New signs marking county creeks, rivers

Twenty bridges in Mills County now have stream signs at each end giving the name of the creek or river. The Mills County Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD) coordinated this project.  

“The purpose of the signs is to educate Mills County residents in which watershed they live, SWCD volunteer project coordinator John Klein said. “Signs show where the water in their stream comes from and where it goes.

“Streams are not just local ditches.  The water may come from several counties away.  Keg Creek goes through Glenwood. It starts in Shelby County.  The same Keg Creek is marked on Interstate 80 in northern Pottawattamie County.  Likewise for Silver Creek.”

Klein noted that what happens upstream affects those streams in Mills County.  

Klein said Keg Creek is also marked on Interstate 29, Highway 34, and county roads H20, L45, and East Sharp Street in Glenwood.  

Other Mills County streams bridges getting signs were Pony Creek, Silver Creek, Farm Creek, Indian Creek and the West Nishnabotna River.  Forty signs total were installed.  The Iowa DOT, the Mills County Secondary Roads Department and Mills County Supervisors assisted the SWCD.  

The cities of Emerson, Glenwood, Henderson, Malvern, and Pacific Junction sponsored individual bridges. The Southwest Iowa Nature Trail organization sponsored creek signs on the Wabash Trace Trail bridges.

“We are delighted to have a high level of local participation in this stream sign effort” Klein said.. “Stream signs give rural neighborhoods an identity.  People learn they share a common watershed area, and what happens in that watershed effects their stream.”

Klein said environmental improvements are often determined by watershed areas and not county boundaries.  Much of Mills County is now also represented in a West Nishnabotna Watershed Authority that can bring federal money to conservation projects specifically to lands only in that watershed area.   

“Conservation improvements only come if people care, and caring comes from personal identity with the land,” Klein said.  “These stream signs are a basic step in making all residents aware of their own natural resources.”