US. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY REGION V CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
OCTOBER, 1977 EPK-9O5/977- OO7-A
eni/iionmental impact
of land use
on water quality
final report on the
black creek project
-summary
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The following P.L. 92-500, Section 108A reports dealing with the Allen County,
Indiana, Black Creek Study are available through the National Technical Infor-
mation Service (NTIS) U.S. Department of Commerce, Springfield, Virginia 22161.
Prices listed for paper copy and microfiche are prices given when placed on NTIS
listing.
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF LAND USE ON WATER QUALITY
A Work Plan EPA-G005103
NTIS No. PB 227 112 Price: Paper $5.50, MF $2.25
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF LAND USE ON WATER QUALITY
Operations Manual EPA-905-74-002
NTIS No. PB 235 526 Price: Paper $9.25, MF $2.25
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF LAND USE ON WATER QUALITY
Progress Report-1975 EPA-905/9-75-006
NTIS No. PB 248 104 Price: Paper $8.00, MF $2.25
NON-POINT SOURCE POLLUTION SEMINAR-NOVEMBER 1975
NTIS: PB 250 970 EPA-905/9-75-007
(266 pgs.) Price: PC 9.00/MF 2.25
BEST MANAGEMENT PRACTICES FOR NON-POINT SOURCES POLLUTION CONTROL SEMINAR
1976-Nov. 331 pgs. EPA-905/9-76-005
NTIS No. PB 265 731/owp Price: PC A15/MF A01
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF LAND USE ON WATER QUALITY
Progress Report-1976 53 pgs. EPA-905/9-76-004
NTIS No. PB 270 963 Price: PC A04/MF 3.00
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October, 1977 EPA-905/9-77-007-A
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF
LAND USE ON
WATER QUALITY
Final Report
on the
Black Creek Project
(Summary)
by
James Lake
Project Director
James Morrison
Project Editor
Prepared for
U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL
PROTECTION AGENCY
Great Lakes National Program Office
230 South Dearborn Street
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Ralph G. Christensen Carl D. Wilson
Section 108a Program Project Officer
UNDER U.S. EPA GRANT NO. G005103
to
ALLEN COUNTY SOIL & WATER
CONSERVATION DISTRICT
U.S. Department of Agriculture, SCS, ARS
Purdue University, University of Illinois 7
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This project has been financed (in part) with Federal funds
from the Environmental Protection Agency under grant
number G-005103. The contents do not necessarily reflect
the views and policies of the Environmental Protection
Agency, nor does mention of trade names or commercial
products constitute endorsement or recommendation for
use.
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CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1: NONPOINT SOURCE POLLUTION—
A LOOK AT WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT 1
Black Creek and the Problem of Lake Erie 2
Needed—New Answers to Old Questions 6
What Did We Learn? 12
Research Conclusions
Administrative Aspects
j CHAPTER 2: WHY CHOOSE BLACK CREEK? 19
The Maumee Basin on a Smaller Scale 21
A Guide for 208 Planners 23
CHAPTER 3: AGRICULTURAL POLLUTION—WHAT IS IT? 26
^- Sediment 28
,"" Plant Nutrients 29
"*"" Other Environmental Hazards 30
Where Does Agricultural Pollution Come From? 31
<• > Surface Flow
Key to the Process—The Raindrop
•; Removing Sediment from Surface Runoff
.~ Tile Flow
'-> Subsurface Runoff
t>c> Flow During the Storm Event
r--
<5 CHAPTER 4: LAND TREATMENT—
A PART OF THE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM 45
Planning for Change in the Black Creek Watershed 47
Structural Practices 47
Cultural Practices 50
Combinations of Cultural and Structural Practices 51
Putting the Practices Together—The Conservation Plan 52
Best Management Practices 55
Field Borders
Grade Stabilization Structures
Grassed Waterways
Holding Ponds and Tanks
Livestock Exclusion
Pasture Plantings
Sediment Control Basins
Terraces
Channel Practices
Practices in Combination
Cultural Practices
Woodland Practices 65
Practices Not Fitted 65
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Frosting on the Cake 66
CHAPTER 5: WHAT'S IT GOING TO COST? 67
"Answers" to the Cost Question 70
The Magic Word "Feasible"—What Does It Mean? 73
CHAPTER 6: KEY PERSONNEL 83
CHAPTER 7: CONCLUSIONS 91
Photos in the document courtesy Purdue University, USDA
Soil Conservation Service, Toledo, Ohio, Blade.
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NONPOINT
SOURCE
POLLUTION
A LOOK AT
WHAT IT'S
ALL ABOUT
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CenvironmerrraL imracr OF Lano use on warer ouauTY)
The passage of the Water Quality Act Amendments of 1972
— Public Law 92-500 — set in motion the machinery for a re -
evaluation of programs designed to control soil erosion in
the United States, particularly as these programs relate to
water quality standards.
•-T33ST.
-
So/7 Erosion Near Black Creek
Section 208 of that act mandates the development of water
quality management plans which include plans for the
control of pollution arising from agricultural operations.
Some agricultural pollution, largely that arising from animal
waste from confined feeding operations or farm-based
agricultural processing plants, readily falls within the concept
of "point source" pollution.
On the other hand, pollution which is related to crop
production — soil erosion, the introduction of fertilizers and
pesticides into the waterways of the nation — is a type of
nonpoint pollution and is more difficult to recognize, define,
and deal with.
Even before the final passage of PL 92-500, a group of
technicians, specialists, and researchers, working under a
grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, were
taking a detailed look at how nonpoint source pollution
might be controlled in a typical agricultural watershed in
Allen County, Indiana.
This volume reports results and conclusions of this study. It
provides a general discussion of the project. More
information concerning the subject is contained in the three
technical volumes which together with this one constitute
the final report on "The Black Creek Project."
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CenvironmerrraL imracr OF tano use on warer Qualify)
BLACK CREEK & THE PROBLEM OF LAKE ERIE
Dramatic descriptions of environmental pollution —
factories spewing forth wastes into the air and water, raw
sewage destroying streams and lakes and threatening the
viability of the oceans themselves, trash and debris
inundating large areas of otherwise useful land —
immediately leap to mind when the phrase, "environmental
protection" is mentioned.
More subtle and less obvious pollution of the natural
environment is easily overlooked. Yet this pollution,
designated as nonpoint source pollution, has been identified
as equal to or sometimes more serious than pollution
entering the environment from large, easily recognized,
point sources.
Toledo, Ohio
Since 1972, the Allen County Soil and Water Conservation
District, with assistance from the USDA Soil Conservation
Service, Purdue University, and the University of Illinois, has
been investigating nonpoint source pollution in a 12,000-
acre subwatershed of the Maumee Basin under a grant from
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
This study, commonly called the Black Creek Study, was
the first detailed look in the United States at the
contributions of agriculture to the degradation of water
quality and ultimately to a reduction of environmental
quality.
The Black Creek Study, although now providing
information of use to Section 208 planners, actually pre-dates
the adoption of Public Law 92-500 which, in part, requires an
analysis of the impact of nonpoint source pollution on water
quality.
It was funded under provisions of the 1969 Water Quality
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fenvironmeirraL imracT OF tano use on warcr ouauTY)
Act calling for special demonstration projects to improve the
quality of water in the Great Lakes and, in the case of this
project, Lake Erie.
If there was a single symbol of the need for environmental
protection arising out of the environmental movement of the
mid and late 1960's, that symbol was Lake Erie.
President Lyndon Johnson, in his message to Congress
urging adoption of the Clean Water Act of 1965, said that for
all intents and purposes, Lake Erie was a "dead" lake. Former
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator William
Ruckelshaus, speaking about an assurance from the City of
Cleveland that environmental problems in the Cuyahoga
River (a major tributary of the Lake) had been solved said,
"The next week the river caught fire and burned down two
bridges and a house boat."
Refuse of Cleveland, Detroit, and Toledo poured into the
shallow lake; but in addition, pollutants, including nutrients,
pesticides, and sediment, were added from the rich farming
lands of the Lake Erie Basin.
The 1970 assessment of Lake Erie water quality by the
USEPA identified the Maumee River, major drainage artery
of a highly agricultural basin, as the largest single contributor
of silt to Lake Erie.
It was within this framework that a conference on the
Maumee River was held on January 7,1971. The conference,
called by then Indiana Fourth District Congressman J. Edward
Roush led directly to the Black Creek project.
Lake Erie at Toledo
The problem, as expressed by an off ical of the EPA Region
V Enforcement Division was that through existing and
contemplated federal programs and individual cooperation,
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CenvironmerrraL imrarr OF tano use on warer
industrial and municipal pollution of the Maumee River and
Lake Erie was coming under control. "When these problems
are solved," he said, "the problems of agricultural pollution
will remain."
Ellis MacFadden, then chairman of the Allen County Soil
and Water Conservation District, paraphrased these remarks
this way: "Industry was doing a good job and cities were
doing a good job, but agriculture was doing a lousy job."
The spur of the Maumee River Conference led to a series
of meetings involving agricultural, environmental, and local
state and federal agencies. These meetings, called by Allen
County, Indiana Surveyor William Sweet and Thomas Evans,
then SCS State Conservationist, considered various
alternatives to the problems defined at Roush's conference.
Ideas, ranging from the construction of modified
treatment plants to chemically remove sediments and
nutrients from water leaving agricultural watersheds, to a
system of electrical precipitators designed to cause colloidal-
sized particles to drop from flowing streams, were discussed.
Finally, however, it was decided to find out if the
traditional methods of attacking soil erosion (which have
been applied over the past four decades by the Soil
Conservation Service and other agencies of the United States
Department of Agriculture) could have an impact on water
quality.
Grassed Waterway
The Allen County Soil and Water Conservation District, a
subunit of state government funded by local tax funds,
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fenvironmerrraL impaci OF tano use on warer QUALITY)
agreed to undertake responsibility for managing the project
and making sure that the 25 percent local funding, mandated
under the law, was accounted for in the project budget.
The Soil Conservation Service agreed to increase the
amount of technical assistance offered to the district under a
subcontract funded by the grant. Purdue University
researchers, representing agricultural engineering, agron-
omy, agricultural economics, rural sociology and biological
sciences, formed a research team to investigate all aspects of
the problem.
Later, a contract with a former Purdue researcher allowed
continuation of studies of aquatic ecology through the
University of Illinois. These studies have concentrated on
near-stream vegetation's affect on water quality, the basic
microbiological parameters of the watershed, and the
dynamics of fish communities in the Black Creek.
The Black Creek study thus was a demonstration project,
supported by detailed research, aimed at understanding the
impact of agricultural land use in the Maumee Basin on water
quality.
Maumee Basin —Black Creek Location
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CenvironmeirraL impacr OF Lano use on warer
It was not an attempt to directly have a measurable impact
on the water quality in Lake Erie. It is unlikely that any impact
on Lake Erie could be detected if all of the water from Black
Creek were diverted from the lake. The assumptions have
been, however, that a viable method of improving water
quality could be developed and demonstrated which would,
if repeated in the 200 to 300 similar watersheds of the basin,
have a significant effect on water quality in Lake Erie.
NEEDED-NEW ANSWERS TO OLD QUESTIONS
United States Department of Agricultural agencies — Soil
Conservation Service, Agriculture Stabilization and
Conservation Service, and Extension Service — have been
heavily involved in the conservation of soil and water
resources for many years.
The efforts of these agencies are focused through Soil and
Water Conservation Districts, (local subunits of state
government, usually without regulatory powers, but capable
of having a major impact on land and water resources).
Traditionally the technical work of the Soil Conservation
Service has been aimed at conserving one important
resource — soil. Although the conservation and wise use of
water has also been an important goal, the reasoning has
been that if erosion could be controlled and soil kept on the
land, then water quality would benefit.
As more attention has been turned to the problem of
nonpoint source pollution, it has become clear that it may be
possible to conserve soil within the limits set as necessary for
continued production of food and fiber, but nonetheless not
meet water quality standards.
If there were two questions of primary interest in the
design of the Black Creek project, they were these:
(1) Can traditional soil and water conservation programs
have a significant beneficial impact on water quality?
(2) Can programs involving the voluntary cooperation of
landowners, encouraged by generous incentive payments,
produce land treatment sufficient to improve water quality
to the level of present and future water quality standards?
With 40 years of experience in the design and application
of land management programs, it might be assumed that the
mechanism of erosion control and its relationship to
sedimentation would be readily understood. That this is not
the case relates largely to the technique that has been used to
plan erosion control which is centered around the Universal
Soil Loss Equation. This equation (USLE) is based on statistical
probabilities and is useful to estimate the probable soil loss
from fields. It does not indicate the eventual destination of
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CenvironmerrraL imracr OF tano use on warrer ouatiTY)
sediment, and therefore cannot, by itself, predict the impact
on water quality that can be expected from the manipulation
of its variables.
The philosophy of the management of land from the
standpoint of the Universal Soil Loss Equation has been the
Discussing Conservation Planning
Cropland in Watershed
following: There is a natural regenerative capacity in all soils.
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CenvironmerrraL imracT OF ianp use on warcr ouai ITY^
Even if soils are lost through the process of erosion (both
wind and water), if the loss can be kept below this
regenerative capacity, there is no deterioration of the
resource. Reasonably, a program can be developed to bring
all soil loss in line with replacement by natural regeneration.
This philosophy was developed to maintain the long term
productivity of the land and is not directly related to water
quality.
Assuming a goal of working toward the degree of
treatment necessary for achieving the limits set in the
Universal Soil Loss Equation, how can this goal best be
achieved?
The traditional approach of USDA agencies has been to use
incentive payments, designated as "cost sharing" to
encourage the implementation of conservation practices.
These payments, administered through the ASCS county
committees, have not been limited to practices designed to
conserve soil or reduce soil loss. They have also been offered
on practices which have as a primary purpose the increasing
of soil productivity. These practices often resulted in better
income and were the most popular.
Drawbacks to traditional cost sharing programs were
considered in the Black Creek project and solutions to them
proposed in that:
(1) There was no need to wait for year-to-year appropria-
tion. Cost sharing could be offered at any time during the
project when landowners were willing to install needed
practices.
(2) There was adequate technical assistance from SCS.
(3) There was aggressive and interested local leadership.
(4) The project enjoyed favorable publicity and encoun-
tered no active opposition.
The question then became one of whether a program
designed to improve water quality by attacking all
agricultural aspects of nonpoint source pollution on a farm-
by-farm basis could succeed if it enjoyed these advantages.
Other questions were posed either at the beginning of the
project or as work progressed. One of the most important of
these had to do with availability of phosphorus to plant life in
Lake Erie.
A problem that concerned environmentalists was the
frequent occurence of algal blooms and the resulting
degradation of water quality caused by the die off and decay
of the over abundant algae in Lake Erie. It has been
determined in Lake Erie, as in most lakes, that the magnitude
of algal bloom is related to the amount of phosphorus
available.
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(environmeirraL imracT OF tano use on warer piiaur v)
Is it farming
vs. water quality?
Black
Project
studies
pollution,
control
Publicity for Project
Algal Pads
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It became clear early in the project that most of the
phosphorus leaving the agricultural soils of the Black Creek
Watershed were attached to soil particles. This provides a
tight bond which is not easily broken down when the
particles are typical of the colloidal-sized clays of the
Maumee Basin. The question became: "How much of this
'sediment bound' phosphorus is available to plant life in
Lake Erie or in other receiving bodies of water?"
Also posed were questions regarding bank stability and
contributions of ditch banks to the total sediment load of the
Black Creek and the Maumee River.
Unstable Ditch Bank
A desire was expressed to be able to attribute the sediment
reaching the river and the lake to various classifications of
land. It was determined that the soil capability classes used
by the SCS would be used and an attempt was made to assign
contributions of sediment to each of them.
The impact of land use on the quality of water in Black
Creek itself was also a question. This was to be measured by
both chemical and microbiological parameters in the stream.
As the project developed, interest was generated in the
impact of near- stream vegetation on the water quality of the
Black Creek.
As the difficulty of getting consistent measures of water
quality and the importance of timing in collecting useful
water quality samples became more apparent, it became
obvious that an automated sampling system was necessary. A
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complex automated system, capable of reacting to storm
events and gathering samples when needed during the
runoff was developed and installed in the watershed.
Collecting Grab Samples
Finally, some method of applying the results of the Black
Creek study beyond the boundaries of the Black Creek
Watershed was desired. The vehicle for accomplishing this
was to be a computer model. This model, unlike other
models, would not be statistically based nor involve lumping
/Automated Sampler
of several parameters into numerical values useful only for
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characterizing specific watersheds. Instead, an attempt
would be made to develop a distributed model, capable of
simulating watershed behavior duringactual rainfall events.
WHAT DID WE LEARN?
After five years of effort, investigators have been able to
draw some tentative conclusions concerning the impact of
agricultural land use on the Black Creek environment.
Although some of the conclusions raise as many questions as
they answer, it is the conviction of the Black Creek staff that
the level of understanding has been increased.
One investigator commented that an important thing that
was learned from the research standpoint was simply how to
conduct this type of study. Changes in direction came about
several times. For example, it was learned that grab sampling,
the process of periodically dipping out samples of water from
the Black Creek and its tributaries was not sufficient to give a
true picture of sediment and related pollutant loadings into
the Maumee River.
Tillage Demonstration Plot
As a result, automated samplers were installed at several
testing locations. Information from these samplers are
thought to give a more accurate measure of concentrations
throughout the period following a rainfall event in the
watershed. The information thus makes possible a more
accurate assessment of the impact of land use on water
quality.
The concept of tillage trials was changed, from a system in
which individual farmers utilized techniques to be tested, to
the more traditional tillage research methods using
replicated plots. Farmers naturally tended to be more
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concerned with regular field operations rather than
research.
The need to measure microbiological parameters was
established after the project had begun. This work was
added and performed by the Ft. Wayne-Allen County Board
of Health. A study of near stream vegetation on water quality
was begun after the project had started. Both of these
projects supplemented the study of fish community
dynamics in the Black Creek.
A summary of conclusions reached can be divided into two
major categories — a summary of the research and a
summary of those things learned which were associated with
the administrative aspects of the watershed and the impact of
an accelerated land treatment program on the people of the
Black Creek area.
Research Conclusions
Research results in the Black Creek Watershed indicated
nitrate loadings were typical of agricultural watersheds (2-20
kg of nitrate nitrogen per hectare) and not high enough to
threaten drinking water standards (10 mg/l); phosphate
concentrations were high enough (.05-.16 mg/l) to threaten
water quality goals for Lake Erie (.01 mg/l); and sediment was
being produced after rainfall events which produced runoff,
with most sediment (73-86 percent) produced by intense
Sediment Runoff On Roadway
storms. In general, sediment loadings into the Black Creek
were low for an agricultural watershed, but more typical of
the Maumee Basin. These ranged from 530 to 2370 kg/ha
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(from a little more than a quarter to slightly more than a ton
per acre per year). These loadings were measured at the
discharge point into The Maumee River. It should be noted
that loadings of this magnitude would have been
undetectable if measured in the river itself downstream of
the discharge point. More particularly, changes in loadings
in this range could not have been measured in the Maumee.
Of all the water quality parameters measured, most could
be correlated with sediment. The single exception was
nitrogen, particularly in its nitrate form, which was leached
from the soil and was present in surface water, subsurface
drainage water, and tile flow. Amounts of most of the
pollutants considered could be reduced by controlling
sediment. This is not the case with nitrogen.
Methods of controlling nitrogen include utilizing
techniques which slow the rate of nitrification, paying
particular attention to the time of application, and reducing
Rainfall Simulator in Operation
the amount of nitrogen applied as fertilizer. Nitrate levels
detected in the Black Creek do not justify other more
excessive control measures on the basis of either health or
currently perceived nutrient problems.
Phosphate levels were high enough to be of concern,
particularly if continuing studies demonstrate that sediment-
bound phosphorus isan important source of the nutrientsfor
algal blooms in Lake Erie. There is reason to believe that a
significant level of reduction of phosphates can be achieved
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through controlling sediment.
Simulated rainfall tests have demonstrated that raindrop
impact is of prime importance in the detachment of soil
particles. Farming techniques which maximize surface
residue, thereby providing soil cover and consequent
protection from raindrop impact are very important in
preventing erosion from occurring. Other practices, chiefly
of a structural nature, such as establishment of vegetative
borders around farm fields, construction of systems of
terraces to shorten slopes and hold runoff water for short
periods of time to allow sediment to settle out, and the
construction of sediment basins in drainageways may have
value in removing sediment from water containing soil that
has been detached.
Still other structural practices, such as grassed waterways,
structures to stabilize soil at abrupt changes in elevation,
establishment of vegetation or other techniques in extremely
unstable areas, have primary value in preventing erosion
induced by runoff of surface water.
Wertz Woods
It was established that a very small percentage of the
sediment entering the Maumee River and Lake Erie can be
attributed to unstable ditch banks or channel banks.
Standard techniques of reconstructing channels to speed
away drainage water are questioned from the water quality
standpoint. These methods retain value from the standpoint
of farm drainage.
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Tests in a small woods, the Wertz woods, indicated that
during base flow, sediment may be deposited in the
meandering stream bed through the woods. In addition, the
importance of tributaries like the Black Creek in maintaining
the fishery of the Maumee River was established.
Disturbance of streams and ditches through reconstruction
interferes with breeding of several species.
Finally, a computer model of sediment production and
transport, called ANSWERS, has been developed which
appears to be very useful in locating areas within small
watersheds which have a proportionally greater impact on
water quality. The model should be useful for water quality
management planners who need to identify areas where
control of erosion is most critical to success of the plan.
From the standpoint of public acceptance, the Black Creek
project has been a success. Cooperation has existed from the
Federal level, through state government and to local units of
government. Support has come from public interest groups
representing various positions.
Administrative Aspects
Landowners have accepted the project: 95 per cent are
cooperators. At the conclusion of the land treatment portion
of the project, SCS field personnel estimated that more than
l^^'^w^T/,;^,:^;^^ -
Cooperative Agreement
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80 per cent of the land area in Black Creek was adequately
protected from soil loss which would threaten the continued
usefulness of the land resource. This projection has not been
related directly to water quality.
Costs of achieving land treatment have been relatively
high, leading Black Creek investigatorstothe conclusion that
an accelerated program of land treatment on a large scale
would likely be too expensive. When the Black Creek cost
($75 per acre including district payments, landowner
contributions, and technical assistance) is applied to the
entire Maumee Basin, the total is staggering. However, both
the economic and ANSWERS models developed in the
project hold out hope that significant water quality
improvement can be obtained by concentrating treatment
on selected critical areas rather than attempting immediately
to treat every acre of land. It is likely that many acres in the
Maumee Basin will in fact require no treatment.
It has been concluded that early efforts at conservation
planning in the Black Creek Watershed were too broadly
based and that individual conservation plans were too
complex to be readily understood or administered.
The list of 32 practices to be tested in the Black Creek
Watershed was reduced to 12 practices considered best
management practices from the water quality standpoint. If
efforts had been concentrated on these practices, it is likely
that a higher degree of participation would have been
produced on the project and that landowners would have
better understood the thrust of the program.
Black Creek At Maumee River
An economic model was developed to analyze the cost of
nonpoint source pollution control on farms in the Black
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Creek Watershed.
This model demonstrates that the cost of achieving
reduction in sediment through change of tillage methods is
dependent on two major recurring factors — crop yield
reductions that could be associated with alternate tillage
methods and the market value of farm crops. Previous tillage
studies have identified those areas which could most benefit
from change in tillage to control erosion as the same areas
which are least likely to suffer significant yield reductions
because of changes in tillage. This emphasizes the need for
planners to be selective in dealing with recommended tillage
changes as a means of achieving nonpoint source pollution
control.
The Black Creek project has demonstrated the ability of
the Allen County Soil and Water Conservation District to
efficiently deal with an extensive program of nonpoint
source pollution control, to handle fairly large amounts of
money, and to deal with landowners on a voluntary basis.
This success should make soil and water conservation
districts in general likely vehicles for undertaking this type of
work as Section 208 plans are put in place.
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The selection of a watershed for the study was made
following a six month planning phase. Selection of a study
area was considered critical to the application of results to
Black Creek Watershed
other parts of the Maumee Basin. A set of criteria was
adopted to facilitate the conduct of the study and to make
the results as broadly applicable as possible.
The criteria, identified early in the project, were as follows:
1. The study area should include lake bed and upland soils
which are reasonably representative of much of the total
Basin.
2. Sufficient drainageways should be present so that
monitoring stations could be installed to evaluate erosion
and sedimentation both from upland areas and from where
the channel enters the Maumee River.
3. Present land uses and cultural practices should be
comparable to those of the total Maumee Basin.
4. Anticipated future land uses should be typical of those
expected throughout the Maumee Basin.
5. The physiography of the study area should facilitate the
separation of runoff between agricultural areas and land
under other uses.
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6. It is desirable to have "court" (legally established as
drainage ditches under Indiana law) ditches in the area with
long time records.
7. The study area should drain directly into the Maumee
River.
8. The area should be no greater than 20,000 acres in size.
The Black Creek area, made up of 12,038 acres in
northeastern Allen County, Indiana, was selected as the area
within the jurisdiction of the Allen County Soil and Water
Conservation District which most nearly satisfied all of these
criteria. The area contains both soils and land uses which are
representative of the basin. Great similarities of land use
between the Basin and the Black Creek study exist. About 73
per cent of the basin's 4,229,100 acres is devoted to cropland.
Slightly more, about 80 per cent, of the study area is cropland.
Pasture land makes up 4 per cent of the Maumee Basin and a
little more than 4 per cent of the study area. Woodland is
higher in the Maumee Basin asa whole, representing about 8
per cent of the land area. Woodland represents about 4 per
cent of the Black Creek area. Urban buildup of the Basin,
represented by the major population centers of Fort Wayne,
Ind. and Toledo and Lima, Ohio, represents about 9 per cent
of the Basin and only about 4 per cent of the study area.
However, if the population centers are neglected, the
major urbanized area of the Black Creek, the town of Harlan,
is typical of the small towns and villages which are scattered
all over the basin.
Town of Harlan
Corn and soybeans are the major crops produced in both
the basin and the study area. Small grains and meadow in
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fenvironmenraL imracT OF tano use on warer QuauiY)
rotation represents a correspondingly smaller amount of the
cropland.
Only two soil types — Paulding and Latty — which are
found in the north part of the lake plain east of Archbold and
Van Wert, Ohio, are not represented in the Black Creek
Watershed. These soil types are being considered in a
separate study conducted by Ohio State University.
In general, the characteristics of Black Creek were
excellent for representation of the Maumee Basin. It was
intended that results of studies of the Black Creek would
therefore be applicable to large areas of the basin.
Consequently, work would be representative of the impact
that could be achieved in a program aimed at treating
sources of nonpoint pollution in this major Lake Erie
subbasin.
THE MAUMEE BASIN ON A SMALLER SCALE
The Maumee Basin, representing a relatively new
geological area, is rich in history. The basin includes 6,608
square miles, most of which are in northwestern Ohio, but
about a fifth of which are in northeastern Indiana. There are
about 4.2 million acres in the basin, including all or part of 26
counties: 17 in Ohio, 6 in Indiana and 3 in Southern
Michigan.
The Maumee Basin was one of the last areas of the Lake Erie
Basin to be settled, although outposts at Foi. Wayne and
Toledo were established before 1800. Names of communities
in the basin, such as Fort Recovery, and Fort Defiance, are
Maumee River at Waterville, O.
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evocative of the early history of the region which was marked
by a struggle between the fledging Government of the
United States and a confederacy of tribes of the Miami Indian
Nation for control of the Old Northwest Territory.
A decisive battle in this struggle occurred just west of
Toledo along the Maumee River. This was the Battle of
"Fallen Timbers" where American Army Regulars and
volunteers from Kentucky and more settled parts of Indiana
defeated Miamis under the leadership of Chief Little Turtle.
General "Mad" Anthony Wayne, the third and only
successful leader of expeditionary forces against the Miamis,
directed the battle which made possible the opening of the
area to settlement and eventually to intensive agriculture.
In fact, a limited agriculture was practiced in the Maumee
Basin by Miami Indians who burned vegetation from well
drained areas in the basin and even in the "Great Black
Swamp" to clear the land for corn culture.
The "Great Black Swamp', comprising the area which was
once occupied by former glacial Lake Maumee, provided a
barrier to land transportation and to development of
agriculture in most of the Maumee Basin. Although the area
today is the most productive and largest single agricultural
region in the entire Lake Erie basin, it was historically
important as a transportation linkage. The Maumee River
allowed the connection of the Great Lakes. — St. Lawrence
River canoe routes of the early 17th Century with the
Wabash-Ohio-Mississippi waterways through only a single
portage of about eight miles at Fort Wayne. The Maumee was
thus early described as the "Glorious Gate" from the
Northeast to the West.
It was primarily German settlers, with their knowledge of
farm drainage, who brought the rich, black soils of the
former lake bed into productive use. By the middle of the
19th century, the dense forests of the basin had been cleared
and large areas of the swamp had been drained through
elaborate systems of both surface and tile drainage. The farm
drainage system of the former bed of old Lake Maumee is
very complex and elaborate, requiring regular maintenance
and periodic reconstruction to allow it to function.
The Black Creek Watershed is largely a rural area. It has,
however, two effectively different populations. Uplands of
the watershed includea large Amish population. TheAmish,
for religious reasons, eschew many types of machinery,
electricity, and other modern conveniences. They therefore
represent a type of agriculture typical of the farming
methods of three-quarters of a century ago.
For purposes of classification, farms in Black Creek can be
broken down into the following five categories. Full time
(
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large non-Amish (averaging about 680 acres), full-time
medium non-Amish (averaging about 250 acres), part time
non-Amish (averaging about 61 acres), full-time Amish
(averaging about 120 acres) and part time Amish (averaging
about 85 acres in size).
Watershed Area Farmstead
In addition to the use of horses as a major power source
and the tendency to utilize more human labor per farm,
Amish farmers use less commercial fertilizer than do non-
Amish farmers, have lower average yields, and have more
land in pasture. Their farming techniques are less adapted to
certain erosion control techniques such as conservation
tillage and are more susceptible to stream bank problems
caused by the use of the streams to water animals. In general,
Amish farms have proportionally more animal waste and
consequently have a greater animal waste disposal problem.
A GUIDE FOR 208 PLANNERS
In a very real sense, the Black Creek Watershed represents
an area in which easily identified majorsoil erosion problems
did not exist. There were few developing gullies or other
dramatic, easily identified examples. Lack of protection of
stream banks, eroding channels, erosion at abrupt changes of
elevation, and related problems could be found, but were
easy to overlook.
Monitoring has revealed sufficient soil loss and nutrient
loss in the Black Creek Watershed to indicate that visible
evidence of serious erosion on the land is not required for
water quality to be degraded. This emphasizes the difficulty
of dealing with the problem of agricultural nonpoint source
pollution.
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One way of considering Black Creek Watershed in
relationship to watersheds with moreserious and moreeasily
apparent erosion problems, is to consider that Black Creek
represents a watershed as it might be afterthe major attempts
at erosion control have been completed. The forming gullies
have been checked; areas of new channel cutting have been
stabilized; and the erosion and related problems which
remain come primarily in the form of insidious soil loss
spread over large areas of land. Unfortunately, these
problems that do remain are both the most difficult to
understand and the hardest to solve.
Information in the series of reports that constitute the
Black Creek Watershed final report, must be interpreted and
applied with care. Some of the information presented is of
general use, some may be applicable in the Maumee Basin
only, and some is applicable only to the Black Creek
Watershed itself.
There are definitely ways in which the information should
not be applied. It would be wrong to utilize conclusions of
the Black Creek report as a "shopping list" for selecting 'best
management practices" that could be used in any watershed.
The development of a concept for selecting best
management practices, and the approach to designing a
program of utilizing a well defined list of practices is well
suited to planning in almost any area.
Cost data should particularly be approached with caution.
The cost of applying land treatment in the Black Creek
Watershed has been high. It would be possibleto viewthese
data as unrealistic (because of the amount of cost sharing that
was available) and it is readily conceded that some money
was spent on projects or plans that have later been
determined to have little direct impact on water quality.
Some treatment was undertaken which was undoubtedly
unnecessary. However, the cost of installing individual
practices on a per unit basis (such as the per-acre cost of
installing grassed waterways) has not been higher in Black
Creek than it is in Indiana generally.
A disproportionate amount of money may have been
spent on stream bank protection and channel stabilization,
particularly since it is now believed that a very small
percentage of the soil loss in the basin comes from stream
and channel banks. Conversely it has become clear that the
relationship between dollars spent and amount of erosion
control achieved or improvement in water quality obtained,
while not precisely defined, is definately not a linear
relationship. It simply requires more money to eliminate
some forms of nonpoint source pollution than it requires to
eliminate other forms of nonpoint pollution.
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CenvironmerrraL imracr OF tano use on warcr QuatiTY)
For the Maumee Basin, a simple multiplication of the cost
per acre of treating the Black Creek Watershed, by the
number of acres of cropland in the total Basin, probably
represents the upper limit of the amount that might need to
be spent for treatment of every acre of land in the basin. It
represents a conservative estimate of the amount that would
probably be required to adequately treat areas which
included more large, easily identified single sources of
erosion. The development of the "ANSWERS" model in the
Black Creek Area clearly indicates that it may not be
necessary to attempt to treat every acre of land in every
watershed to achieve a satisfactory impact on water quality.
/Armor Plating
The application of the ANSWERS model is not limited to
either the Black Creek Watershed or to the Maumee Basin. It
can be adapted to other agricultural watersheds with the
provision that data files specific to the watershed in question
be provided.
Information necessary to adapt the model to other
watersheds is available from soil surveys, geological survey
quadrangle maps, and can be obtained from visual
inspection or from aerial investigation.
In this sense, the Black Creek Watershed can be
considered a test case for the development of a model of
general applicability.
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AGRICULTURAL
POLLUTION
WHAT
IS IT?
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CenvironmerrraL imracr OF Lano use on warer
Agricultural water pollution is the intentional or accidental
degradation, as the result of agriculture, of water quality in
any natural stream or body of water.
Administratively, water pollution sources have been
divided into point and nonpoint categories with point
sources being defined as locations at which relatively large
amounts of pollutants arising from single, easily identifiable
sources are discharged into waterways. Nonpoint sources
are defined as sources which collectively can cause
significant degradation of water quality. They are difficult to
recognize, identify or control.
Within agriculture, both point and nonpoint sources can
be theoretically identified, although agriculture is usually
considered in the nonpoint category. For example, large
livestock feeding operations can produce point source
pollution. Effluent from agricultural processing operations,
even if the operation is located on and conducted as a part of
a farming operation, can be a point source of pollution.
From the standpoint of enforcement, it is possible to
consider a point source as a pollution source, abatement of
which will achieve a significant reduction of pollutants and
abatement of which can be achieved through the action of a
limited number of individuals or corporate owners.
Conversely, enforcement actions directed against a single
entity in a nonpoint source pollution complex would not be
likely to produce significant pollution abatement.
It is usually easier to identify a management technique
which will be effective in eliminating point sources of
pollution. Pollution from nonpoint sources can be reduced
through management techniques, but thedefinition of these
techniques is more difficult and their success less easy to
predict.
From the standpoint of weather, a point source is almost
invariably independent of weather. A nonpoint source is
almost invariably weather dependent.
The ability to specify a management technique that would
eliminate a certain type of either point or nonpoint source
pollution, does not necessarily mean that it is feasible to
apply that technique.
For example, the effluent of septic tanks which drain
directly into drainage ways, can be considered either a point
source or a nonpoint source of pollution. Septic tank
pollution can be theoretically eliminated by the installation
of a sewage collection and treatment system which would
allow the effluent of each septic tank to be collected for
necessary treatment in a central plant. The existence of this
potential solution does not mean that is economically
feasible to apply it.
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(environmerrraL imracT OF tano use on warer QuauTY)
Animal waste can be either a point source or a nonpoint
source of pollution. If the source of pollution is large,
involving the discharge of some effluent to a stream, it is a
point source. Runoff from manure spread near streams on
frozen ground constitutes a typical nonpoint source.
Feedlot Located on Streambank
If pesticide residues are finding their way into drainage
ways in unacceptable levels despite proper application and
use, the problem is a nonpoint problem. If pesticides are
finding their way into drainage ways because users have
Pesticide Spray Apparatus
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decided ihat dumping is the most convenient way to dispose
of unused pesticides, the source is a point source.
In the Black Creek Watershed, and in most agricultural
areas, the method of dealing with agricultural point sources
of pollution are relatively straight forward. A mechanism for
dealing with misuse of pesticides is being put into place.
Point sources relating to animal waste management can be
controlled through regulation, and it is well within the
currently available technology to construct disposal systems
for animal waste which are relatively pollution free.
Much less clearly defined are the met hods of control of the
major nonpoint source pollutants typical of agricultural
watersheds and the Black Creek — sediment, plant nutrients,
and agricultural chemicals which, although properly used,
nonetheless find their way into lakes and streams. A
discussion of each of these follows:
SEDIMENT
Soil particles detached by soil erosion which find their way
into bodies of water become sediment. Sediment is defined
as a pollutant. By weight it is the largest single pollutant. It is
less obvious than some other materials, which degrade water
quality.
If sediment concentrations are allowed to become high
enough, aquatic life can be affected. High sediment
concentrations have particular impact on certain in-
vertebrate stream life such as crayfish. Higher concentrations
can result in the clogging of gills of fishes, and can interfere
with spawning or breeding.
Sediment is also a nuisance if deposited in navigation
channels. It can choke drainage ways, reducing the amount
of storm water which can be carried away from watersheds.
Because high sediment concentrations reduce light
penetration of water, certain stream and lake biological
systems can be impaired. Rooted aquatic plants are often
damaged.
Maumee Basin and Black Creek sediments have a high
proportion of clay-sized material. These small clay particles
are particularly difficult to settle out of moving water,
resulting in a turbid appearance of the Maumee River, even
during periods of low flow when the amount of sediment
carried is relatively small.
A major impact of sediment as a pollutant does not relate
to the soil particles themselves but the ability of soil particles
to serve as a vehicle carrying other pollutants into thestream.
High clay soils such as those in the Black Creek Watershed are
particularly suited to this purpose.
(
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PLANT NUTRIENTS
The important plant nutrients carried from the Black Creek
Watershed into the Maumee River are nitrogen and
phosphorus. A relatively small amount of each of these
classes of nutrient is carried into the Black Creek after having
been dissolved in either surface or subsurface runoff water.
Larger amounts of phosphorus are attached to soil particles
and are carried into the water when the particles themselves
are detached and moved from the watershed.
From 90 to 96 per cent of the phosphorus transported
during one monitoring year in the watershed were
associated with sediment. Studies of the availability of this
sediment bound phosphorus to plant life are incomplete.
Algal Laboratory Equipment
Nitrate nitrogen concentrations are typical of those found
in other agricultural watersheds. They are generally higher
than those found in the Maumee River, but do not exceed
established drinking water standards of 10 mg/l.
The findings concerning agricultural nutrients lead to two
tentative conclusions. Total phosphorus can be reduced to a
large extent by controlling erosion. Nitrates could be
reduced by timing application of fertilizer closely, use of a
nitrification inhibitor with fertilizer or, in extreme cases,
limiting application.
Phosphate concentrations in Black Creek are not
significantly different than those in the Maumee River. A
large fraction of the soluble inorganic phosphorus appears to
be entering from septic tanks. This percentage (estimated at
50-70 per cent) is more associated with urban development
than agriculture since the number of farm houses is relatively
small.
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OTHER ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS
Pesticides, like agricultural nutrients, can be carried into
streams along with detached soil particles.
Herbicides for Reduced Tillage
Although the introduction of sediments and agricultural
chemicals into drainage water is one of the most significant
impacts of agricultural land use on water quality, there are
other impacts which have been identified in the Black Creek
Watershed.
Channel work and the removal of near-stream vegetation
has an impact on both aquatic life and on the amount of
soluble nutrients that are present in the drainage water.
Fish studies have indicated an importance for small
tributaries of the Maumee River in maintaining the river
fishery. Mature fish move into Black Creek, subsequently
spawn, and fry remain in the tributary for a significant period
of time before returning to the Maumee River. These are the
key steps in the breeding behavior of several species of game,
forage and rough fish.
Alteration of channel configurations, channel blockage
through erosion control structures, destruction of habitat
diversity in the channel, or the introduction of stone plating
and other bank stabilization methods in a tributary,
effectively prevents the use of that tributary for fish breeding
purposes for a significant period of time.
Reconstruction of all tributary channels in a lengthy stretch
of the river could close that stretch of the river to fish
breeding with an adverse effect on the total Maumee fishery.
Removal of near-stream vegetation also has the effect of
increasing water temperature, making the aquatic environ-
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fenvironmeirraL imracr OF tano use on warcr QuatiTV)
ment hospitable to a narrower range of species. In addition,
laboratory experiments have confirmed that more phos-
phate is shifted into the soluble phase when water
temperatures increase above about 75 degrees F, a level that
is typical of slowly flowing, unshaded, shallow drainage ways
in an agricultural watershed.
Collection of Fish Samples
WHERE DOES
AGRICULTURAL POLLUTION COME FROM?
Any meaningful program to control agricultural pollution
has to make an attempt to define the sources of this
pollution. Some prime candidates for the sources of
pollution are eroding ditch banks, gross soil erosion, surface
runoff water, natural subsurface drainage, and tile flow.
Much attention has been given to erosion from unstable
ditch banks. An early question in the Black Creek Watershed
concerned the percentage of the total Maumee sediment
load that could be attributed to ditch banks. Studies
conducted by SCS for the International Joint Commission on
Water Quality, put this percentage quite low. Current
estimates are that about 3-5 per cent of total sediment can be
attributed to ditch banks. One researcher commented that if
you assume that all of the material removed to construct
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CenvironmemraL impacT OF tano use on warer QuaiiTY)
,—,
open ditches had been transported as sediment over the
history of the ditch, the amouat of material would still
represent a very low portion of the total yearly sediment load
in the Maumee River.
Typical Tile Outlet
Traditional methods of controlling erosion from ditch
banks — rip-rapping, channel reconstruction, seeding,
vegetative covers, — are unlikely therefore, to eliminate a
significant portion of the total sediment. Much attention has
been paid in the Black Creek project to channel stabilization
projects.
Although removing all of the erosion related to ditch
banks in Black Creek watershed could not reduce total
loadings by more than a few percent, the practice is both
visible and popular with landowners because of drainage
benefits which follow channel improvement. Project
administrators believe that many other conservation
practices would have been difficult to achieve if channel
work had not been completed.
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fenvironmerrraL
When a voluntary program is being undertaken, requiring
local cooperation and public acceptance, work on stabilizing
ditch banks and reducing their erosiveness is important to
success.
* '\ -H'
•*•'
R/p-rapp/ng
Surface Flow
Water which enters a watershed must leave as overland
flow (designated here as surface flow), tile flow, natural
subsurface drainage, evaporation, plant transpiration, or by
mechanical withdrawal. Water which does not leave either
remains in ponds or recharges ground water and soil
moisture supplies.
Runoff water can be divided into the categories of tile flow,
subsurface flow, or surface runoff.
In the Black Creek Watershed, an attempt was made to
separate the types of flow and determine which pollutants
were most associated with which types of flow. Although
about 50-65 per cent of the runoff identified was attributed to
surface runoff, more than 95 per cent of the sediment was
attributed to this type of runoff. More water left as surface
runoff during periods of high rainfall. Nutrients associated
with sediment (sediment bound phosphorus and sediment
bound nitrogen) also had more than 90 per cent of theirtotal
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CenvironmetrraL imrarr OF tano use on warer QuaiiTY)
attributed to surface flow. High percentages of most soluble
nutrients were also attributed to surface flow. Only nitrogen
in its nitrate form was more concentrated in other types of
flow.
Surface Flow
This leads to an obvious conclusion that sediment, and
sediment related nutrients, can be controlled by either
preventing them from entering surface runoff water or by
removing them from surface runoff water before the water is
allowed to enter the receiving stream. Vegetation, is an
important key to either of these practices.
Vegetative control of surface flow can be considered in
terms of grassed waterways, grass filter strips along stream
and ditch banks, and in terms of crop residue management
through some form of conservation tillage to leave the soil
surface covered for as much of the year as is possible.
Studies with simulated rainfall have confirmed the
importance of raindrop impact in detaching soil particles for
transport as sediment. For reasons to be discussed later,
conservation tillage and crop residue management must be
ranked as very important management practices for
improving water quality. Their economic feasibility in all
farming situations remains less certain.
Key to the Process — The Rain Drop
The importance of the raindrop in detaching soil particles
which could become a part of the sediment load carried by
surface flow were underscored in simulated rainfall tests
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CenvironmenraL imracT OF tanp use on warer ouatiTY)
conducted in the Black Creek Watershed. On all of the soils
tested, raindrop jnduced runoff contained approximately 10
times the sediment concentration of that obtained when
runoff was introduced by allowing water to flow over the
surface onto the test plot. These results suggest the
importance of protecting the soil surface from raindrop
impact if sediment concentrations in runoff are to be
minimized.
Surface cover can be produced either by living plants
during the I ate spring and summer months or by crop residue
during the late fall, winter, and early spring. Of the major
crops in the watershed — corn and soybeans -- corn will
produce more surface cover if identical tillage methods are
used.
^
Chisel Plow Preparation
Corn residue left undisturbed, can cover 70-80 per cent of
the soil surface, during the critical period of winter and early
spring while soybean residue may cover only about 25 per
cent of the soil surface when no tillage has been undertaken.
It might be expected that similar soils and identical tillage
methods would produce greater erosion following soybeans
than following corn in the Black Creek area. This has proved
to be true.
That portion of sediment and related pollutants carried in
surface runoff that can be eliminated by maintaining surface
cover is dependent on the crop. It is also dependent on the
type of tillage that is applied. From the standpoint of erosion
control, methods which leave the greatest amount of residue
on the surface until the new crop has been established would
have to be given a high priority.
In general, a system which involved no tillage of the soil
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(environmerrraL imracT OF tano use on warcr QuaOrY)
would be expected to have the greatest positive impact on
water quality while a system which involved removal of most
of the surface residue, such as fall mold board plowing, would
have the greatest negative impact on water quality. As a note
of caution, it should be pointed out that economic and
management considerations are a factor which is not
included in the water quality evaluation.
In the old bed of Lake Maumee, fall plowing of cropland is
a standard farm management practice. Some of the reasons
for this relate to general farm management recom-
mendations. Others a re uniquely determined because of the
characteristics of the poorly drained, heavy soils of the basin.
»
• j **» - ^'^j»C'~'"«*»r*S> '>» »
., - v
Corn Planted After Cover Crop
Farm management specialists generally recommend fail
plowing as a means of spreading labor and equipment usage
throughout more of the year. Fall plowing also helps prepare
the soil so that timely planting is more likely in the spring,
even under adverse weather conditions. The weathering of
unprotected soils in the basin is considered an important soil
conditioner, helping to break up clods, soften the hard clay
soils, and in general to produce a soil condition that is much
more suited to seed germination. In general crop specialists
have demonstrated that the yield penalties from late
plantings are more severe than those associated with early
plantings, even when an unexpected frost intervenes.
In the Maumee Basin, if moldboard plowing with several
secondary tillage operations is to be utilized, and the work is
left until spring, the chances of being able to achieve timely
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planting are very small, particularly in a wet spring.
Simulated rainfall tests show soil losses on Black Creek soils
ranging from less than 100 pounds per acre on nearly level
land to about 2.5 tons per acre on rolling uplands for which
no tillage was performed. Losses of nearly 12 tons per acre
were noted on fall plowed rolling land in the uplands.
These tests were made to simulate late winter and spring
rainfall. Application was five inches of simulated rainfall,
applied in two storms and one day apart.
The reduction in soil loss which can be achieved by
adopting no-till planting is less following soybeans than
following corn. Even following soybeans,however, losses
from fall moldboard plowing are significantly greater than
losses when no tillage is performed. In general, losses
following corn were only about 12 per cent of the loss
following soybeans when no tillage was applied and were 68
per cent of the loss following soy beans when fall plowing was
the practice.
These tests were made at only one stage of the erosion
season, although at a critical stage.
Factors which must be considered before recommending
alterations of tillage are considered later in this discussion.
The fact that remains is that preventing sediment from
becoming part of surface runoff is largely dependent on
providing adequate surface cover.
Removing Sediment from Surface Runoff
Methods have been proposed to remove detached soil
particles from runoff before the water enters the streams.
These methods can be divided into vegetative and non-
vegetative methods. Primary vegetative methods that have
been discussed involve grassed waterways and grass filter
strips.
Grassed waterways are primarily designed to prevent the
formation of gullies at areas in which significant volumes of
drainage water run over land surfaces. Success of this
practice in accomplishing this goal has been documented. If
grassed waterways are designed with grass varieties and
physical construction so that large amounts of sediment drop
out in the waterway, the success of the waterway in removing
sediment quickly leads to its failure. The waterway becomes
filled with silt, vegetation is destroyed, and the water seeks
another course to its eventual destination. During storms
which produce small amountsof runoff, waterways may have
some filtering capacity. Also, they may remove some fraction
of sediment and nutrients during larger events. This fraction
is small, however. Waterways primarily protect from surface
scouring while transporting drainage water.
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Grass filter strips, on the otherhand, may have a certain
utility. Tests with the rainulator determined that a 50-foot
strip of bluegrass sod removed as much as 46 per cent of the
sediment carried in water flowing from the test plot. Unless
the filter strip is intended to remove all of the sediment from
a rather limited surface drain inlet to the drainage stream,
Field Border
PTO Terrace
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CenvironmRirraL tmracT OF tano use on warer ouatiTY)
filter strips along ditch banks or at field borders can be
expected to reduce the sediment carried in diffuse overland
flow to the ditch. However, in natural watersheds, flow is
concentrated into limited areas. It would be unrealistic to
expect a reduction from this practice as high as 46 per cent.
Field borders have the added value of keeping the farming
operation away from ditch bank slopes, therefore reducing
the potential for gully erosion.
A non-vegetative means of removing sediment from
surface flow is the parallel, tile-outlet terrace system.
Terraces have been installed in several areas of Black Creek
Watershed. In some cases they have proved to be more
popular with landowners than waterways because they do
not drastically interfere with normal farming operations.
Terrace systems, which allowing ponding of water and
metered flow into a tile drainage system, may remove
sediment and related nutrients from runoff. This has not
been studied in the Black Creek Watershed although other
studies have indicated this is the case.
Evaluations to quantify reduction of sediment that can be
expected in a watershed such as the Black Creek Watershed
as a result of best management practices have been proposed
as part of a continuation of this project.
Tile Flow
The Black Creek area depends heavily on use of tile
drainage to allow farming. Wetness is the major hazard to
use of soils in the region for farming. This is also true of the
Maumee Basin and reflects the recent geological history of
the area which was mostly swamp land before it was
developed for farming.
As a result, a significant portion of the runoff water from
the Black Creek watershed is carried through tile drainage.
About 11 per cent of the runoff was determined to be
attributed to tile drainage. How comparable this figure is to
other watersheds depends on the degree of tile drainage
necessary in those watersheds.
Most of the pollutants monitored had a lower percentage
of total transport in tile drainage water than 11 percent.
There was one significant exception —nitrogen in the nitrate
form.
About 18 per cent of the nitrate nitrogen was found to be
transported in tile drainage as compared with 11 per cent of
the total flow attributed to tile drainage. Rainulator studies
have indicated that the majority of soluble nitrogen in runoff
is derived from fertilizer. Single storms measured in the
watershed are capable of removing as much as 2.5 per cent of
the total in organic nitrogen that was applied as fertilizer. This
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represents an extreme condition of the intense storm
immediately following surface application of fertilizer and
should not be considered a normal occurrence.
In samples measured in the Black Creek, the amount of
sediment and sediment related nutrients in tile flow would
both be relatively low, representing only a few pounds per
acre of total sediment. A word of caution should be
expressed here, however. Researchers in other areas have
predicted that as much as 50 per cent of the annual sediment
loss is coming through tile outlets in those areas. Although
this does not seem to be the case in Black Creek, the
possibility of sediment loss through tile lines remains.
Drop Structure
In addition, some tile outlets carry both surface water and
subsurface drainage water. If surface water is introduced
into the tile line, the pollutant loads at the outfall will reflect
the composition of surface water as well as tile flow. This
same situation can pertain if a tile is broken or is functioning
improperly so that surface water can leak into the tile
drainage system.
Subsurface Runoff
Drainage water which is not surface runoff or tile flow can
be attributed to natural subsurface drainage. At a typical site
in Black Creek Watershed, about 16 per cent of thetotal flow
was assigned to this source. Again, only nitrogen in its nitrate
form was found to be more concentrated in subsurface flow.
From 9-50 per cent of the total nitrate nitrogen was
determined to be carried in subsurface flow. Smaller
amounts are carried during years of greater total rainfall.
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Conclusions arising from these studies are the following:
(1) An impact on total phosphorus loadings can be obtained
by controlling sediment. (2) Nitrates cannot be controlled by
controlling only sediment. This implies the advisability of
different management techniques if the eventual destination
of the water is a eutrophic lake, like Lake Erie, where
phosphates are perceived as a major problem or if the
eventual destination of the runoff water is a public water
supply reservoir.
Flow during the Storm Event
Most sediment and nutrients transported in an agricultural
watershed are associated with storm events. For the year
1975, an analysis was made of the amount of water, sediment,
and related nutrientsthatweretransported during periodsof
regular flow, those that were transported during "small
storm events" and those that were transported following
"large storm events."
For analysis, base flow periods were defined as those
during which the flow in Black Creek was 5 inches or less.
Large events were defined as any storm that would produce
more than 1 inch of runoff. Small events were those which
fell between the extremes.
Septic Tank Pollution
Throughout a two year period, base flow occurred on most
days. Only three events that could be classified as large
events took place.
The majority of water and of the pollutants monitored
during two years in the Black Creek watershed were
associated with these three large events. About 50 per cent of
the total flow and from 73 to 86 per cent of the sediment
occurred from these large events.
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These events are more intense than the normal rainfall to
be anticipated in the watershed. Sufficient data do not exist
to determine a statistical frequency for a storm which
produces one inch of runoff from the Black Creek
Watershed. However, it is assumed that they may represent
storms of which no more than one per year could be
expected.
The data indicates that the critical factor in determining
erosion is very dependent on storm intensity. In general, it
has been concluded that land use, including tillage systems
and the types of structural practices that are applied,
determine the amount of sediment produced for small
storms and "normal" rainfall events. When storms become
more intense, slope and slope length, regardless of the type
of land use, is critical in determining the amount of erosion
that will occur. Even under severe storms, however, land use
intended to control erosion will have some impact.
Flooding Following Major.Rainfall
The implication is that as storms increase, in duration and
intensity, more sediment is detached. A single storm of
nearly 100-year frequency produced about 50 percent of the
sediment load for the year in which it occurred. Total
sediment loadings were higher during the year which had
the major storm.
Methods of sediment control relating to large storms have
not been demonstrated as cost effective. However, costs of
achieving additional control rise faster than does the a mount
of control possible. It seems reasonable, therefore, to aim
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programs of best management practices toward achieving
control of the pollution associated with normal rainfall
events, leaving a decision about large event related pollution
until later.
From the standpoint of water quality in the stream itself,
however, low flow or base flow periods are important.
Although the total amount of material is greater during a
storm event, actual impact of key nutrients may be greater
during periods of base flow.
Nuisance algal blooms in Black Creek have been most
prevalent during base flow periods. Microbiological
sampling has revealed concentrations of fecal coliforms and
fecal streptococci in Black Creek waters during low flow
periods. At some low flow periods, most of the flow in Black
Creek is associated with septic tanks.
If a problem being considered has to do with the water
quality in a specific stretch of stream or in a lake, practices to
achieve control will have to be concerned with low flow
concentrations as well as storm event loading of material.
Another way of saying this is that concentration of pollutants
is the most appropriate measure of water quality in a stream
itself. Concentration and flow, which together allow
calculation of loadings, are required to deter mi net he impact
of the stream on another body of water.
These considerations lead to the second important
observation which can be made concerning the dependence
of total transport on the type of runoff event under
consideration.
Regular sampling of a stream, without regard to storm
events, will produce a good picture of water quality in that
stream. It will not produce an adequate picture of the impact
of the stream on the bodies of water into which it eventually
flows.
To adequately assess the impact of individual tributaries
such as Black Creek on the Maumee River and Lake Erie, it is
necessary to have a picture of the loadings as well as the
concentrations. To accomplish this, samples must be taken
during storm events at appropriate intervals, In addition,
flow measurements must be coordinated with individual
samples. Periodic grab sampling, (since most of the samples
would be taken during base flow) does not provide an
adequate base from which to access nutrient transport.
In order to deal with this problem, a system of automated
samplers was installed in the Black Creek Watershed. These
samplers, obtained from the General Services Administra-
tion, are designated as PS-69 samples. They became
operational in February, March, and April of 1975.
The automated samplers are energized when the water
(
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OF tano use on warer
stage moves above the base flow (5-inch) level. When they
are operating, the samplers collect a sample every thirty
minutes. This allows adequate observation and analysis of
loadings.
In general, the data indicates that both nutrients and
suspended solids increase with increasing flow. More
importantly, the nutrients and suspended solid concentra-
tions also increase with increased flow with the exception
of ammonia and nitrates which have been previously
discussed.
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LAND
TREATMENT
A PART
OF THE
MANAGEMENT
SYSTEM
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fenvironmenrai impacr OF tano use on warer ouauT YJ
Land treatment describes how the land is being used. The
phrase is used to describe the range of management choices
made and applied to parcels of land under individual
ownership.
The concept of "best management practices" or BMP's as
applied to the goals of Section 208, refers to the adoption of
those land treatment practices which are expected to have a
beneficial impact on water quality.
SCS has several precise definitions to describe the status of
land from the standpoint of soil and water conservation
programs. An understanding of these definitions is essential
to an understanding of the discussion of the program of land
treatment carried out in the Black Creek Project.
The definitions from the SCS Technical Guide follow:
LAND ADEQUATELY TREATED - Land used within its
capability on which the conservation practices that are
essential to its protection and planned improvement have
been applied. This applies to land on which SCS has provided
technical assistance.
LAND ADEQUATELY PROTECTED - An estimate of the
total acreage of land which the soil, water, and related plant
resources are adequately protected. It represents an
estimate of all the land within a reporting area on which the
soil, water and plant resources are adequately protected
from deterioration, either naturally or by action of the land
user with or without SCS assistance.
In general, the amount of land adequately protected in a
watershed will be greater than the amount of land
adequately treated. This is because land adequately treated
will always be adequately protected. Some land, in almost
any watershed will not need treatment to provide proper
protection. In addition, some adequate protective measures
may be installed without regard to a formal plan developed
with SCS assistance.
Management practices for soil and water conservation can
be viewed as being composed of those which are essentially
structural and those which are essentially cultural. For
purposes of this discussion, practices falling in the first class
(structural) include such things as channel stabilization,
erosion control structures, grassed waterways, or terrace
construction.
Nonstructural practices involve things such as altered
rotations, alterations of tillage, and crop residue manage-
ment.
Practices such as the establishment of field borders involve
both structural and nonstructural aspects.
Economically, the two classes of practice are distinguished
on the basis of both initial cost and recurring cost. Structural
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s~~\ ^^^^^^*^^**^^^^^m^f
practices are characterized by a relatively high initial cost (the
cost of constructing the practice) and lower annual costs,
representing maintenance costs.
Cultural practices, such as the alteration of tillage systems
or the removal of land from production for some purpose
have a recurring annual cost based on the value of
production lost through the application of the practice.
These costs in agricultural situations are dependent on the
costs of inputs to farm production and the value of farm
products to be sold. In the event of a stable price and cost of
production, the costs would be the same from year to year.
On the other hand, there is usually not a high initial cost
unless adoption of the practice requires capital investment in
special farming equipment.
A practice such as the installation of a field border involves
both the initial cost of establishing the practice, and the
annual cost in terms of lost production and of maintaining
the practice.
Costs and benefits are much easier to visualize when they
are associated with structural practices. Many farmers have
expressed a desire to utilize structural practices, even with a
high initial cost, to solve particular soil or water conservation
problems rather than incurring an obligation to seriously
alter farm operations.
In a slightly different connotation, the comparison of
grassed waterways and parallel tile outlet terraces is
instructive.
Often, grain farmers have preferred the system of terraces
to the installation of a grassed waterway. This is because
terrace systems take less land out of production than do
grassed waterways. The terrace systems used in the Black
Creek Project are suitable for inclusion in crop land. By the
nature of their design, they do not interfere with the use of
heavy farm equipment. Soybeans or corn can be grown on
the slopes of the terrace and there is no need to interrupt
plow or planter operation to avoid damaging the waterway.
Terrace systems are more costly than a comparable grassed
waterway, a factor somewhat mitigated in Black Creek
through cost sharing. However, terrace systems have also
been installed in other parts of Allen County as a result of the
Black Creek project experience. This was done without high
cost sharing payments.
Farm operators will readily accept land treatment
programs into farming operations if the land treatment does
not have an excessive initial cost and does not interfere with
present or future profit potential, and if it does not unduly
complicate farm work.
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PLANNING FOR
CHANGE IN THE BLACK CREEK WATERSHED
When the Black Creek Project was begun, the Black Creek
Watershed had already participated in soil conservation
through the regular programs of SCS, ASCS and the SWCD.
According to SCS estimates, about 24 per cent of the project
area was "adequately treated" and about 36 per cent was
"adequately protected."
The planned land treatment program developed for Black
Creek had two major goals. These were:
1) To test as many as possible of the standard techniques of
soil conservation to discover what their impact might
potentially be on water quality.
2) To bring as much as possible of the land in the watershed
into the "land adequately treated" category.
Although development of the project has eliminated
several of these practices as "best management practices" for
Black Creek and the Maumee Basin, it is useful to provide a
discussion of those practices considered when the project
was in the planning stage.
STRUCTURAL PRACTICES
Practices which are primarily structural, and which
primarily involve a one-time cost of installation arediscussed
in the following paragraphs:
DIVERSION — A diversion is a combination of a channel
with a supporting soil ridge on the lower side. The practice is
always installed across the direction of water flow which
means that it will be built across a slope. Diversions serve to
reduce the length of slopes and to channel surface runoff
water to a place where it can be safely discharged into the
drainage system. A primary purpose is protection of land
below the slope.
GRADE STABILIZATION STRUCTURES - Grade stabiliza-
tion structures are designed to stabilize the grade or to
control cutting in natural or artificial channels. They are
essentially designed either to reduce any sharp change in
grade or to provide a stable area at which the change in grade
takes place. Abrupt changes in grade producestream bed or
stream bank erosion.
GRASSED WATERWAYS - Grassed waterways have been
discussed previously in this report. Specifically, a grassed
waterway is designed to carry surface runoff. Waterways are
shaped or graded and established in vegetation suitable to
prevent erosion of the area over which the runoff water is
flowing. Water from field drainage, from a diversion, from a
terrace, or from some other structure may be carried in a
grassed waterway.
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HOLDING PONDS AND TANKS -Holding ponds and tanks
are associated with animal agricultural operations. They are
either fabricated structures, such as concrete tanks, or
earthen structures made by constructing a pit, dam or
embankment. The practice provides an area in which animal
or other agricultural wastes may be safely stored pending
proper disposal.
PF3£ • - -v„.-"'•'19*$ > . -I
:*•*.' ".^n
Grade Stabilization Structure
Livestock Exclusion
LAND SMOOTHING - Land smoothing is done to remove
surface irregularities. It can simplify the flow of water in a
small drainage area, allowing for better control of surface
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runoff when used in combination with some other practice
such as a diversion. Land smoothing may also improve the
ease with which a particular tract of land can be farmed.
LIVESTOCK EXCLUSION - Livestock exclusion usually
amounts to fencing open drainageways or natural streams so
that livestock cannot graze banks when there is flowing water
in the drainage ditch. Livestock exclusion simplifies the
maintenance of drainage streams and at the same time
reduces a source of soil erosion. The term is also applied to
exclusion of livestock from woodlands.
LIVESTOCK WATERING FACILITY - When livestock are
allowed to use drainage ditches or other open channels as a
source of water, channel damage is probable. Watering
facilities are often constructed in combination with livestock
exclusion to provide a source of drinking water for the
animals fenced out of stream channels.
PONDS - Ponds are simply water impoundments made by
constructing a dam across a waterway or at a natural basin, or
by excavating a pit or dugout,
SEDIMENT CONTROL BASINS - Sediment control basins
are formed by the construction of barriers or dams across
waterways, by the shaping of the bed of the waterway, or
through the excavation of a basin and the routing of water
from a waterway through it. The basins are designed to slow
down the flow of drainage water, allowing sediment and
related nutrients to settle out.
STREAM CHANNEL STABILIZATION - Both natural and
man-made stream channels may be unstable duetosoil type,
configuration, or flow gradient in the stream. Stream
channel stabilization is accomplished through suitable
structures.
STREAM BANK PROTECTION - Unstable banks of streams
or excavated channels are protected either through the use
of vegetative cover or through structural activities such as
plating of the bank with stone or similar material.
SURFACE DRAIN - Surface drains differ from grassed
waterways in that no vegetative cover is established. Surface
drains are possible when grades and slopes lengths are small.
The area is graded to collect excess water within a field and
allow the water to flow to a suitable outlet,
TERRACE, GRADIENT - Gradient terraces are earth
embankments or ridges with a channel constructed across
the slope at a suitable spacing and an acceptable grade to
reduce erosion damage by intercepting surface runoff and
conducting it to a stable outlet.
TERRACE, PARALLEL - Parallel terraces represent a series
of terraces constructed across the slope at a suitable spacing
and grade to reduce erosion. In the Black Creek Project, a
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CenvironmerrraL imracr OF Lano use on warcr
special type of parallel terrace was constructed, the parallel
tile outlet terrace. In this case, water collected behind the
terrace is allowed to flow into a tile drain through an orifice
of measured size. Flow, and consequently the time that
water is detained behind the terrace, is determined by the
size of the orifice.
TILE DRAINS -A conduit, such as a field tile, pipe, or tubing
is installed beneath the ground surface to collect and convey
drainage water.
CULTURAL PRACTICES
CONSERVATION CROPPING SYSTEMS - Any combina-
tion of cultural and management measures which reduces
erosion on crop land can be classed as a conservation
cropping system. Specifically, cultural measures that relate
to this purpose include establishment of crop rotations
which contain grasses and legumes as well as rotations which
obtain desired soil loss reductions without the use of such
crops.
CONTOUR FARMING - Soil erosion can be reduced if
sloping cropland is farmed in such a way that plowing,
preparing and planting and cultivating are done on the
contour lines rather than up and down the slopes. The
practice includes farming along the established grades of
terraces, diversions, or contour strips.
CROP RESIDUE MANAGEMENT - The residue of crops
such as corn and soybeans are left on the surface or otherwise
managed to protect cultivated fields during critical erosion
periods.
MINIMUM TILLAGE - The number of cultural operations
are reduced to those that are essential to produce a crop and
prevent soil damage. (In Black Creek this was defined to
mean one fall tillage, one spring tillage, one cultivation and
no moldboard plow.)
PASTURE AND HAYLAND MANAGEMENT - Pasture and
hayland can be protected through proper grazing, adequate
but not over fertilization, and reseeding where necessary.
The practice is intended to be applied to permanent pasture.
PASTURE AND HAYLAND PLANTING - Long-term stands
of perennial, biennial or reseeding forage plants are
established to provide livestock food and protection from
soil erosion.
STRIPCROPPING - Crops are grown in a systematic
arrangement of strips or bands to reduce erosion.
WOODLAND IMPROVED HARVESTING - The potential
for harvesting of timber from woodlands is improved
through the removal of some of the merchantable trees from
an immature stand to improve the conditions for forest
growth.
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WOODLAND IMPROVEMENT - Wooded areas are
improved from the standpoint of timber production by
removing unmerchantable or unwanted trees, shrubs, or
vines.
WOODLAND PRUNING - Wooded areas are managed to
improve timber development by the removal of all or parts of
selected branches from trees, strips or bands to reduce
erosion.
COMBINATIONS OF
STRUCTURAL AND CULTURAL PRACTICES
The following practices are designated as having both
structural and nonstructural elements because land involved
in the practice is either taken from crop production or its use
is otherwise changed in such a way that an annual cost of the
practice, in excess of the cost of establishing it, can be
assigned.
FARMSTEAD AND FEEDLOT WINDBREAKS - A windbreak
is a belt of trees or shrubs established next to a farmstead or
feedlot. Windbreaks have the purpose of reducing wind
caused erosion and, in the case of farmstead and feedlot
windbreaks, of providing protection to dwellings or to
livestock from winds.
FIELD BORDER PLANTING - A border or strip of vegetation
is established at the edge of a field by planting or by
converting trees, to grasses or shrubs. Borders are
particularly important when established along waterways.
Land involved in the border is permanently removed from
crop production.
FIELD WINDBREAKS - Field windbreaks have the same
function as farmstead windbreaks. Their primary purpose is
to prevent wind erosion from tilled fields.
TREE PLANTING - Trees are planted on land which was
formerly in some other use. This practice has a potential cash
return when the trees mature and can be harvested.
PROTECTION DURING DEVELOPMENT - Plans are
developed to control erosion and sediment during
construction of facilities including new homes, new
commercial or industrial buildings, new community projects
or during road or utility construction.
RECREATION AREA IMPROVEMENT - Specific areas for
recreation are improved through planting of grasses, shrubs,
trees or other plants, or through the managing of trees and
shrubs.
WILDLIFE HABITAT MANAGEMENT - Habitat for wildlife
is retained, managed or created. The practice is applied in
both upland areas and in wetlands. When the practice
involves removal of land from crop production, a recurring
annual cost is incurred.
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PUTTING THE PRACTICES TOGETHER-
THE CONSERVATION PLAN
The key to putting practices into place on individual farms
is the conservation plan. For a practice or set of practices to
be included in a conservation plan, the practice must be
suited to the individual situation. In the absence of
regulatory or enforcement powers, it must also be accepted
by the owner.
In Black Creek, landowners who agreed to participate
entered into a contract with the soil and water conservation
district based on the conservation plans which had been
developed. To be eligible for payments on any of the
practices, the landowner had to agree to carry out other
practices that were specified in the plan, even if these
practices did not involve cost-sharing payments.
Map in Conservation Plan
Early plans were elaborate, offering detailed lists of
alternatives. It is now believed that many of these plans may
have been misunderstood by participating landowners. In
addition, landowners in some cases either did not
understand the contractural nature of the agreement they
had entered; or, based on previous experience with USDA
assistance programs in which compliance was not effectively
demanded, did not believe they would be required to
comply with the contract.
In order to give all of the conservation practices a fair trial,
farm planners assigned to the Black Creek project by SCS
were instructed to utilize a complete list of practices in
drawing up the conservation plans. It is now believed that an
attempt to include as many as possible of the practices in
Black Creek probably weakened the overall land treatment
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effort, although it retained the research benefits.
Practices which seem most likely to achieve a maximum
impact on water quality in the Black Creek area and, by
implication, most of the Maumee Basin, are discussed later.
These can therefore be listed as best management practices,
for this area. The implications of the selection and
application of best management practices can be given a
more general discussion.
The goal in developing plans for soil conservation has had,
at its base, the concept of conserving the soil resource. The
water quality benefits of doing this have been assumed to be
a natural consequence of conserving soil resources. If soil is
not eroded from farm fields it cannot show up in waterways.
When the primary goal of the program becomes
improvement of or preservation of water quality, the list of
practices which are adapted to this goal in any given area
necessarily is reduced to exclude practices not relating to
water quality.
Traditionally, practices such as contour farming and strip
cropping have been selected as key management practices to
the control of soil erosion. The fact that these practices are
not selected as best management practices in the Black Creek
area says nothing about the merits of the practice and a great
deal about the character of the watershed. The long, steep
slopes which lend value to practices such as strip cropping do
not exist in the Black Creek Watershed, and there are very
few areas in the Maumee Basin which would be adapted to
them. In another watershed, these practices might very well
be among the most important practices for water quality
improvement.
In those watersheds and in the Black Creek area, however,
the process of selecting practices to be defined as best
management practices is similar.
Before discussing the planning technique, some additional
comments about soil conservation programs in general are in
order. Specifically, past programs of SCS and ASCS have
been entirely voluntary in nature. Within the past few years,
several states have adopted or have discussed sediment
control laws. The program as carried out in Black Creek
represents a middle ground between a sediment control law
and a voluntary program. This is accomplished through the
device of the contractural arrangement. Although no
landowner is obligated to enter into a contract with the
district, after he has entered the contract, he is obligated to
fulfill it including the installation of practices which are
mandatory but on which no cost sharing is issued. There is no
penalty or sanction possible against landowners who refuse
to participate in the study. Sanctions in the form of refusing
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cost sharing payments or even of requiring that money
already paid be paid back to the district are present in the
contractual program.
It is possible to rank approaches to the installation of best
management practices according to the following scheme.
1. Voluntary program — Participation is not required. No
penalty for withdrawal from the program.
2. Compliance Standards — Voluntary compliance.
Standards but no penalties exist for landowners who do not
meet them.
3. Contractural Program — Participation is voluntary. A
contractural relationship exists and participants can lose
benefits or be required to return benefits if participation is
not continued.
4. Compliance Standards — Compliance certification
required. Landowners are required to reduce soil loss below
certain limits. Compliance is determined by analysis of
management practices and strategies. If appropriate sets of
management practices are implemented, individual farms
are determined to be operating properly. No attempt is
made to correlate practices on individual farms with water
quality monitoring.
5. Regulation With Monitoring of Water Quality —
Agriculturally related pollution parameters of streams and
drainageways are monitored. Sanctions are taken against
landowners who have drainage water entering those streams
at levels above some predetermined level.
In this hierarcy, items 1 or 2 calling for programs of
voluntary compliance with predetermined standards rely
heavily on education to accomplish their goals. Landowners
can be approached on the basis of self- interest, community
spirit, etc. Items 4 and 5 are highly enforcement oriented.
Landowners can be approached in the basis of the potential
penalties inherent in the regulations.
The contractural program, as carried out in the Black Creek
Program contains elements of both the voluntary and the
mandatory program. As such, most Black Creek planners
now believe, it should have contained elements of the
regulatory program in its approach. Specifically, elaborate
plans, offering many alternatives to the landowner in each
element, make it difficult for both the landowner and the
administering agency to decide if the plan is being followed.
The existence of several options in each element of the plan
also tends to obscure the fact that a legal bargain has been
struck. Landowners can easily decide to modify the
agreement without notifying the administering agency.
Soil Conservation Service philosophy identifies a
conservation plan as "record of landowner decisions." The
( 54 )
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CenvironmenraTimrao^
addition of a contract to those decisions essentially makes the
plan a record of landowner decisions which the landowner is
now legally obliged to implement.
Work with Black Creek landowners has revealed the need
to simplify conservation plans, and clearly spell out, in the
event that the plan is being used as a basis for a contract orto
satisfy a water quality requirement, which items are required
and which items are optional.
The Black Creek project was aided in implementation by
an effective program of public information. This program
began with the initial Maumee River Conference and was
continued throughout the course of the project. As a result,
landowners did not believe that work was being carried on in
secret and did not fear that the project would be detrimental
to them. Asa result they were more will ing to cooperate than
might have otherwise been the case. This type of information
effort is considered vital to the process of interesting
landowners in cooperating with soil conservation projects,
particularly when the primary goal is the improvement of
water quality.
Finally, Black Creek planners now believe that plans can be
more efficiently carried out if those conservation practices
which can be expected to have a maximum impact on water
quality — the best management practices -- are identified
early in the work. This of course assumes that a relationship
between water quality and management practices in a
specific region has been established. Although this may not
be the case, it is possible to separate erosion control practices
from other good practices and to concentrate on these.
Planners can then seek to incorporate the appropriate
management practices into farm plans. This simplifies both
the planning effort and the plan itself.
BEST MANAGEMENT PRACTICES
The concept of best management practices, as pointed out
previously, refers primarily to management practices which
are believed to have a beneficial impact on water quality.
The following discussion deals both with practices that
have been selected by Allen County SWCD as best
management practices in the Black Creek Watershed and
with practices which have been identified as not repre-
senting the best management approach. In addition, some
practices about which a question remains are considered.
Field Borders
Nearly 21 miles of field borders have been installed in Black
Creek Watershed. The borders are generally strips of sod
which are believed to prevent erosion at field margins and
also serve as a filter for surface water. Although field borders
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do usually remove land from production, they have won
acceptance with farmers who use them to gain access to
fields or to ditches and streams for maintenance during the
cropping season. One farmer commented that the rows of
corn or beans that were lost in the border were usually
damaged by muskrats or raccoons in any case.
- *-. ^^"Ct'fy - v '- **
*s v*^3 " , * ^' *^ - ^_,
Field Border
In short, field borders are relatively inexpensive to install
(the total unit cost was 30 cents per lineal foot), have the
potential of reducing sedimentation, and have proved to be
popular with landowners.
Pf^t "««*• -.-- fc '-x* -
-* «*s ^w " ** * „ '*
>* -*-"* - ^-"ii ' «t'?a4t^ "*-. »i
*-
•""'' - /%^.rl!:^,1
X'fft, V"*' k,
|^l^\
, v. n
"?.,. * x^-* * ^ "*.
Rock Drop Structure
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Grade Stabilization Structures
Nearly 150 structures have been placed in the Black Creek
Watershed at an average cost to the District of about $522.
These structures, intended to reduce erosion at areas of a
rapid change in grade, such as at an area where a surface
drain enters a deeper drainage channel, have proved
effective at controlling erosion. The structures are popular
with landowners who are aware that serious erosion
problems at waterways or surface drains result in a
deterioration of the soil resource and a consequent lowering
of property value. It is estimated that a rather small portion of
total soil loss in the watershed comes from these areas;
however, grade stabilization structures have been proven
effective in controlling this type of erosion and as a result can
be considered as a best management practice.
Grassed Waterway
Grassed Waterways
Slightly more than 60 acres of the Black Creek Watershed
have been placed in grassed waterways. The longest of these
stretches for nearly two miles through both Amish and non-
Amish farmland. Grassed waterways, if properly maintained,
provide a surface over which collected surface drainage
water can be safely allowed to flow until it reaches an open
channel or other suitable outlet. Waterways result in land
being taken out of production; however, since the
alternatives are an open ditch, a large tile, or a gully, the
waterways are often a popular choice. In general, their cost is
less than either an open ditch or a buried conduit. Land
would be taken out of production if a gully were allowed to
form. Grassed waterways do not remove large amounts of
sediment from surface water. If the waterway filters out large
amounts of sediment, it quickly fills and requires further
maintenance.
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Holding Ponds and Tanks
Holding ponds and tanks are necessary parts of many
modern animal waste disposal systems. If the livestock
facility is located near a stream or ditch, waste can have a
direct impact on water quality. If the facility is located a
reasonable distance from drainage ways, the direct impact of
the waste on water quality is less certain. If the animal waste
operation is large enough, it can probably be classified as a
point source rather than a nonpoint source. Proper disposal
of animal wastes can in any case be considered a best
management practice. When the animal waste operation is
located in an area where mismanagement will cause a direct
impact on water quality, control techniques can fairly be
classified as a best management practice for water quality.
Livestock Exclusion
Fencing or using other means to prevent livestock from
entering drainage ways, causing damage to banks and
otherwise providing a starting point for erosion, is
considered a best management practice in the Black Creek
Watershed. Livestock exclusion from woodland is not
considered a best management practice for reasons to be
discussed later.
Livestock Exclusion
Pasture Plantings
The establishment of permanent vegetation, such as forage
plants for livestock feed, has been identified as a good
erosion control measure. This is particularly true on slopes
and soils which are subject to a significant erosion hazard.
Because of the surface cover provided by a permanent grass
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crop, the practice is considered to have excellent potential.
It is unlikely to win very great acceptance among farmers
who are not engaged in livestock production, however.
Only 10 per cent of the goal for this practice was reached in
the Black Creek Project.
Sediment Control Basins
Two sediment control basins were constructed in the Black
Creek Watershed. The amount of sediment trapped by the
basins and its composition have been carefully monitored.
Sediment has been trapped in both structures and the
conclusion has been reached that they are effective for this
purpose. Basins have the drawback of potentially taking land
out of production. If the basin functions effectively, some
sort of periodic maintenance program will have to be
established or the basin will quickly fill with sediment,
thereby destroying its effectiveness. Basins can, however, be
developed for recreation purposes without interfering with
their function. They therefore are potentially acceptable to
landowners seeking a private swimming or fishing area.
P7O Terrace
Terraces
Systems of parallel tile outlet terraces have been accepted
in the Black Creek area. In fact, terraces are one of the few
practices on which the project goal was exceeded. No
investigation of the precise impact of terraces on water
quality in Black Creek have been completed. However,
favorable results are expected. Early terrace systems in the
project had problems with wildlife. Muskrats destroyed
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plastic pipe which had been used for the drains and chewed
holes in orifice plates, thereby interfering with the system's
capacity to meter the flow of water. These problems are
expected to be solved by the use of galvanized pipe for risers
and by the use of suitable animal guards at the downstream
end of the system to prevent rodents from entering.
Terraces can replace grassed waterways, preventing
erosion by reducing the effective slope lengths. As has been
noted, they are also expected to remove sediment from
surface water. Terraces are expensive to install. The initial
costs are somewhat offset, however, by the fact that less land
need be taken out of production than is the case for grassed
waterways.
Channel Practices
A set of practices involving channel protection, channel
stabilization, stream bank protection and related activities
can be lumped together. There has been considerable
disagreement about whether or not these practices are in fact
best management practices in the Black Creek Watershed.
The final consensus is that these practices represent best
management practices and should be recommended. On
the other hand, it has been determined that they represent
best management practices under rather narrowly defined
conditions.
Single-Side Channel Reconstruction
During the course of the Black Creek Project, about 30per
cent of the funds spent for conservation practices was spent
on stream bank protection. This is in contrast totheestimate
that only about 3 to 5 per cent of the sediment load can be
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attributed to this source. There are two ways to interpret this
situation, neither of which is totally true. One way istoargue
that more money was spent on stream bank protection and
stabilization than was warranted by the seriousness of the
problem. The other way is to argue that some methods of
erosion control are more expensive than others, but that we
are at least confident that we know how to achieve erosion
control by ditch bank protection and channel improvement.
The truth probably lies somewhere between these
extremes. Areas of great instability along ditch banks
contribute sediment to flowing streams. It is the general
consensus that methods to check erosion at these critical
areas are a best management practice. There is a tendency,
however, to approach the problem of bank or channel
instability in a comprehensive manner, reconstructing large
areas of channel to get at a single area of instability. This
approach is largely cosmetic and cannot be reasonably
considered to have a major impact on water quality. In fact,
studies in a small wooded area along a Black Creek tributary,
the Wertz Drain, which was a prime candidate for
reconstruction in early stages of the project, indicate that
natural channels may have some value as sediment traps
under certain conditions.
Erosion at Reconstructed Area
The Wertz Drain through the Wertz Woods is a
meandering channel which would normally be identified as
in need of reconstruction. However, there are indications
that sediment is actually settled out of the drain during
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4
periods of low flow and following small storm events in the
Wertz Woods. The woods appear to function as a natural
sediment trap during those conditions. Whether sediment
that is deposited under conditions of low flow and small
event runoff is later picked up and moved on into the Black
Creek and Maumee River following large events has not
been established, although some investigators believe this to
be the case. Sediment transported in this way is, however,
less damaging to aquatic life in Black Creek than is a
continual higher concentration.
Some areas in which stabilization measures were applied
have remained unstable. Others may be more unstable
following reconstruction than was the case before work was
begun.
Drainage is, however, a key concern for maintaining crop
production. Reconstruction and stabilization of drainage
channels does have a land drainage benefit and may, in some
cases, be necessary to allow farming of the land. Major
reconstructions have more of an impact on aquatic life and
on water quality than does the performance of regular
periodic maintenance performed selectively so that the
minimum work is accomplished at any one time. Careful
periodic maintenance by individual landowners must be
classified as a best management practice.
This discussion also ignores the fact that the highly visable
work on stream channels and ditch banks were very
important to securing cooperation on the balance of the
work undertaken in the project. It is the belief of the Allen
County SWCD Board of Supervisors that the amount of land
treatment achieved would have been significantly less if the
channel work had not been undertaken at the beginning of
the project.
The conclusion is that channel and bank stabilization are
useful practices when applied only to areas of obvious
instability in drainage ways where serious erosion is taking
place, for the purpose of improving or maintaining drainage,
or for the purpose of securing cooperation on the total
project.
Practices in Combination
Some practices, such as tile drainage, the construction of
surface drains, and the construction of diversions are
believed to be primarily production oriented in the Black
Creek Watershed. In most cases, in the poorly drained areas
of the Black Creek and the Maumee Basin, practices which
improve drainage will pay for themselves in terms of
consistent improvement in crop production. These practices
cannot, therefore be labeled best management practices for
Black Creek, unless their installation is necessary to carry out
C
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4
—LT
some other practice. For example, grassed waterways can
usually not be established unless there is sufficient
underground drainage to prevent wetness from damaging
the grassed cover. The solution is a tile drain underlying the
waterway. In this case, since the tile drainage is necessary to
establish the waterway, tile drainage can be considered a best
management practice.
Terrace systems, as established in Black Creek require tile
to be installed to provide an eventual outlet for water
impounded by the terrace system. Tile drains in terrace
systems are therefore also considered a best management
practice.
Cultural Practices
As has been previously discussed, the use of tillage systems
which leave cover on farm fields and which increase the
surface roughness of those fields are considered good
practices for water quality enhancement. To understand the
implications of these techniques, the typical farming
methods of non-Amish farmers in the Black Creek area are
outlined here. When water quality considerations are set
Planting in Sod
aside, the management practices which most farmers believe
will produce the best return on farm land in the area involve
fall moldboard plowing. The moldboard plow is the
traditional implement of soil preparation on Corn Belt farms.
Its operation results in the soil being turned so that surface
debris is buried. Fall moldboard plowing would normally be
followed by two or three more shallow tillage operations in
the spring with a disk, field cultivator or harrow. Planting
would be followed by one or two cultivations for weed
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41
^_r
control at the appropriate stage of development for row
crops.
This tillage sequence leaves the soil uncovered during the
season of maximum potential soil loss, late winter and early
spring.
A more acceptable method, from the standpoint of water
quality, is to replace fall moldboard plowing with fall chisel
plowing. Unlike the moldboard plow, the chisel plow does
little turning of the soil. Significantly more residue is left on
the surface. Fall chisel plowing, is followed by spring tillage
much as has been outlined for fall moldboard plowing.
Moldboard Plow
If a determination is made to spring plow rather than fall
plow, residue is left undisturbed on the surface for a large
part of the winter. Spring plowing is usually done with a
moldboard plow, since roughness left by spring chiseling
makes seedbed preparation more difficult. Shattering
compacted plowsoles is often possible with full chiseling, but
seldom possible in the spring dueto increased soil moisture.
In further reduced tillage systems, plowing is eliminated
and field preparation is by disking only, or by some
combination of the disk and field cultivator. Generally,
tillage depth is reduced and surface residue increased
compared to the moldboard or chisel plow.
Finally, a decision may be made to eliminate tillage
altogether, except for a narrow 1 to 2 inch band for each row.
This is usually called no-till planting, a system which should
provide maximum water quality benefit.
In any system of no plow tillage, pesticide usage will
necessarily increase. These tillage techniques leave weed
seeds nearer the surface, leave residue which interferes with
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herbicide activity and provide fewer opportunities to
incorporate chemicals or use mechanical cultivation. No-till
planting for May-planted soybeans is not recommended in
Indiana, primarily due to potential weed problems. Certain
insects are also more difficult to control with no-till planting.
In general, the more tillage can be reduced, in accordance
with the discussion here, the greater will be the beneficial
impact on water quality, keeping in mind that benefits will
also be greater when the preceding year's crop is corn rather
than soybeans. A discussion of the economics of reduced
tillage systems is provided later.
Chisel Plow
WOODLAND PRACTICES
No woodland improvement practice has been identified as
a best management practice in the Black Creek Watershed.
This is because of the relative unimportance of timber
production and the lack of interest on the part of landowners
in converting land which is capable of producing crops into
timber land. In addition, wooded areas within the Black
Creek Area are generally flat, poorly drained areas which
produce a minimum of runoff and a minimum of potential
erosion damage. Practices such as woodland improved
harvesting, woodland pruning, exclusion of livestock from
woodlands, tree planting, and the establishment of
farmstead and field windbreaks should be studied in areas in
which woodlands play an important part in the overall land
use.
PRACTICES NOT FITTED
Two of the well known management practices of the SCS
program, contour farming and strip cropping, are not
identified as best management practices in the Black Creek
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Watershed. These practices are applied to long, steep slopes
and have been demonstrated to be quite effective in
controlling erosion. They are not recommended in the Black
Creek area because the watershed, and by implication the
Maumee Basin, does not have areas in which these practices
are suited.
FROSTING ON THE CAKE
Some valid conservation practices — recreation area
improvement, pond construction wildlife habitat manage-
ment — in general have goals other than the improvement of
water quality. Although no criticism is intended of the
practice per se it is the general feeling of workers on the
Black Creek project that these practices as applied in Black
Creek, served as attractive extras in conservation plans. They
provided a frosting on the cake, added to the total
conservation value of the plan, but had little impact on water
quality.
Wildlife Area
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WHAT'S
IT GOING
TO COST?
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Except in isolated cases, it is doubtful that the type of
erosion and consequent sediment production that has taken
place in the Black Creek Watershed will have a significant
impact on the cash value of individual farms within the
lifetimes of the current landowners.
In some other agricultural watersheds, erosion is a more
present danger. Cost figures for the Black Creek project are
probably therefore low in comparison to potential cost
figures for treating erosion and sediment production in areas
with more severe slopes and a predominance of more
erosive soil types.
In that sense, the Black Creek project represents a final
touch up. It can be considered representative of the type of
work that might have to be done in another area after the
major problems had been dealt with.
In fact, any practical program to control agricultural
nonpoint source pollution will combine structural and non-
structural approaches in the way which appears to be most
cost effective.
Cost data for the Black Creek land treatment program and
in the economic model of Black Creek farms are not really
comparable. We are forced to consider them separately,
recognizing this does not provide the most satisfactory
analysis.
The cost information presented here deals with soil loss
rather than with water quality, later discussion attempts to
relate management practices more directly to water quality
objectives. The basis for calculating soil loss and the basis for
determining whether or not land is adequately protected is
the Universal Soil Loss Equation. The equation is statistically
based, it deals with the loss of soil from small fields over time.
It is not useful for predicting specific soil loss in a given year
and does not attempt to predict whet her or not soil which has
been detached actually finds its way into waterways.
The equation predicts the annual soil loss per acre in terms
of rainfall, soil type, slope length, crop management system,
and erosion control practice.
The economic model used established values for the
factors involved in the soil loss equation, varying cropping
factor to achieve predetermined average soil losses.
Precise values obtained are related specifically tothe Black
Creek Watershed. Within limits, some general conclusions
can be drawn.
Specifically, a linear model was developed to analyze best
management decisions and to find those which would
provide maximum profit under various soil loss constraints.
Analysis was done on hypothetical farms of two size
classifications — 580 acres, representing a "large" farm in
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Black Creek, and 370 acres, representing a medium sized
farm.
Each was analyzed on the basis of average land slopes of
both more than two per cent and less than two per cent.
Values for land, labor, and machinery resources cost were
based on results of a survey of non-Amish farms in the Black
Creek Watershed. Crop management and yield information
for these calculations was obtained both from the survey and
from other information concerning soil characteristics and
crop production. Yield differences associated with various
tillage practices were based on previous studies.
When no constraints were placed on soil loss or field
operation, the model showed that profits were maximized
when corn and soybean land were prepared in the fall with a
moldboard plow. One-third of the area was put into corn
production while two-thirds went into soybeans. This is
consistent with current farming practice as has been
previously pointed out, with the exception that corn
production in reality is usually greater than the model would
indicate.
As the soil loss constraints of the Universal Soil Loss
Equation were made more stringent, tillage practices tended
to shift from moldboard preparation to more chisel plow
preparation.
Implications of the analysis by the economic model are
that the preferred tillage practices currently utilized in the
Black Creek project are generally practices which tend to
maximize profit. A determination to improve water quality
by generally mandating chisel plowing methods would have
relatively high economic cost.
This form of tillage is not uniformly adapted to all areas in
the watershed and may be expected to produce a significant
soybean yield reduction if it were applied to the level poorly
drained, lake bed soils. However, on the more sloping and
better drained soils of the uplands, chisel plow preparation
may in fact increase the profit potential. This analysis
indicates the difficulty of applying uniform practices for
achieving water quality improvement, even in areas as small
as the Black Creek Watershed.
The cost sharing approach in the Black Creek involved
payment for the installation of specific structural measures.
These measure have a one-time initial cost. However, the life
of structural practices is not unlimited. Useful life of practices
range from about 10 years for terrace systems, through 15
years for practices such as grassed waterways, to as high as 30
years for grade stabilization structures and tile drainage.
The total cost of applying structural practices is composed,
in the Black Creek Project, of three elements —the amount
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of cost share payment made by the district, the amount of
money paid by individual landowners to install the practices,
and the cost of technical assistance necessary to design and
supervise the installation of the practices. Approximate
values in the Black Creek Watershed were: cost sharing
$518,000; farmer payments, $150,000; technical assistance,
$250,000; a total of $910,000 which averages about $75 per
acre for the 12,038 acres in the watershed. Of the $518,000
cost sharing, about $216,000 was for channel practices, or
about $18 an acre, leaving $302,000 or about $25 per acre in
cost sharing for practices applied on the land.
Benefits of spending this money are uncertain in terms of
water quality. However, as has been pointed out, analysis of
data collected during the Black Creek Project indicates that
for small storms, land use, including the installation of
structural conservation measures are the determining factor
in soil erosion. In terms of the land itself, this expenditure has
resulted in a shift of land in SCS's adequately protected
category from 36 per cent at the beginning of the project to
84 per cent at the close of the project.
In other words, assuming an average life of 15 years for
conservation practices installed, and not accounting for
discount rates but simply dividing the cost per acre by 15
years, a cost of $5 per acre per year could be assigned to
structural methods of erosion control. As is discussed in
more detail in the next section, it appears likely that water
quality can be improved without making this expenditure.
Cost of utilizing cultural practices, such as a change of tillage,
are dependent on two major factors — the amount of crop
yield reduction which accompanies the change in tillage and
the market value of the crops produced.
When a significant yield reduction accompanies the
change in tillage practice, the dollar cost of sustaining that
yield reduction will be higher when farm prices are high and
correspondingly lower when there is an abundant supply of
farm products and market prices are relatively low.
Long-term studies in the Corn Belt and preliminary results
of the tillage research in the Black Creek area indicate that on
erosive, sloping soils of the Black Creek uplands, noyield loss
is associated with chisel plow preparation for corn. Yield loss
data for soybean production is less certain, but is expected to
be relatively low. As a result, there may in fact be a potential
increase in income associated with certain shifts of technique
which are at the same time most associated with improved
water quality.
In general, the economic model leads to the conclusion
that nonpoint source pollution control associated with soil
loss can be more effectively achieved through a policy of
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uniform control of soil loss rather than through a policy of
requiring uniform practices throughout a watershed.
It is certainly possible to assign lower per acre costs to a
program of nonpoint source pollution control from
agricultural sources than that assigned the Black Creek
project. Such a decision can be based on perceptions of the
degree of financial commitment that can be expected within
the political system. Estimating the costs to be lower to
achieve fixed water quality standards will not in fact make the
costs lower, however.
One approach to presenting favorable costs is to count
only the cost underwritten by the public through cost sharing
or incentive payments and to ignore the costs incurred by
individual landowners, either in terms of matching funds or
in terms of lost production.
The discussion of costs presented here only touches on the
question of whether the improvement of water quality to be
gained by providing the level of protection which has been
achieved in the Black Creek watershed is sufficient to meet
potential water quality goals.
"ANSWERS" TO THE COST QUESTION
The cost analysis discussed previously casts doubt on the
economic feasibility of achieving water quality by a program
of total land treatment. It should be remembered that there
are two basic resources involved in soil conservation-water
quality programs. There is the water resource, which has
been the subject of most of the discussion in this report.
There is also the land resource. The basic programs of SCS
conducted over the past four decades have been aimed at
preserving this land resource. Recently, SCS programs have
come under fire not only from the standpoint of water
quality objectives but from the standpoint of success, or lack
of it, in preserving the land resource.
The General Accounting Office, in its February 1977
report, points out that even if water quality considerations
are neglected, protection of the land resource itself is
necessary if the capacity for food production is to be
maintained. From another standpoint, when the Black
Creek project began, only 26 per cent of the land in the
watershed was considered adequately protected while only
24 per cent of the land was adequately treated.
Although it is unlikely that soil loss in the Black Creek
Watershed would result in severe deterioration of the land
resource within the lifetime of current landowners, it can be
expected that the need to produce food and fiber will
become more acute over the closing decades of the 20th
century.
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fenvironmeirraL imracr OF tano use on warer ouauTY)
Certainly there will be periods of economic fluctuation in
which one crop or another will be in temporary surplus. This
does not eliminate the fact that the thrust must be for
continued increase in food production capability if the
nation is to meet the needs of foreign markets and indeed if
the nation is to continue to feed itself.
The program of total land treatment discussed under the
cost section is necessarily a program which has intrinsic
merit, regardless of the water quality impact. If soil resources
are not to be allowed to deteriorate to the point that
production capability is reduced, adequate conservation and
cropping measures must be applied. Because of the long
period of time which appears to be available in the Maumee
Basin before the land resource deteriorates unreasonably,
however; the preservation of the land resource is less urgent
than new water quality goals, made particularly important by
the development of water quality management plans under
Section 208, and by the deterioration of valuable resources
such as Lake Erie.
Ideally, it might be hoped that water quality improvement
measures could be identified which would allow a major
impact on water quality to be achieved, even if the total
treatment of agricultural watersheds were not achieved.
This approach was considered in the economic model and
the conclusion was reached that the greatest social benefits
could be achieved by concentrating control efforts on only
the most erosive lands.
As a part of the effort in the Black Creek project a model,
called the ANSWERS model (Aerial Nonpoint Source
Watershed Evaluation Response Simulator), of sediment
detachment and transport into waterways was developed. It
divides a watershed into small parcels (2.5 acre parcels were
used for Black Creek simulations) and describes water
movement throughout a watershed as it eventually moves
into drainage channels.
The model is capable of simulating the movement of
sediment and related nutrients. Although attempts are being
made to make the model more useful in other watersheds,
the model already gives evidence of being a powerful tool for
dealing with the specific problem of applying management
practices in such a way that the maximum return in water
quality can be achieved for the lowest public and landowner
investment.
The use of this model to simulate the effect of an actual
storm event in a subwatershed of the Black Creek area,
allowed comparison of model predictions with actual
loadings of sediment into the Black Creek as measured at one
of the sampling stations.
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The model was able to predict the loadings into Black
Creek for this storm within about 15 per cent which is
considered an accurate representation. It not only identified
total loadings, but also highlighted those areas where erosion
was particularly serious within the 1,800-acre subwatershed.
Critical Erosion Area
Since the model takes into account factors such as tillage, it
was possible to play a game of "what if" and compare the
conventional tillage methods in the watershed with
predicted improvements in water quality that could be
obtained by using tillage which leads to less erosive
conditions.
When the conventional tillage of the watershed was
changed to tillage involving chisel plowing, a reduction of
two-thirds was obtained in the amount of sediment entering
the creek from that single storm. More significantly,
however, was a third run of the model, this time comparing
the sediment produced when only 80 acres of the watershed,
which represent the two most highly erosive areas, were
changed from conventional tillage to chisel plowing. This
simulation indicated that about 40 per cent of the reduction
could have been achieved by treating 80 acres rather than
1,800.
If we go slightly out on a limb and assume that addition of
total structural treatment of the 80 acres identified as critical
in the model would result in a great enough reduction in
sediment to meet water quality goals, then we would predict
that treatment (at the $75 per acre cost) need cost only $6,000
for this subwatershed rather than the $135,000 which would
be required to treat each of the 1,800 acres.
If we are satisfied with the 40 per cent reduction (about 25
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per cent of the total loading) and if we assume that chisel
plowing does not represent a significant loss of profit on the
soils in question, then satisfactory control can be achieved in
this subwatershed with the only costs being capital costs
involved in equipment to allow chisel plowing to be done.
From the economicstandpoint, this makes achieving water
quality goals much more feasible than attempting to treat all
of the land in extensive watershed areas in a highly
compressed time frame.
It should be noted that this projected ability to achieve
large amounts of water quality improvement with relatively
small applications of particular practices may be a
characteristic of the Black Creek Watershed and the
Maumee Basin. The same situation may not hold in
watersheds having steeper slopes and more erosive soils.
However, if the Black Creek Watershed is considered to be
a watershed in which major erosion problems have been
solved, the ANSWERS model is applicable to other
watersheds as a finishing touch for water quality manage-
ment programs.
Future development of the model will allow the
incorporation of basic water quality improvement structural
practices as well as cultural practices. The amount of data
needed in unique date files for the model will be reduced.
These efforts also should simplify operation and should
reduce the time and cost of utilizing the model. It can be
observed however, that even though the model currently
requires a sizeable amount of computer time and core space,
the computer time and cost represent only a fraction of the
time and cost involved in the installation of structural or
cultural land treatment practices.
A more complete discussion of the concept and
application of the ANSWERS model is contained in the
technical volume of the Black Creek final report.
THE MAGIC WORD "FEASIBLE" —
WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
Congress, in writing Section 208, included a requirement
that area water quality management plans include measures
for controlling pollution from agricultural nonpoint sources
"to the extent feasible'. One of the key questions facing
Section 208 planners, as the water quality management
planning process moves into its final phase, is a definition of
the word feasible.
The concept of "zero discharge" of pollution cannot be
meaningfully applied to all nonpoint sources. The process of
erosion, the ever changing face of the land, the twists and
turns in geologically new rivers as they cut new channels and
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find new paths to their eventual destinations involves
erosion.
Improper Solution to Erosion
Plugged Drop Box
Erosion, whether in the Nile Valley, around the "muddy
Missouri', or contributing to the formation of the Mississippi
Delta, is a natural process. Certainly natural erosion is taking
place in the Maumee Basin and was doing so prior to any
human interference.
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A water quality standard which required no sediment
would be defeated by the streams themselves which are
capable of picking up debris and soil particles from their own
beds when no other material is in the water.
Maumee River
Perhaps the only way to achieve zero sediment would be to
pave the stream beds and their surrounding lands, locking
soil into place but locking out agriculture, wildlife, and
people.
Agriculture, because it involves disturbances in the soil,
and because it involves reductions of the natural cover,
increases erosion and consequently sedimentation.
Any plan which aims to control pollution from agricultural
nonpoint sources must, therefore, be concerned with
striking a reasonable balance between the need to maintain
agricultural production and the need to maintain or improve
water quality.
The possible extremes in the Maumee Basin would appear
to be either to aim for maximum crop production without
regard to soil or the water resources, or to sacrifice crop
production by putting the entire basin into some sort of
permanent vegetative cover. Neither of the extremes are
likely to be considered feasible.
Although it has been pointed out that agricultural
nonpoint source pollution does not readily fit into the "zero
discharge" program, levels of pollutants from nonpoint
sources will have to conform with the Congressionally
mandated requirements for "swimmable and fishable"
waters as outlined in Public Law 92-500.
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Although swimmable and fishable waters are not precisely
defined, it can be assumed that swimmable means that waters
are pure enough so that no health hazards are encountered
by the emersion of the whole body in the waters. In addition,
there is an assumption that waters are reasonably pleasant to
enter, are free of odors and appearances that make them
unusuable for recreational purposes.
Pond for Recreation
Fishable waters implies that concentrations of pollutants
which would interfere with fish life either by directly
destroying it, destroying essential links in the food chain or
interfering with its reproduction are not present.
In terms of the Black Creek Watershed, the following
observations can be made. Nitrate concentrations do not
threaten either swimmable or fishable conditions. Nitrate
levels, while higher than from non-agricultural watersheds
do not reach high enough levels that water quality standards
for drinking water are exceeded.
Microbiological parameters — fecal coliform and fecal
streptococci — are high enough to interfere with either
fishable or swimmable conditions. These levels represent
waste loadings, some of which are undoubtedly associated
with septic tank operation. Although some of these septic
tanks are associated with farm homes, others are associated
with nonfarm homes and general residential development in
what was previously an agricultural area.
Phosphate levels are high enough to interfere with the use
of the water through the promotion of algae blooms. These
blooms, result in the addition of organic material to the
waterway and result in a net increase in the oxygen demand,
thus interfere with fish life and make the Black Creek
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unsuitable for some bottom dwelling insects and other
invertebrates which constitute a potential part of the fish
food chain. Algal pads, referred to by residents of the
watershed as scum, would make use of the water unpleasant,
even if no health hazard existed.
Septic Tank Construction
Drainage maintenance, particularly if a large number of
drains were reconstructed in a relatively long section of the
Maumee River would have an impact on the Maumee River
fishery through interference with the breeding cycle of
several important fish species.
Sediment levels following storm events can be quite high
in the Black Creek. Sediment concentrations by themselves
do not preclude the growth, breeding, and development of
Maumee River fishes, providing the high concentrations
represent intermittent events and not the normal levels.
To meet the goal of swimmable and fishable water quality
in Black Creek and the Maumee Basin, it is therefore
necessary to be concerned with phosphates both in soluble
form and possibly as sediment bound phosphorus. In
addition, a means of controlling septic tank pollution seems
necessary.
Almost any attempt to control sediment pollution would
involve economic costs. These costs could be incurred either
in terms of initial dollar costs to pay for the installation of
structural practices or in long- term costs associated with
reduction in production, where this occurred, or removing
land from production.
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Some combinations of cultural and structural practices
would likely be used in any control program.
Fishing Site
Farmers are in a unique economic position in that trade in
basic agricultural commodities is done in a relatively free
market. Presumably, if controls were imposed uniformly
throughout ail farming areas, and if those controls resulted in
a significant yield reduction, then the price of basic farm
commodities would increase. But, in fact, there is no
mechanism by which farmers can pass on the cost of
pollution control techniques as monopolistic industries do.
Imposition of nonpoint pollution controls would put a
more severe financial burden on landowners who farm more
erosive soil. Since these soils generally represent land of
lower value and support farming operations which are more
complex, a competitive advantage would be given to farmers
with holdings in non-erosive areas.
Larger farms appear to be better able to incorporate
techniques of erosion control into their regular operations
with less cash loss. Imposition of nonpoint pollution controls
would therefore increase the competitive advantage of
larger landowners over smaller farmers.
Subsidies or incentive payments have been used in the past
to achieve cooperation of individual farmers in land and
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water conservation. The Black Creek Project has
demonstrated that when there is sufficient financial
assistance available and when there is sufficient technical
assistance and local interest, a voluntary program of erosion
control with cost-sharing payments can be effective in
achieving protection of land from soil loss.
It remains to be seen whether a voluntary program would
be equally effective, even with cost sharing payments
available, if the permitted soil loss were constrained to more
restrictive limits than are currently applied in the Universal
Soil Loss Equation.
Because of traditional approaches, i.e. cost sharing and
voluntary compliance, and because of resistance to
regulation in general, it is believed that an approach to
agricultural nonpoint source pollution control which
involves only a regulatory approach with no public
participation in the cost of the program would be extremely
unpopular and would be very difficult to enforce. The Black
Creek experience leads to the conclusion that a regulatory
capability would probably have to exist if a goal of total
treatment of the land to reduce pollution from every parcel
in a watershed to a fixed level were adopted.
Cost sharing programs have traditionally centered on
structural practices because of the ease in which payments
can be calculated and because of the ease with which
compliance with requirements for the practice can be
determined.
In the Black Creek Watershed, several structural practices
have been identified as reducing erosion. Only three of
these practices have been identified as having much
potential to remove sediment from surface drainage water
after it has been detached by the raindrop impact. These are
sediment basins, terrace systems, and vegetative fields
borders.
The most important management practice from the
standpoint of improved water quality appears to be the
management of crop residue through appropriate tillage
methods so that the soil surface is left with at least partial
cover throughout most of the year.
In general, it appears to be more popular to provide cost
sharing payments for the construction of specific structural
practices which, it is hoped, can reduce the adverse impact
on water quality. Unfortunately, the maximum impact on
water quality may be had by cultural practices which are less
easy to administer, to enforce, or to fairly involve in cost
sharing programs.
The economic costs, whether paid by individual
landowners, by taxpayers, or by some combination of
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landowners and taxpayers, will not be trivial if it is decided to
attempt to treat every acre of agricultural land so as to reduce
agricultural nonpoint pollution below some predetermined
level. The ANSWERS model, however, provides some hope
that water quality standards can be met by concentrating on
identified areas of high erosion. Identification of these areas,
hopefully representing a small fraction of the total land area]
can greatly reduce the cost of installing agricultural pollution
control practices, thereby increasing the feasibility of
meeting the substantial economic costs which will be
involved.
It is not the purpose of this report to suggest what the
policy of agricultural nonpoint source pollution control
should be, either for individual Section 208 planning areas, or
in the nation.
The following, therefore, represent questions which
should be addressed, based on the Black Creek experience,
in formulating policies for this purpose.
1. What level of water quality is desired? In general, in the
Black Creek Watershed, except for sediment for which no
water quality goal has been proposed, only phosphates
appear to present a serious control problem from the
standpoint of strictly agricultural nonpoint source pollution.
Control of phosphates is closely associated, however, with
control of sediment.
Erosion Control
Level of control of sediment and sediment related
pollutants must be specified in terms of specific types of
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storm event. Sediment production associated with small
storm events could well be controlled, but large events and
particularly rare severe storms would still produce heavy
sediment and pollutant loads. It should be remembered that
costs will increase greatly as control measures are designed
for storms of increasing intensity. At some level of storm
intensity, control measures are probably impossible, even if
economic considerations are totally ignored.
2. How can the program be made fair? A traditional
approach to water quality management planning is a desire
to treat everyone alike. This report has made it clear,
however, that programs which treat everyone alike by
specifying practices which must be installed or by requiring
specific tillage methods throughout the planning area will
have not only greater total costs than more selective
approaches, but will work a greater economic hardship on
landowners whose land is unsuited to the required practice.
3. Who should pay the costs? Because farmers have no
mechanism of passing on costs, the only method by which
the public can pay a portion of the costs of achieving water
quality standards by reducing nonpoint source agricultural
pollution is through cost sharing or incentive payments.
Incentives or subsidies can be used either to try to strike
what is perceived to be an equitable balance of cost
distribution or to encourage landowners to take part in
voluntary programs by payment ratherthan by enforcement.
If it is determined that cost-sharing payments should be
made to encourage voluntary participation, should cost
sharing rates and cost sharing funds be channeled to those
landowners who have the greatest problems, or should the
funds be distributed uniformly throughout a planning area?
Should cost sharing be limited to structural practices,
representing the more traditional approach, or should cost
sharing funds be offered for cultural practices where these
seem most appropriate?
4. What kind of enforcement is appropriate? Should
landowners be convinced to participate in the program
through incentive payments, through prosecution in the
courts, or through some combination of these approaches.
Should the prime enforcement agent be the EPA, state
government, or local government? How can compliance be
determined either for enforcement or for cost sharing?
5. What are the other consequences of the program? Any
program of nonpoint source pollution control applied to
agriculture will have an impact on land values and other costs
of production. In most farming areas, reduction of farm
income will have an impact on the economy of the entire
area. What are these impacts and what weight should be
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assigned to them in designing a program of nonpoint source
pollution control?
The answers to these six questions can move planners
closer to the definition or the term "feasible" as it relates to
control of pollution from agricultural nonpoint sources.
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KEY
PERSONNEL
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The Black Creek project has depended for its success on
cooperation among personnel representing governmental
units and agencies. Divergent viewpoints and interests have
often required resolution before work on the project could
go forward. Two mechanisms were utilized to assure
communication between members of the project staff and to
assure communication between the project administration
and the landowners who live in the watershed.
First, monthly meetings of a steering committee have been
held, usually either at Purdue University or in the watershed
but sometimes at the State Office of SCS in Indianapolis or at
the Region V office of USEPA in Chicago. These meetings,
conducted by project administrator James Lake were useful
not only from the standpoint of communication but also
from the standpoint of allowing decisions to be made
concerning project goals and directions after consideration
of the opinions and expertise of the various specialists
involved.
James Lake
Ralph Christensen
Secondly, information has been disseminated utilizing
both the news media of the Fort Wayne area (radio televi-
sion, newspapers), and more direct personal communica-
tions including meetings, visits to individual landowners, and
letters to individual landowners. As has been pointed out,
the concept of the Black Creek project grew from a public
discussion of the Maumee River and its problems. Followup
meetings were open to members of various agencies and
groups, and actions taken by the Board of Supervisors in
applying for the grant and in conducting it have been done
openly. As a result, rumors, suspicions, and fears that might
have developed were largely avoided.
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The work reported in this document is the result of the
efforts of all of those people who cooperated in planning,
carrying out, and analyzing the Black Creek project. Key
personnel are mentioned in the following discussion
Environmental Protection Agency
Primary liason with the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency has been maintained through Ralph G. Christensen,
U.S. EPA Grants Officer and Section 108 Program Coordina-
tor, Region 5, Chicago. Christensen, a graduate of Brigham
Young University, is a former deputy director and laboratory
director of the Grosse llle, Mich EPA laboratory, a former
Chief of Bacteriology for the Detroit River - Lake Erie and
Lake Huron field office and a former staff microbiologist for
the Sacramento County California health department.
Carl Wilson
Dan Dudley
EPA project officer who has overseen the day-to-day
operation of the project is Carl D.Wilson. Wilson has
developed nonpoint source pollution projects in U.S. EPA
Region V for the past six years. He has designed and
implemented farming systems to utilize wastewater and
sludge. He holds degrees in soil science and crop science
from New Mexico State University. Prior to has association
with U.S. EPA he was employed by the U.S. Department of
the Interior, The Soil Conservation Service, and by private
consulting engineering firms.
Allen County SWCD
Primary responsibility for the administration of the Black
Creek project rests with the Allen County Soil and Water
Conservation District. The district is administered by a Board
of Supervisors, selected from Allen County and representing
both urban and agricultural interests in soil conservation.
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There have been a few changes in the composition of the
board over the five-year history of the project. Current
board members are Ellis McFadden, Roger Ehle, Mic Lomont,
EricKuhne, and John Hilger. Ray Arnold and Gilbert Whitsel
are past supervisors who were members of the board when
the project was started. Don Rekeweg serves as an assistant
supervisor. McFadden was chairman of the Board atthetime
the project was begun and retains administrative respon-
sibility for the project. Ehle is currently board chairman.
The project director for Allen County is James Lake,
executive secretary of the Allen County Board. Lake holds a
BS in agricultural education from Purdue with a minor in
soils. During the project he held responsibility for
coordinating the activities of all groups involved in the
project, kept budget records, and has had responsibility for
carrying out policies set by the board ^^^^
Dan McCain Richard Land
Other employees of the Allen County District who have
contributed to the project include John Pidlisny, a graduate
civil engineer who served as a technician, Rex Journay, a
graduate in agronomy who has worked primarily with tillage
research, Allen Shope, a technician, and Dan Dudley, holder
of a masters degree in aquatic biology employed by the
District to assist in biological and microbiological studies.
Soil Conservation Service
Technical assistance was supplied on the project by the Soil
Conservation Service of USDA. District Conservationist for
SCS is Dan McCain. McCain has been responsible for SCS
field office operations in Fort Wayne since 1969. He holds a
BS in agronomy from Purdue. Substantial assistance to the
project has been provided by John Denison, area technician
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for SCS who is headquartered in Fort Wayne.
Numerous planners and technicians have been assigned
by SCS to the project over its five-year history. These have
included Greg Woods, Gary Carlile, Doene Goetti, Bill
Howard, Stan Steury and Darrell Brown. On the area level,
two area conservationists and an area engineer have been
associated with Black Creek. The initial conservationist was
Joe Branco. Ken Pyle assumed area responsibility during the
final few years of the project. The area engineer has been
C.F. Polland, who held that post throughout the five year
project.
Two SCS state office workers, Leon Kimberlin, State
Resource Conservationist for SCS and Eugene Pope, State
Engineer, participated in the designed and initial execution
of the project. Following reassignment of these personnel,
Max Evans has served as State Engineer and Roy Hamilton as
State Resource Conservationist.
Rolland Z. Wheaton
Jerry Mannering
SCS assistance has also been provided by Bob Bollman,
Assistance State Conservationist who also served on the
report committee charged with preparation of final reports
on the project.State Conservationists during the project have
been Thomas Evans, Cletus Gillman and Bueli M. Ferguson.
Purdue University
Purdue University has maintained a staff member in the
field as well as an active research involvement at its Lafayette
Campus. Richard E. Land has been the field coordinator of
research at Fort Wayne with responsibility for continuing
field data acquisition. The overall coordinator of research for
Purdue has been Dr. Rolland Z. Wheaton. Wheaton has also
conducted studies of ditch bank stability and of the
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effectiveness of sediment basins. He holds a PhD from the
University of California.
Work from the Purdue Agronomy Department has been
divided into three major areas —simulated rainfall, soil and
water chemistry, and tillage research. Primary responsibility
for simulated rainfall was accomplished by Dr. Jerry V.
Mannering, professor of agronomy and extension agron-
omist at Purdue where he has been a member of the
agronomy department since 1967.
Soil and water chemistry has been the responsibility of Dr.
Darrell Nelson, associate profesor of agronomy who has
specilized in soil chemistry, biochemistry, and biological
transformation of nitrogen in soils, and of Dr. Lee Sommers,
Assistant Professor of Agronomy who is a specialist in
microbiology, biochemistry and water chemistry. Dr. Nelson
holds a PhD from Iowa State University and Dr. Sommers was
granted a PhD from the University of Wisconsin.
Darrell Nelson
Lee Sommers
Tillage research was begun by Harry Galloway, professor of
agronomy and extension agronomist who until his retirment
conducted research in soil drainage and tillage management.
Following Galloway's involvement, tillage and demonstra-
tion plots became the responsibility of Don Griffith, research
and extension agronomist at Purdue who has particular
interest in corn and soybean cultural practices.
Modeling, simulation, automated data acquisition, and
data handling have been conducted at Purdue by the
Department of Agricultural Engineering. Principal
researchers have been Dr. Wheaton, Dr. Edwin J. Monke and
Dr. Larry F. Huggins. Dr. Monke is professor of agricultural
engineering at Purdue where he teaches and does research
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in soil and water resources. He holds a PhD in civil
engineering from the University of Illinois. His principal
research has been in the mechanics of erosion, hydrologic
modelling, the hydraulics of sediment-laden flow, the
treatment of water from small reservoirs for chemicals in soil.
Dr. Huggins, also professor of agricultural engineering, has
been involved with two aspects of the project: watershed
modelling and field data acquisition automation. In the
modelling area, he has been involved with supervising the
development of the hydrologic components of the
distributed parameter watershed model, ANSWERS. Two
Purdue graduate instructors — David Beasley and Adelbert
Bottcher -- have been involved with various aspects of the
modelling effort. Beasley completed requirements for the
PhD at Purdue in the spring of 1977 and currently holds the
position of assistant professor of agricultural engineering at
the University of Arkansas. Bottcher is continuing graduate
study involved with the simulation of tile flow in an
agricultural watershed.
Don Griffith
Edwin Monke
Others involved in the agricultural engineering
department have involved Dr. Jack Burney, visiting associate
professor who specialized in increasing the capability and
optimizing the storage and execution time requirements for
the watershed model and Stephen J. Mahler, visiting
instructor in agricultural engineering who has been primarily
concerned with software in the systems involving the Black
Creek Project.
Socio-economic studies at Purdue were begun by Dr.
Ralph M. Brooks, assistant professor in the department of
agricultural economics. When Brooks left Purdue, the work
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fenvironmeirraL imracr OF tano use on warer QuatiTY)
was undertaken by Dr. William Miller, who has specialized in
resource economics at Purdue. Miller holds the PhD from
Michigan State University.
Others at Purdue associated with the project have
included William P. McCafferty, an aquatic entomologist and
Jerry L. Hamelink, an aquatic biologist. James B. Morrison,
formerly an assistant to Rep. J. Edward Roush and currently
an information specialist at Purdue has been involved with
project documentation throughout the five year effort.
Administrative personnel at Purdue directly involved with
the project have included Howard Diesslin, Director of the
Indiana Cooperative Extension Service, Bernard j. Liska,
Director of the Indiana Agricultural Experiment Station.
Elsworth Christmas, Assistant Director of the Cooperative
Extension Service and a member of the final report
committee for the project, and the following academic
department heads: Jerry Isaac, agricultural engineering;
Marvin Phillips, Agronomy; Paul Farris, Agricultural
Economics.
* »
Larry Muggins
William Miller
University of Illinois
The University of Illinois became involved with the transfer
of James Karr from Purdue to that institution where he is
associate professor of ecology. Karr has been involved with
near stream vegetation effect on water quality, with
microbiological sampling of Black Creek and with a study of
fish in the Black Creek environment.
Other assistance
Additional assistance has been provided to the Black Creek
project by Allen County Government and particularly by the
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County Surveyor, William Sweet; County Highway
Department Superintendent, William Jones; North Eastern
Indiana Regional Coordinating Council Executive Director
Elias Saomon; the Fort Wayne-Allen County Board of Health,
Allen County Data Processing; Allen County Cooperative
Extension Office, and Allen County Council and Com-
missioners.
James Karr
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CONCLUSIONS
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fenvironmeirrai imracr OF tano use on waror QuatiTY)
Conclusions reached by investigators on the Black Creek
project are divided into two sets: those which essentially are
drawn from formal research and those which are drawn as
the result of experience in the project administration. These
are presented here along with reference to section and
subsection where they are supported in the report.
RESEARCH CONCLUSIONS
1. It is possible to conserve soil within the limits adequate for
maintaining the soil resource, but nonetheless not meet
proposed water quality standards.
Sect/on 3 "Agricultural Pollution — What is It?"
2. Control of many agricultural pollutants is achieved by
control of sediment. Nitrate nitrogen is an exception.
Control of nitrate nitrogen can be achieved by the use of
nitrification inhibitors, timing of the application of nitrogen
fertilizers, and reduction of the amount of nitrogen applied
as fertilizer.
Sect/on 3 "Plant Nutrients"
3. Raindrop impact is of prime importance in the
detachment of soil particles in the Black Creek Watershed.
Sect/on 3 "Key to (he Process — The Raindrop"
4. A relatively small percentage of the sediment entering the
Maumee River and Lake Erie can be attributed to unstable
ditch banks (less than 10 per cent).
Sect/on 3 "Where Does It Come From?"
5. Erosion is dependent on storm intensity and amount, (a)
Surface cover can reduce the erosion from any given storm.
(b) The effectiveness of surface cover is dependent on its
amount and quality, (c) For more intense storms, slope and
slope length become more critical factors.
Sect/on 3 "Where Does it Come From?"
6. Level of control of sediment and sediment related
pollutants must be specified in terms of specific storm events.
(a) Most sediment production in Black Creek Watershed was
associated with a few intense storms, (b) Cost of control
increases exponentially with design for more intense storms.
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—
Section 3 "Flow During the Storm Event"
7. Total sediment contributions (loadings) of the Black Creek
Watershed to the Maumee River, although typical of the
Maumee Basin, are low for an agricultural watershed,
ranging from about a quarter ton to slightly more than a ton
per acre per year.
Section 3 "Sediment"
8. Septic tank effluent contributes to water quality
problems in Black Creek. It accounts for a high percentage
of soluble inorganic phosphorus and contributes to high
fecal coliform counts, (a) Fecal coliform counts and fecal
streptococci counts in Black Creek are high enough to
interfere with swimmable and fishable water criteria, (b)
Fecal coliform counts are generally higher in the Black Creek
subbasin which includes effluent from the town of Harlan.
Section 7 "What Did We Learn?"
9. Disturbance of streams and ditches through reconstruc-
tion interferes with the breeding of several species of fish,
primarily as a result of change of habitat structure.
Sect/on 3 "Other Environmental Hazards"
10. Costs of achieving treatment of every acre of land to
improve water quality would be extremely high, (a) It is
possible to achieve water quality improvement by treating
only critical areas, (b) These areas can be identified and a
quantitative determination of their impact on water quality
can be obtained by using the watershed simulation methods
developed during this project, (c) Attempts to alter tillage by
adopting uniform regulations covering relatively large areas
would be more costly, would meet with greater farmer
resistance, and would not be as effective as more selective
programs.
Sect/on 5 "What's it Going to Cost?"
11. Grab samples are not sufficient to give a true picture of
sediment and related pollutant loadings.
Section 7 "What Did We Learn?"
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ADMINISTRATIVE CONCLUSIONS
1 The Allen County Soil and Water Conservation District has
demonstrated its ability to efficiently administer an extensive
program of nonpoint source pollution control. The reliance
on a local group for this administration is an important aspect
of public acceptance and voluntary participation.
Sect/on 7 "What Did We Learn?"
2. Best management practices have been subjectively
selected by the District Board of Supervisors for the Black
Creek area. These include field borders, grade stabilization
structures, grassed waterways, livestock exclusion, pasture
planting, sediment control basins, terraces, limited channel
protection, and tillage methods which increase crop residue
and surface roughness.
Sect/on 4 "Best Management Practices"
3. Farm-by-farm Conservation Plans are useful in programs
of water quality improvement. This type of plan should be
simple in format and selective in approach. Obligations of
participating farmers should be clearly delineated.
Sect/on 4 "Putting the Practices Together — The
Conservation Plan"
4. A voluntary program with sufficient incentive payments
and technical assistance, can achieve significant land
treatment aimed at improving water quality. Regulations or
the threat of regulation may be required to achieve
treatment on land owned by the relatively small number of
probable non-cooperators.
Sect/on 4 "Planning for Change in Black Creek Watershed"
5. Traditional cost sharing programs, based on a fixed
percentage payment for every practice, are not adequate to
sell best management practices for water quality improve-
ment. While an overall average might be set, local districts
should have the responsibility to set the rate on individual
practices.
Sect/on 4 "Land Treatment — A Part of the Management
System"
6. Public information is critical to a successful land treatment
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program. Landowners and thegeneral publicshouid be kept
up to date on all phases of a program from conception
through planning to implementation.
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1. REPORT NO.
EPA-905/9-77-007-A
4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE
Environmental Impact of Land Use on Water
Quality - Final Report on the Black Creek
Project (Volume 1 - Summary)
7. AUTHOR(S)
, PERFORMING ORGANIZATION NAME AND ADDRESS
Allen County Soil and Water Cc
Executive Park, Suite 103
2010 Inwood Drive
Fort Wayne, Indiana 46805
12. SPONSORING AGENCY NAME AND ADDRESS
U. S. Environmental Protection Agency
Office of Great Lakes Coordinator
230 S. Dearborn Street
Chicago, Illinois 60604
REPORT DATA
the reverse before completing!
n Water
k Creek
vation Distr.
ncy
3. RECIPIENT'S ACCESSION NO.
5 REPORT DATE
rvt^hpr 1Q77
6. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION CODE
8. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION REPORT NO.
10. PROGRAM ELEMENT NO.
rt 2BA645
11. CONTRACT/GRANT NO.
EPA Grant G005103
13. TYPE OF RE PORT AND PERIOD COVERED
jEinal Repart_iai2.-_7JL
14. SPONSORING AGENCY CODE
I
15. SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES
Carl D. Wilson - EPA Project Officer
Ralph G. Christensen - Section 108 (a) Program Coordinator
16 ABSTRACT .
This is a final non-technical summary of the Black Creek sediment contro
project This project is to determine the environmental impact of land
use on water quality and has completed its four and one half years
of watershed activity. The project, which is directed by the Allen
County Soil and Water Conservation District, is an attempt to determine
the role that agricultural pollutants play in the degradation of water
quality in the Maumee River Basin and ultimately in Lake Erie.
7.
KEY WORDS AND DOCUMENT ANALYSIS
DESCRIPTORS
Sediment
Erosion
Land Use
Water Quality
Nutrients
Socio-Economic
Land Treatment
18. DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT
Document is available to the public
through the National Technical In-
formation Service, Springfield. VA 2
.IDENTIFIERS/OPEN ENDED TERMS
c. COSATI Held/Group
19. SECURITY CLASS (This Report)
20. SECURITY CLASS (This page)
2161
21. NO. OF PAGES
22. PRICE
EPA Form 2220-1 (Rev. 4-77) PREVIOUS EDI T ION i s OBSO LE T E
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1978-752391
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