banks and create buffer zones and strips of riparian zone along the river is invaluable. Everyone that fishes, canoes,birdwatches along or simply loves the river should throw a couple bucks their way or donate some time.