The Missouri Watershed Initiative Building Science into Watershed Management Decisions

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The Missouri Watershed InitiativeBuilding
Science into Watershed Management Decisions

• University of Missouri Extension
• Watershed Science and Stewardship Center

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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

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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
Plan Implementation
Action Planning
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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.

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Locally Identified Watershed Concerns

• 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

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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

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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

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Watershed Characteristics - Farms

• 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

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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

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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.

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Long Branch Watershed Sub-basins
Sub-basin Acres 1 9,809
2 3,481 3 6,532
4 9,662 5 15,286
6 10,567 7 10,954 Total
66,291
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Land Use, by Sub-basin - baseline
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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
• 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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Annual Sediment Yield, by Sub-basin
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Annual Average Sediment Loss
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Annual Atrazine Loss, by Sub-basin
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Annual Average Atrazine Loss
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Watershed - Economic Baseline 1999-2009

• 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.

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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

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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

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E. coli source tracking

• Bacterial pollution associated with human or
  animal feces may contain pathogenic microbes
  which can cause human disease.
• Fecal E. coli are non-pathogenic indicators of
  the possible presence of disease-producing
  organisms from human or animal feces.
• Each strain of fecal E. coli has a personal DNA
  pattern/signature

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Long Branch Watershed CharacteristicsFecal
coliform

• 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

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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Thank you!
Bob Broz and Bill Kurtz University of
Missouri Columbia, MO 65211 (573)
882-0085 KurtzW_at_missouri.edu brozr_at_missouri.edu