Section 319
NONPOINT SOURCE PROGRAM SUCCESS STORY
Watershed-Based Restoration Efforts Lead to Water Quality Improvemens
on Townsend Creek
Waterbody Improved
Bacteria loadings from farmland and pasture land led to high bacteria
counts that violated water quality standards in Kentucky's Townsend
Creek. As a result, Kentucky added a 4.8-mile segment of Townsend Creek to its 2002 Clean Water
Act (CWA) section 303(d) list of impaired waters for failure to attain its primary contact recreation
designated use. Installing agricultural best management practices (BMPs) resulted in decreased
bacteria levels in Townsend Creek. These measures allowed Kentucky to remove one segment
(2.9 miles of the originally listed 4.8 miles) from its list of impaired waters in 2012.
Problem
Townsend Creek is a 25,648-acre subwatershed
of the South Fork Licking River (Figure 1). Most of
the watershed is rural and consists of farmland and
pasture land. The creek's riparian areas are often
unfenced and are used heavily by cattle, which led
to fecal coliform contamination and sedimentation.
State water quality standards for bacteria require
that fecal coliform levels are lower than 400 colony-
forming units per 100 milliliters of water (cfu/100
ml) in 80 percent of samples collected during the
swimming season (May to October). Monitoring
results collected at the mouth of Townsend Creek
from May to October of 1999 failed this standard,
with more than 20 percent of samples exceeding
2,000 cfu/100 ml. This resulted in the 2002 CWA
section 303(d) listing of Townsend Creek (miles 0.0
to 4.8; waterbody ID KY505401 _ 01) as impaired
for its primary contact recreation, or swimming,
designated use.
Project Highlights
The Townsend Creek Watershed Project (TCWP)
began with a 2003 CWA section 319 nonpoint
source implementation grant to the Kentucky
Chapter of The Nature Conservancy (TNC). The
primary goal of the TCWP was to improve water
quality in Townsend Creek by reducing pathogen
levels and increasing safe recreational opportunities
within the watershed. The methods for achieving
this goal included installing agricultural BMPs,
conducting pre- and post-BMP water quality moni-
toring, and implementing a strong K-12 and adult
water education and outreach program.
Townsend/Silas Creek Watershed
2
Figure 1. The Townsend Creek watershed is in northern Kentucky.
Through this project, TNC employed a full-time
Licking River project director as well as Townsend
Creek project manager to seek out agricultural BMP
implementation opportunities throughout the water-
shed. The TCWP identified individual farms within
high-priority subwatersheds that were then targeted
for BMPs and other conservation practices. The
project goal was to holistically address conservation
issues on particular farms and tie those individual
BMP projects together to provide cumulative ben-
efits to the watershed. As the project moved toward
the BMP implementation phase, the Kentucky
Division of Water (KDOW) and TNC decided that
TNC personnel time would be better spent working
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Figure 2. Farmers in the Townsend
Creek watershed fenced riparian
areas and planted shade trees for
the livestock (top); they also installed
alternative water supplies to limit
livestock access to streams (bottom).
with landowners to gain
participation in programs
rather than having the TNC
personnel actually imple-
ment the BMPs. Therefore,
BMPs were installed under
reimbursement contracts
to individual farmers.
From 2003 to 2005, BMPs
implemented using cost-
share assistance from the
TCWP included stream
crossings, livestock
exclusion fencing, riparian
forest buffers, riparian
grass buffers, sinkhole
protection, waste storage
facilities, tree and shrub
establishment, heavy-use
area development, alterna-
tive livestock watering
facilities, limited access
ramps, animal trails,
livestock shade structures,
pipelines, tank and spring
development, and wetland
conservation easements
(Figure 2).
Results
As a result of the water quality management mea-
sures implemented in Townsend Creek, pathogen
levels have decreased. Samples collected in 2006
at the mouth of Townsend Creek only exceeded the
maximum allowable fecal coliform level 12 percent
of the time (Figure 3).
These measures indicate that the segment includ-
ing river miles 0.0-2.9 now fully supports its
primary contact recreation designated use. (The
segment including river miles 3.0-4.8 was listed as
a separate segment between 2008 and 2010; this
segment remains list as impaired).
Partners and Funding
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Natural
Resources Conservation Service helped develop
landowner contracts for the Wetland Reserve
Program. The USDA Farm Service Agency provided
2006 Townsend Creek Monitoring—Sample Site at Mouth
Fecal Coliform Levels
4000
0
15-May 15-Jun 15-Jul 15-Aug 15-Sep 15-Oct
Figure 3. Data collected during the 2006 swimming season
show that fecal coliform levels exceeded 400 cfu/100 ml
in one out of eight samples (12 percent), thereby meeting
the less than 20 percent exceedance requirement.
funding and administration of the Conservation
Reserve Program, which helped support imple-
mentation of BMPs. Both the Bourbon and Harrison
county conservation districts provided technical
assistance for installing BMPs in watershed. Local
landowners installed BMPs and allowed access to
their properties for field day demonstrations as well
as water quality monitoring.
The TCWP received a total of $1.5 million in funding
from the 2003 CWA section 319 grant to support
Licking River projects, including those projects
that contributed to the improvements seen in
Townsend Creek. Approximately $420,000 was
used to supportTNC personnel who provided
technical assistance for BMP implementation and
project management in addition to the education
and outreach project component. Another $435,000
in nonpoint source program funding was used for
on-the-ground agricultural BMP implementation,
while $45,000 was used for baseline water qual-
ity and project success monitoring (in addition to
the monitoring work that KDOW completed). The
required $600,000 of nonfederal match was pro-
vided through the Kentucky Department of Fish and
Wildlife Resources' in-lieu-fee mitigation program
as well as conservation easements donated by local
landowners.
UJ
O
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Office of Water
Washington, DC
EPA841-F-15-001U
March 2015
For additional information contact:
John Webb, Kentucky Division of Water
502-564-3410 • John.webb@ky.gov
Lajuanda Haight-Maybriar, Licking River Basin Coordinator
Kentucky Division of Water
502-564-3410 • Lajuanda.Haight-Maybriar@ky.gov
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