Transcript The Missouri Watershed Initiative

The Missouri Watershed Initiative
Building Science into Watershed
Management Decisions
University of Missouri Extension
Watershed Science and Stewardship Center
Do We Start With the Science?
 Identify
local concerns and issues
 Locate documentation to support or reject
concerns and issues
 Identify local and state resource people to
provide assistance and education
 Provide ample opportunity for local
watershed community to have input
Identifying Watershed Issues - Process
* Community representation
* Issues reflect local concerns
* Objective assessment – data collection, base line data
* Peer-reviewed research - professional, WIAC
* Local communities assisted with interpretation and
implementation of findings
* Process is monitored and evaluated
Assessment
Plan Development
Action Planning
Plan Implementation
State-level water quality issues
 Ranking by WIAC
1) management practices to minimize off-site movement of
nutrients and chemicals;
2) design of manure waste handling and land application
systems to reduce losses to the environment;
3) nutrient, chemical and sediment loading in
groundwater, streams and lakes;
4) ecological impacts of nutrient, chemical and sediment
contamination in streams and lakes;
5) identify and quantify social benefits and costs of
alternative strategies regarding the issue of water quality;
6) watershed-based documentation and representation of
social, economic and environmental data for watershed
planning and policy analysis.
Locally Identified Watershed Concerns
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Seasonally stratified lake
Generally high levels of turbidity, nutrients, manganese
and iron; vary by season.
Pesticides concerns: atrazine, alachlor, cyanazine,
metoachlor, metribuzin, simazine, treflan.
Sedimentation
Fecal coliform
Taste and odor
Assessment Process
 To
characterize the physical, biological,
social and economic dimensions of the
watershed and its residents/stakeholders.
 Evaluated
known information and data and
gathered other needed data and information to
provide a complete description of the watershed.
- Water resources
- Plant resources
- Soil resources
- Air resources
- Animal resources
- Human resources
Assessment Process
 Conducted
11 assessment projects:
- Water biology
- Fish species
- Macro-invertebrates
- Geology
- Tourism
- e. coli sources
- Sediment sources
- Groundwater
- Economics baseline
- Environmental baseline
- Farm and farmer characteristics
Watershed Characteristics - Farms
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Crop producers - 59% grow commercial crops
Livestock producers - 72% have cattle
mean = 75 (6-300 head)
Crop rotations:
- Continuous soybeans
- Com-Soybeans
- Com-Soybeans-Wheat
Practices:
- Cropping - 43% - no-till; 48% minimum-till
- Information - from bag or container labels, custom
applicator or dealer
Watershed Characteristics - Farmers
 Age
- low 50's (27-72)
 Education - 1/3 college degree 2/3 high school diploma
 Employment
 - 45% - had a non-farm job
- 42% - farm income provided 20% or less
of total household income
- 38% - all farm income from family
Watershed Characteristics
- Septic Systems
 58%
- Septic tank w/ open pipe to pasture, road,
ditch or creek
- 60% had never serviced their tank
- 20% serviced tank every 5-1 0 years
- 20% serviced tank every few years or even more
frequently
16% - Sewage lagoon without a septic tank
 10% - Septic tank with soil absorption fields
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Sediment, Invertebrates, Fish
Sediments - sediment entering the lake is deposited in the upper
arms with little material reaching the southern end.
- A cursory geological assessment found that the predominate
source of sediment in the reservoir comes from shoreline
erosion.
Benthic invertebrates - Total number of taxa, species diversity,
biotic index. Values indicated Long Branch Creek was in a
"fair" condition compared to other similar streams in the
Prairie Region.
Fish - Fish species collected in Long Branch Creek were tolerant
of highly variable conditions - low dissolved oxygen, high
temperature and high turbidity and sediment loads.
Long Branch Watershed Sub-basins
Sub-basin
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Total
Acres
9,809
3,481
6,532
9,662
15,286
10,567
10,954
66,291
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Land Use, by Sub-basin - baseline
16,000
Acres
12,000
8,000
4,000
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Sub-basin
Corn
Beans
Wheat
Grassland
Trees
Urban
Water
Conservation Reserve Enhancement
Program (CREP) Analysis
Designed to reduce nutrients, pesticides, and
sediment in drinking water reservoirs
 Replace rowcrops with grass
 More than 3,300 acres enrolled
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– Approximately 5% of the watershed
– 17% of cropland acres
– Concentrated in northern end of watershed
Revise SWAT to reflect change
– Assign CREP acres to sub-basins
 Predict environmental benefits of CREP
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CREP Land Use Changes
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2000
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1500
Acres
1000
500
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0
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-500
-1000
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-1500
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Sub-basin
Beans
Corn
Wheat
Grassland
Trees
Urban
Water
Annual Sediment Yield (tons)
Annual Sediment Yield, by Sub-basin
40000
35000
30000
25000
20000
15000
10000
5000
0
1
2
3
4
Sub-basin
5
6
7
Annual Average Sediment Loss
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Sed. Yield
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Cropland
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0
Percent Change
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-10
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-20
-25
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-30
-35
sb 4
sb 5
sb 6
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Annual Atrazine Loss (lb ai/yr)
Annual Atrazine Loss, by Sub-basin
450
400
350
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
1
2
3
4
Sub-basin
5
6
7
Annual Average Atrazine Loss
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Runoff
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Corn
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0
Percent Change
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-10
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-15
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-20
-25
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-30
-35
sb 4
sb 5
sb 6
sb 7
Watershed - Economic Baseline
1999-2009
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Population is projected to increase - 1.6 % annually in
Macon County and 1.1% annually in Adair County.
Jobs are projected to increase at a rate of 1.3% per year,
for a total of 3,100 jobs - only 50 of these jobs are
expected to be in the Long Branch Watershed.
Per capita income (before inflation) is projected to
increase at a rate of 1.5% annually.
County revenues and demand for expenditures are
expected to grow, but the demand is projected to increase
faster than revenues, creating a challenge in the delivery of
public services.
Tourism, primarily related to Long Branch Lake, generates
an estimated $4 million annually.
Economic effects of Implementing
CREP Into the Watershed
 Year
1 - Add 5.5 jobs and TPI of $106K
 Year 2 - Total payments decrease as CREP
incentive payments go from 75% to 25% - this
results in a loss of 1.9 jobs and reduction of $38K
in TPI
 Year 3 – Only the annual CRP payment is made –
the result is a loss of 1 job and $18K in TPI
 15-year total - $3.4 million in incentives and
payments put into the hands of a few
producers
Economic effects of reduced crop
production
– Loss of 25.7 jobs total (.1% of total
employment)
– Reduced personal income of $248,000
This loss of jobs associated with agriculture
production may be cancelled out by an
increase in jobs associated with more
tourism based on cleaner lake environment
E. coli source tracking
 Bacterial
pollution associated with human or animal
feces may contain pathogenic microbes which can
cause human disease.
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Fecal E. coli are non-pathogenic “indicators” of the
possible presence of disease-producing organisms
from human or animal feces.
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Each strain of fecal E. coli has a “personal” DNA
pattern/signature
Long Branch Watershed Characteristics
Fecal coliform
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Fecal coliform – At 2 of 6 sites sampled, E. coli were beyond the state
level of 200 pp/100 ml.
Total count
Source identified
2800
Human, horse, cow
2000
Cow, human, horse, sewage
4500
Cattle, goose, human, sewage
920
Sewage
138
Sewage, human
200
Cattle, horse, human
890
Sewage, human, chicken
How this has worked…..
 Watershed
community asked to respond to a
TMDL for bacteria
 DNR tells them to write plans to address horse
and cattle concerns in the watershed
 DNA source tracking identifies human sewage as
a significant component
 Watershed residents ask DNR to look at what the
science has identified as contributors to problem
 Watershed plan written addressing not only cattle
and horse issues but also on-site sewage and
human waste.
What is underway?
 Based
on lake erosion assessment, the city, Corps
of Engineers and Mo. Department of
Conservation are examining feasibility plan for
bank stabilization and water outlet control
structure, establishing riparian vegetation, and
wetland development at points where creeks
empty into lake.
What is underway? AgNPS SALT Project
 Funding
to implement BMPs to address
nutrient, pesticide and soil run-off.
* $750,000
* 7 years
* Macon and Adair County SWCDs
* Cost-sharing funds for conservation practices $457,500
* Educational programming funds – $21,300
* Equipment - $22,500
Science in the public interest
Action
planning process
1. Water Management - Promote long-term public awareness
and participation.
2. Environmental & Economic Impacts from Agricultural
Practices - Encourage responsible land use that promotes
environmental and economic viability through educational
endeavor that improve water quality
3. Water Quality - Monitoring and modeling of water quality to
determine changes
4. Water Conservation & Management – Incorporate BMPs that
reduce pesticide and nutrient loading, bacteria loading and
erosion runoff.
Conclusions
 Provide
science based information to
watershed citizens so they have the
knowledge to make decisions that will have
long term effects on improving water
quality and their local communities.
 This
must incorporate the economic and
environmental aspects of the community
and must incorporate local citizens that are
willing to work towards improving their
watershed communities.
Thank you!
Bob Broz and Bill Kurtz
University of Missouri
Columbia, MO 65211
(573) 882-0085
[email protected]
[email protected]