By Andy Ostmeyer

aostmeyer@joplinglobe.com

Several small streams in Southwest Missouri could be exempted from state bacteria standards, and residents have through Monday to notify the Missouri Department of Natural Resources if they use the streams for swimming or other types of recreation.

Statewide, more than 90 streams are being considered for the exemption, according to Dan Sherburne, research director with the Missouri Coalition for the Environment.

For the most part, the state is looking at streams that receive discharges of wastewater from municipal sewage plants, Sherburne said. But some streams may have no permitted discharge at all while others may have industrial or domestic wastewater discharges.

The state has been doing the analysis of water-body use since 2005.

John Hoke, environmental specialist with the DNR, said scientific studies are conducted on the streams every three years, and those that do not have pools a meter deep or median stream depth of a half-meter are eligible for exemption because the state does not consider them candidates for swimming, for example.

But, he added, studies are only half the equation. The other half is how people actually and historically use them.

The streams proposed for possible exemption in Southwest Missouri are:

Glendale Fork in Barton County.

Truitt Creek in Lawrence County.

Douger Branch in Lawrence County.

Little Flat Creek northeast of Purdy in Barry County.

South Fork of Capps Creek southwest of Monett.

Carney Creek in Barry County.