River watch

The plan is done, but in some ways the work is just beginning.
Tim Kroeker presented Jay County Commissioners with the Upper Salamonie River Watershed Plan this week, now that it’s been approved by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management and the Environmental Protection Agency.
Kroeker, who was hired as watershed coordinator under what is known as a 319 grant from IDEM, is now getting ready to promote best practices to farmers whose land abuts the Salamonie and its tributaries in Jay and Blackford counties.
Though the 319 grant has been completed, the watershed has received $75,000 in funding from the EPA under the Clean Water Act to monitor water quality and provide educational services.
“That’s the most they give out,” Kroeker said in an interview this week of the three-year grant. “They wanted to keep the momentum going.”
The roots of the Upper Salamonie Watershed project date back to 2009 when toxic blue-green algae appeared in the Salamonie Reservoir, resulting in the deaths of two dogs.
Over a two-year period the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers tested water along the Salamonie upstream from the reservoir, searching for the cause of the toxic algae blooms.
The corps sampled at 23 sites in Jay, Blackford, Wells, Grant, Huntington and Wabash counties and found that the algae blooms were being driven by high levels of nitrogen and phosphorous.
“There were heavy nutrients from the watershed,” said Kroeker.
The corps also found problems with E. coli bacteria, chlorides and other pollutants.
The Lower Salamonie Watershed became organized first and received a four-year 319 grant, two years for planning and two years for implementation. The Upper Salamonie Watershed received its two-year 319 grant for planning in late 2013, and Kroeker, a former IDEM employee, was hired to manage the project.
Kroeker’s task was to assess the scope of the problem and develop a plan for improving water quality.
That translated into testing water quality and determining areas where changes in behavior could make a difference.
“EPA wants you to concentrate on critical areas,” Kroeker said.
Though inadequate municipal wastewater treatment systems and combined sewers represent one set of problems, the major land use in the watershed is agriculture, with 73 percent of that dedicated to row crops.
“Many forms of non point source pollution are related to agricultural practices,” the plan concluded. “Inadequate waste treatment and aging collection systems can degrade water quality. During low flow conditions, Portland has been shown to be a significant contributor to water quality degradation. However, during high flows, rural areas contribute a substantial pollutant load.”
“Teasing out” the critical areas was a challenge, said Kroeker.
Nearly a dozen different factors came into play, including stream bank erosion, channel modification, types of tillage, livestock access to streams, feeding operations, the use of stream buffers and filter strips and construction.
The only way to do the job was to do a “windshield survey” and check out as many potential sites as possible. In all, 445 sites were surveyed in the Upper Salamonie Watershed and more than 500 more in the Lower Salamonie Watershed.
A scoring system was developed to determine three tiers of degradation.
Addressing those areas of concern essentially involves encouraging best management practices for farmers, with an eye toward maintaining soil health as well as improving the water.
That, said Kroeker, is mostly a matter of going out and talking to people.
It also helps to be able to offer incentives.
Under the latest grant farmers can receive $20 an acre up to a total of $2,000 to plant cover crops in critical areas, up to $2,000 toward 75 percent of the cost of installing filter strips, and up to $2,000 to provide for fencing to keep livestock out of streams.
“We’ve had a lot of great partners,” said Kroeker, who has met weekly with Jay County Soil and Water Conservation District staff during the planning process.
The City of Portland made its laboratory at the wastewater treatment plant available for use, which not only served as a match for the grant but also helped stretch the budget.
“They were a fantastic partner,” Kroeker said. “They have a great lab, and we were able to use that (saved) money to buy (professional flow monitoring) equipment.”
It’s going to be a long process, and both state and federal officials were pleased to see the Upper and Lower Salamonie Watersheds cooperating. Kroeker works for both.
“There hasn’t been much impact yet,” he said. “But it’s the only way to keep our lake systems in place.” And that is attracting positive attention.
Earlier this month the Indiana Lakes Management Society awarded the Upper and Lower Salamonie River Watershed groups its Outstanding Lake Association Award.
“They were impressed by the groups’ work.”