Watershed Planning
The South Big Horn Conservation District hosted a watershed planning educational meeting on January 16, 2014 to explain the TMDL (Total Maximum Daily Load) process, the local Big Horn Basin TMDL, and watershed planning efforts being implemented by the Washakie County Conservation District. Below is a news article written by Nathan Oster, Greybull Standard, covering the meeting.
Message to producers: Focus on water improvement not
numbers
By NATHAN OSTER
Greybull Standard
A contingent from Washakie County encouraged South Big Horn County producers not to get hung up on numbers during a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) educational meeting Thursday night near Greybull.
Called by the South Big Horn Conservation District and held at the Weed and Pest Building off U.S. Highway 310, the meeting featured a presentation on watershed planning by Cathy Rosenthal, the watershed coordinator for the Wyoming Association of Conservation Districts. The meeting also included an explanation of what improvements have already occurred within the South Big Horn Conservation District.
But because they have been there and done that, Tori Dietz, director of the Washakie County Conservation District, and two members of their district’s steering committee, Vance Lungren Jr. and Doug Hamilton, were given top billing.
The focus of their efforts were Slick Creek and Sage Creek, two of the six streams identified as being impaired in Washakie County. Dietz noted that because those two creeks had both agricultural and urban/rural interaction, the decision was made to “throw their money” into improving those two. Septic systems were replaced, feedlots cleaned up and relocated.
The original intent was to prove the DEQ wrong — that they weren’t impaired. But that didn’t happen. “We proved them right,” said Dietz. They then tried to get the two creeks delisted for bacteria, but “horrific spring rains” one year derailed that process and made monitoring and drawing conclusions from the water testing next to impossible.
“The moral is, we forgot about the stupid numbers,” said Dietz. “You can’t use bacteria as an indicator because you don’t know where it lives, why it lives or how long it lives.”
Instead they focused on improving the water through focused improvements, and they believe that they’ve made positive strides in that area.
“We had a whole truckload of lemons dumped on us,” said Lungren. “Your job as producers is to try to make lemonade out of it. We got hung up on the numbers. They said it came from livestock grazing. Our problem was e-coli. Well, we could never understand where it was coming from. We got hung up on theory and models. I’d encourage you to step over that.”
Lungren continued, “Once we got to some of the solutions that they listed for us, we started picking out a few that would work in our areas that would benefit our producers. Your job as producers is to look that list over and make sure it’s going to be profitable for other producers.”
Hamilton added, “We wanted to figure out what the numbers mean, why specific areas were listed when others weren’t. But we couldn’t come to a conclusion. We thought we could narrow it down, prove where the problem was. But we came to realize it wasn’t going to be fun to point fingers. We needed producers who wanted to do it. So we decided the money was best spent being put on the ground, getting things done we knew would help.”
Background
Linda Hamilton of the South Big Horn Conservation District said the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality gave conservation districts 13 years to do projects to attempt to get the fecal coliform (e. coli) figures down.
The DEQ hired a consultant, RESPEC from South Dakota, to develop the TMDL for the Big Horn River watershed. According to the draft report from RESPEC, “Section 303(d) of the Clean Water Act and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Water Quality Planning and Management Regulations (40 CFR 130) require states to develop Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs) for waterbodies not meeting applicable water-quality standards or guidelines for the protection of designated uses under technology-based controls. TMDLs specify the maximum pollutant amount a waterbody can receive and still meet water quality standards. Based on a calculation of the total allowable load, TMDLs allocate pollutant loads to sources to incorporate a margin of safety. TMDL pollutant load reduction goals for significant sources provide a scientific basis for restoring surface water quality by linking the development and implementation of control actions to the attainment and maintenance of water-quality standards and designated uses.
“The intent of this document is to clearly identify the components of a TMDL, support adequate public participation, and facilitate the EPA review. The TMDL was developed in accordance with Section 303(d) of the federal Clean Water Act and guidance developed by the EPA. This TMDL document addresses E. coli impairments in the Big Horn River Watershed.”
According to the draft report from RESPEC, “The efforts to facilitate public education, review, and comment while developing the Big Horn River Watershed TMDLs included presentations on the findings of the assessment at public meetings to stakeholders in the watershed, quarterly newsletters, a project website, public announcements, and a 30-day public notice period for review and comment.“
The findings from these public meetings and comments were taken into consideration when developing the TMDLs.
The background information presented at Thursday’s meeting included a presentation by the district outlining streams listed in the report for e. coli Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs) for the Big Horn River watershed.
Streams in Big Horn County include Big Horn River from the confluence with the Nowood River to a point 36.1 miles upstream, Big Horn River from the confluence with the Greybull River upstream to the confluence with the Nowood River, Paint Rock Creek from the confluence with the Nowood River to a point 5.2 miles upstream, Nowood River from the confluence with the Big Horn River to a point 13.4 miles upstream, Greybull River from the confluence with the Big Horn River to Sheets Flats Bridge, Granite Creek from the confluence with Shell Creek upstream 5.8 miles near the Antelope Butte Ski Area, Beaver Creek from the confluence with Shell Creek to a point 7.9 miles upstream, Shell Creek from the confluence with the Big Horn River to a point 5.3 miles upstream, Big Horn River from the confluence with the Greybull River to a point 10.5 miles downstream and Dry Creek from the confluence with the Big Horn River to a point 4.7 miles upstream.
Discussion
George Kelso opened Thursday’s meeting with an overview of where things stand.
“Now that we have the TMDL report in its final form, we can start moving into implementation — and what we can do to take care of water quality problems,” said Kelso. “We want to get people to think about how they can use this process to benefit their operations … how we can clean it up and also see some personal benefit from it.”
Monte Bush of the USDA-NRCS office in Greybull said the district used grant money to address problem septic systems and livestock facilities. Twenty septic systems were replaced and 18 different livestock facilities were relocated to address concerns about runoff into the water supply.
Bush said that while the improvements didn’t appear to have a big impact on numbers, the grant program still did a lot of good. When projects were being selected, not a lot of consideration was given to their location. “Whoever came in, we tried to fund,” said Bush, adding that it was something of a “postage stamp” approach.
“What we’d like to see moving forward,” he said, “is to focus the funding on a watershed basis on a smaller area — and really get after that specific area to see if the numbers will come down.”
Linda Hamilton said some of the efforts in the Kirby Creek watershed have paid off. On that stream, the required load reductions needed to meet the TMDL is 30 percent, the lowest percentage of any county stream. Most of the rest are in the 70s, 80s and 90s.
“The tremendous amount of work down there has started to show a benefit,” said Hamilton.
Kelso said that while the work done by the SBH district didn’t impact numbers, it oftentimes fixed septic systems that were illegal, thereby removing the liability of the landowner. Those who had feedlots moved got “tremendously useful” corrals out of the deal.
The important thing, all of the presenters agreed, is to at least make an attempt to improve the watersheds. Doing nothing could result in greater involvement and possibly even fines from the federal Environmental Protection Agency, according to Rosenthal.
Hamilton and Kelso emphasized that money is available for producers who wish to participate, and that the watershed improvement program is voluntary. “We’re here to help you,” said Hamilton. “That’s our mission as a conservation district board; we aren’t here to make you do anything.”
Kelso said funding is available to producers — they just need to come forward and express interest in doing what they can to improve water quality.
“What we’re hoping,” he said, “Is that we can find a group of people in an area who would like to work on some things so we can focus our efforts and go after funding. There are a lot of potential sources. Not as much money as a few years ago, but for our area, there’s still quite a bit.”
Kelso added that there was an important takeaway from the Washakie County presentation.
“What they basically said was, ‘For years, we’ve been studying water quality issues, monitoring, doing all these types of things,’ and they all cost a lot of money, but didn’t really clean up the water,’” said Kelso. “Well they got to a point where they could go after money to help producers.
“We’re at a place now where we can start doing the same. We’ve got a lot of septic systems out there that could use some improvement. And our past efforts have cleaned up the worst of the feedlots, but there are still others out there.”
By NATHAN OSTER
Greybull Standard
A contingent from Washakie County encouraged South Big Horn County producers not to get hung up on numbers during a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) educational meeting Thursday night near Greybull.
Called by the South Big Horn Conservation District and held at the Weed and Pest Building off U.S. Highway 310, the meeting featured a presentation on watershed planning by Cathy Rosenthal, the watershed coordinator for the Wyoming Association of Conservation Districts. The meeting also included an explanation of what improvements have already occurred within the South Big Horn Conservation District.
But because they have been there and done that, Tori Dietz, director of the Washakie County Conservation District, and two members of their district’s steering committee, Vance Lungren Jr. and Doug Hamilton, were given top billing.
The focus of their efforts were Slick Creek and Sage Creek, two of the six streams identified as being impaired in Washakie County. Dietz noted that because those two creeks had both agricultural and urban/rural interaction, the decision was made to “throw their money” into improving those two. Septic systems were replaced, feedlots cleaned up and relocated.
The original intent was to prove the DEQ wrong — that they weren’t impaired. But that didn’t happen. “We proved them right,” said Dietz. They then tried to get the two creeks delisted for bacteria, but “horrific spring rains” one year derailed that process and made monitoring and drawing conclusions from the water testing next to impossible.
“The moral is, we forgot about the stupid numbers,” said Dietz. “You can’t use bacteria as an indicator because you don’t know where it lives, why it lives or how long it lives.”
Instead they focused on improving the water through focused improvements, and they believe that they’ve made positive strides in that area.
“We had a whole truckload of lemons dumped on us,” said Lungren. “Your job as producers is to try to make lemonade out of it. We got hung up on the numbers. They said it came from livestock grazing. Our problem was e-coli. Well, we could never understand where it was coming from. We got hung up on theory and models. I’d encourage you to step over that.”
Lungren continued, “Once we got to some of the solutions that they listed for us, we started picking out a few that would work in our areas that would benefit our producers. Your job as producers is to look that list over and make sure it’s going to be profitable for other producers.”
Hamilton added, “We wanted to figure out what the numbers mean, why specific areas were listed when others weren’t. But we couldn’t come to a conclusion. We thought we could narrow it down, prove where the problem was. But we came to realize it wasn’t going to be fun to point fingers. We needed producers who wanted to do it. So we decided the money was best spent being put on the ground, getting things done we knew would help.”
Background
Linda Hamilton of the South Big Horn Conservation District said the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality gave conservation districts 13 years to do projects to attempt to get the fecal coliform (e. coli) figures down.
The DEQ hired a consultant, RESPEC from South Dakota, to develop the TMDL for the Big Horn River watershed. According to the draft report from RESPEC, “Section 303(d) of the Clean Water Act and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Water Quality Planning and Management Regulations (40 CFR 130) require states to develop Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs) for waterbodies not meeting applicable water-quality standards or guidelines for the protection of designated uses under technology-based controls. TMDLs specify the maximum pollutant amount a waterbody can receive and still meet water quality standards. Based on a calculation of the total allowable load, TMDLs allocate pollutant loads to sources to incorporate a margin of safety. TMDL pollutant load reduction goals for significant sources provide a scientific basis for restoring surface water quality by linking the development and implementation of control actions to the attainment and maintenance of water-quality standards and designated uses.
“The intent of this document is to clearly identify the components of a TMDL, support adequate public participation, and facilitate the EPA review. The TMDL was developed in accordance with Section 303(d) of the federal Clean Water Act and guidance developed by the EPA. This TMDL document addresses E. coli impairments in the Big Horn River Watershed.”
According to the draft report from RESPEC, “The efforts to facilitate public education, review, and comment while developing the Big Horn River Watershed TMDLs included presentations on the findings of the assessment at public meetings to stakeholders in the watershed, quarterly newsletters, a project website, public announcements, and a 30-day public notice period for review and comment.“
The findings from these public meetings and comments were taken into consideration when developing the TMDLs.
The background information presented at Thursday’s meeting included a presentation by the district outlining streams listed in the report for e. coli Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs) for the Big Horn River watershed.
Streams in Big Horn County include Big Horn River from the confluence with the Nowood River to a point 36.1 miles upstream, Big Horn River from the confluence with the Greybull River upstream to the confluence with the Nowood River, Paint Rock Creek from the confluence with the Nowood River to a point 5.2 miles upstream, Nowood River from the confluence with the Big Horn River to a point 13.4 miles upstream, Greybull River from the confluence with the Big Horn River to Sheets Flats Bridge, Granite Creek from the confluence with Shell Creek upstream 5.8 miles near the Antelope Butte Ski Area, Beaver Creek from the confluence with Shell Creek to a point 7.9 miles upstream, Shell Creek from the confluence with the Big Horn River to a point 5.3 miles upstream, Big Horn River from the confluence with the Greybull River to a point 10.5 miles downstream and Dry Creek from the confluence with the Big Horn River to a point 4.7 miles upstream.
Discussion
George Kelso opened Thursday’s meeting with an overview of where things stand.
“Now that we have the TMDL report in its final form, we can start moving into implementation — and what we can do to take care of water quality problems,” said Kelso. “We want to get people to think about how they can use this process to benefit their operations … how we can clean it up and also see some personal benefit from it.”
Monte Bush of the USDA-NRCS office in Greybull said the district used grant money to address problem septic systems and livestock facilities. Twenty septic systems were replaced and 18 different livestock facilities were relocated to address concerns about runoff into the water supply.
Bush said that while the improvements didn’t appear to have a big impact on numbers, the grant program still did a lot of good. When projects were being selected, not a lot of consideration was given to their location. “Whoever came in, we tried to fund,” said Bush, adding that it was something of a “postage stamp” approach.
“What we’d like to see moving forward,” he said, “is to focus the funding on a watershed basis on a smaller area — and really get after that specific area to see if the numbers will come down.”
Linda Hamilton said some of the efforts in the Kirby Creek watershed have paid off. On that stream, the required load reductions needed to meet the TMDL is 30 percent, the lowest percentage of any county stream. Most of the rest are in the 70s, 80s and 90s.
“The tremendous amount of work down there has started to show a benefit,” said Hamilton.
Kelso said that while the work done by the SBH district didn’t impact numbers, it oftentimes fixed septic systems that were illegal, thereby removing the liability of the landowner. Those who had feedlots moved got “tremendously useful” corrals out of the deal.
The important thing, all of the presenters agreed, is to at least make an attempt to improve the watersheds. Doing nothing could result in greater involvement and possibly even fines from the federal Environmental Protection Agency, according to Rosenthal.
Hamilton and Kelso emphasized that money is available for producers who wish to participate, and that the watershed improvement program is voluntary. “We’re here to help you,” said Hamilton. “That’s our mission as a conservation district board; we aren’t here to make you do anything.”
Kelso said funding is available to producers — they just need to come forward and express interest in doing what they can to improve water quality.
“What we’re hoping,” he said, “Is that we can find a group of people in an area who would like to work on some things so we can focus our efforts and go after funding. There are a lot of potential sources. Not as much money as a few years ago, but for our area, there’s still quite a bit.”
Kelso added that there was an important takeaway from the Washakie County presentation.
“What they basically said was, ‘For years, we’ve been studying water quality issues, monitoring, doing all these types of things,’ and they all cost a lot of money, but didn’t really clean up the water,’” said Kelso. “Well they got to a point where they could go after money to help producers.
“We’re at a place now where we can start doing the same. We’ve got a lot of septic systems out there that could use some improvement. And our past efforts have cleaned up the worst of the feedlots, but there are still others out there.”
