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Lake Decatur
Lake Decatur is a reservoir located in the city of Decatur, Illinois, USA, east of downtown. The city and lake both share the name of U.S. Navy Commodore Stephen Decatur. The lake is above sea level and has a watershed of or reaching into parts of seven counties. The largest lake on the Sangamon River, it was created in 1920–1922. History The lake was constructed as a source of water for Decatur, especially the local corn refining industry. The corn refiner A.E. Staley led the campaign to persuade Decatur to borrow the $2.0 million necessary for the project. Staley was not being altruistic; corn wet-milling, which Staley's successor firm, Tate & Lyle, and its local competitor, Archer Daniels Midland, carry on to this day, is a water-intensive industrial process. Lake Decatur water is also used in the process of refining corn into ethanol. In 2007, about 76 percent of Lake Decatur's water was used for commercial and industrial purposes.Mike Frazier, "City Council narrows l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Decatur, Illinois
Decatur ( ) is the largest city and the county seat of Macon County in the U.S. state of Illinois, with a population of 70,522 as of the 2020 Census. The city was founded in 1829 and is situated along the Sangamon River and Lake Decatur in Central Illinois. Decatur is the seventeenth-most populous city in Illinois. The city is home of private Millikin University and public Richland Community College. Decatur has an economy based on industrial and agricultural commodity processing and production, including the North American headquarters of agricultural conglomerate Archer Daniels Midland, international agribusiness Tate & Lyle's largest corn-processing plant, and the designing and manufacturing facilities for Caterpillar Inc.'s wheel-tractor scrapers, compactors, large wheel loaders, mining class motor grader, off-highway trucks, and large mining trucks. History The city is named after War of 1812 naval hero Stephen Decatur. Decatur is an affiliate of the U.S. Main Street ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Siltation
Siltation, is water pollution caused by particulate terrestrial clastic material, with a particle size dominated by silt or clay. It refers both to the increased concentration of suspended sediments and to the increased accumulation (temporary or permanent) of fine sediments on bottoms where they are undesirable. Siltation is most often caused by soil erosion or sediment spill. It is sometimes referred to by the ambiguous term "sediment pollution", which can also refer to a chemical contamination of sediments accumulated on the bottom, or to pollutants bound to sediment particles. Although "siltation" is not perfectly stringent, since it also includes particle sizes other than silt, it is preferred for its lack of ambiguity. Causes The origin of the increased sediment transport into an area may be erosion on land or activities in the water. In rural areas, the erosion source is typically soil degradation by intensive or inadequate agricultural practices, leading to soil eros ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reservoirs In Illinois
A reservoir (; from French ''réservoir'' ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, built to store fresh water or it may be a natural formation. Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including controlling a watercourse that drains an existing body of water, interrupting a watercourse to form an embayment within it, through excavation, or building any number of retaining walls or levees. In other contexts, "reservoirs" may refer to storage spaces for various fluids; they may hold liquids or gasses, including hydrocarbons. ''Tank reservoirs'' store these in ground-level, elevated, or buried tanks. Tank reservoirs for water are also called cisterns. Most underground reservoirs are used to store liquids, principally either water or petroleum. Types Dammed valleys Dammed reservoirs are artificial lakes created and controlled by a dam constructed across a valley, and rely on the natural topography to provide most of the basin of the re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walleye
The walleye (''Sander vitreus'', synonym ''Stizostedion vitreum''), also called the yellow pike or yellow pickerel, is a freshwater perciform fish native to most of Canada and to the Northern United States. It is a North American close relative of the European zander, also known as the pikeperch. The walleye is sometimes called the yellow walleye to distinguish it from the blue walleye, which is a color morph that was once found in the southern Ontario and Quebec regions, but is now presumed extinct. However, recent genetic analysis of a preserved (frozen) 'blue walleye' sample suggests that the blue and yellow walleye were simply phenotypes within the same species and do not merit separate taxonomic classification. In parts of its range in English-speaking Canada, the walleye is known as a pickerel, though the fish is not related to the true pickerels, which are members of the family ''Esocidae''. Walleyes show a fair amount of variation across watersheds. In general, fis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crappie
Crappies () are two species of North American freshwater fish of the genus ''Pomoxis'' in the family Centrarchidae (sunfishes). Both species of crappies are popular game fish among recreational anglers. Etymology The genus name ''Pomoxis'' literally means "sharp cover", referring to the fish's spiny gill covers (opercular bones). It is composed of the Greek (, cover) and (, "sharp"). The common name (also spelled ''croppie'' or ''crappé'') derives from the Canadian French , which refers to many different fishes of the sunfish family. Other names for crappie are papermouths, strawberry bass, speckled bass or specks (especially in Michigan), speckled perch, white perch, crappie bass, calico bass (throughout the Middle Atlantic states and New England), and Oswego bass. In Louisiana, it is called sacalait ( frc, sac-à-lait, ), seemingly an allusion to its milky white flesh or silvery skin. The supposed French meaning is, however, folk etymology, because the word is ultim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bass Fish
Bass () is a name shared by many species of fish. The term encompasses both freshwater and marine species, all belonging to the large order Perciformes, or perch-like fishes. The word ''bass'' comes from Middle English , meaning 'perch'. Types * The black basses, such as the Choctaw bass (''Micropterus haiaka''), Guadalupe bass (''M. treculii''), largemouth bass (''M. salmoides''), smallmouth bass (''M. dolomieu''), and spotted bass (''M. punctulatus''), belong to the sunfish family Centrarchidae. * The temperate basses, such as the European seabass (''Dicentrarchus labrax''), striped bass (''Morone saxatilis'') and white bass (''M. chrysops''), belong to the family Moronidae. * The Asian seabasses, such as the Japanese seabass (''Lateolabrax japonicus'') and Blackfin seabass (''L. latus''), belong to the family Lateolabracidae. Other species known as bass Many species are also known as basses, including: * The Australian bass, ''Macquaria novemaculeata'', is a member of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fishing
Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are often caught as wildlife from the natural environment, but may also be caught from stocked bodies of water such as ponds, canals, park wetlands and reservoirs. Fishing techniques include hand-gathering, spearing, netting, angling, shooting and trapping, as well as more destructive and often illegal techniques such as electrocution, blasting and poisoning. The term fishing broadly includes catching aquatic animals other than fish, such as crustaceans ( shrimp/ lobsters/crabs), shellfish, cephalopods (octopus/squid) and echinoderms ( starfish/ sea urchins). The term is not normally applied to harvesting fish raised in controlled cultivations ( fish farming). Nor is it normally applied to hunting aquatic mammals, where terms like whaling and sealing are used instead. Fishing has been an important part of human culture since hunter-gatherer times, and is one of the few food production activities that have persisted ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scovill Zoo
Scovill Zoo in Decatur, Illinois, is one of 210 zoos accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums with 96 species spanning six continents and around 500 animals in residence. The zoo originally started out as a farm in 1967 when the Kiwanis Club donated money for its construction. Scovill Zoo has its own chapter of the AAZK or American Association of Zoo Keepers. The zoo participates in a large number of conservation projects and education. History In 1947, Guy Norman and Rose Scovill donated the property for Scovill Gardens (which now include the Scovill Zoo) to the Decatur Park District. The zoo first opened to the public in Decatur, Illinois in 1967 under the name of Scovill Farm. The Kiwanis Club had donated $14,000 to begin building the farm; initially it housed pigs, chickens, goats, and other farm animals. Additional donations were obtained to cover construction costs, which totaled $56,000. Scovill Zoo, as it is now called, houses hundreds of animals from nearly ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dredging
Dredging is the excavation of material from a water environment. Possible reasons for dredging include improving existing water features; reshaping land and water features to alter drainage, navigability, and commercial use; constructing dams, dikes, and other controls for streams and shorelines; and recovering valuable mineral deposits or marine life having commercial value. In all but a few situations the excavation is undertaken by a specialist floating plant, known as a dredger. Dredging is carried out in many different locations and for many different purposes, but the main objectives are usually to recover material of value or use, or to create a greater depth of water. Dredges have been classified as suction or mechanical. Dredging has significant environmental impacts: it can disturb marine sediments, leading to both short- and long-term water pollution, destroy important seabed ecosystems, and can release human-sourced toxins captured in the sediment. Description ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Drainage Area
A drainage basin is an area of land where all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, the ''drainage divide'', made up of a succession of elevated features, such as ridges and hills. A basin may consist of smaller basins that merge at river confluences, forming a hierarchical pattern. Other terms for a drainage basin are catchment area, catchment basin, drainage area, river basin, water basin, and impluvium. In North America, they are commonly called a watershed, though in other English-speaking places, "watershed" is used only in its original sense, that of a drainage divide. In a closed drainage basin, or endorheic basin, the water converges to a single point inside the basin, known as a sink, which may be a permanent lake, a dry lake, or a point where surface water is lost underground. Drainage basins are similar but no ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prairie
Prairies are ecosystems considered part of the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome by ecologists, based on similar temperate climates, moderate rainfall, and a composition of grasses, herbs, and shrubs, rather than trees, as the dominant vegetation type. Temperate grassland regions include the Pampas of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, and the steppe of Ukraine, Russia and Kazakhstan. Lands typically referred to as "prairie" tend to be in North America. The term encompasses the area referred to as the Geography of North America, Interior Lowlands of Canada, the United States, and Mexico, which includes all of the Great Plains as well as the wetter, hillier land to the east. In the U.S., the area is constituted by most or all of the states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma, and sizable parts of the states of Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, and western and southern Minnesota. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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