Spoon River area assessment

The East Fork of the Spoon River rises to the north of Neposet in Bureau County and the West Fork rises to the east of Kewanee in Henry County. The forks join near the center of Stark County to form the main channel. The river flows in a southerly direction for 161 miles before it empties into the Illinois River at Havana. For about 100 miles it runs nearly parallel to the Illinois River. The area covered in this report encompasses the entire Spoon River basin as determined by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency. This basin is an approximately 1,180,951 acre watershed that includes virtually all of Stark County and portions of Bureau, Fulton, Henry, Knox, McDonough, Marshall, Peoria, and Warren counties in west-central Illinois. These are also the boundaries of the Spoon River Ecosystem Partnership. This assessment is comprised of five volumes. In Volume 1, Geology discusses the geology, soils, and minerals in the assessment area. Volume 2, Water Resources, discusses the surface and groundwater resources and Volume 3, Living Resources, describes the natural vegetation communities and the fauna of the region. Volume 4 contains three parts: Part I, Socio-Economic Profile, discusses the demographics, infrastructure, and economy of the area, focusing on the five counties with the greatest amount of land in the area -Fulton, Knox, Stark, Peoria, and Warren; Part II, Environmental Quality, discusses air and water quality, and hazardous and toxic waste generation and management in the area; and Part III, Archaeological Resources, identifies and assesses the archaeological sites, ranging from the Paleoindian Prehistoric (B.C. 10,000) to the Historic (AD. 1650), known in the assessment watershed. Volume 5, Early Accounts of the Ecology of the Spoon River Area, describes the ecology of the area as recorded by historical writings of explorers, pioneers, early visitors and early historians.published or submitted for publicatio