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) NINPOIHT SOURCE SUCCESS STORY
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Conservation Practices Reduce Bacteria in Lower Honey Creek
Waterbody Improved Hig^ bacteria levels resulted in the impairment of lower Honey
Creek and placement on Oklahoma's Clean Water Act (CWA)
section 303(d) list of impaired waters in 2010. Pollution from grazing lands contributed to this
impairment. Implementing conservation practice systems (CPs) to promote better agricultural land
management decreased Escherichia coli {E. coli) levels in the creek. As a result, the upper segment
was removed from the 2012 CWA section 303(d) list (see October 2016 Nonpoint Source Success
Story: Implementing Agricultural Conservation Practices Improves Bacteria Levels in Upper Honey
Creek) and Oklahoma is recommending removal of lower Honey Creek from its 2018 CWA section
303(d) list for E. coli. Honey Creek now partially supports its primary body contact (PBC) designated
beneficial use.
Problem
Honey Creek is a 9.5-mile stream flowing through
Benton County, Arkansas and McDonald County,
Missouri, Into Delaware County, Oklahoma, before
it flows into Grand Lake O' the Cherokees (Figure 1).
Land use in the 79,000-acre watershed is predomi-
nantly pasture and grasslands (57 percent) for cattle
and hay production. The watershed is 33 percent for-
ested with only about 7 percent cropland. The iakeside
areas of the watershed are developed with vacation
and primary homes, and a portion of the city of Grove
(population 6,692) extends into the near-lake area.
Grazing land and animal waste management and
development contributed to listing the Oklahoma
portions of the stream as impaired for E. coli in 2010
when the geomean of samples collected during the
recreation season was 134 colony-forming units per
100 mL (CFU/100 ml). The PBC designated use is
considered impaired if the recreation season geomet-
ric mean exceeds 126 CFU/100 ml. Oklahoma added
the 4,9-mile-long lower segment of Honey Creek
(OK121600030455_00) to the 2010 CWA section
303(d) list for nonattainment of its PBC designated
beneficial use.
Story Highlights
A watershed-based plan was developed in 2007,
followed by a total maximum daily load in 2008.
Landowners in the Oklahoma portion of the water-
shed worked with the Delaware County Conservation
Figure 1. The Honey Creek Watershed is in northwestern
Oklahoma.
District, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural
Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and the
Oklahoma Conservation Commission (OCC) to imple-
ment CPs through NRCS's Environmental Quality
Incentives Program (EQIP), Grazing Lands Conservation
(GLC) and general conservation technical assistance
programs, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) Region 6 section 319 Nonpoint Source Program,
and Oklahoma's Locally Led Cost Share Program (LLCP).
CPs installed between 2006 and 2017 focused on
reducing erosion and pollutant runoff in the watershed
(Table 1).
Legend
t Monitoring Sues
Grant) Lake
Honey Creek Segments
Lower Honey Creek
	Upper Honey Creek
Arkansas
Streams
| State Boundaries
I 319 Project Implementation
I Honey Creek Water shea 12 Digit HUCs
I Grand_Lake_Wtrshd

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Table 1. CPs installed in the Honey Creek watershed.
Practice name
Amount
installed
Riparian protection
2,734 ac
Brush management
133 ac
Conservation cover
11 ac
Water well
87
Comprehensive nutrient management
plans
11
Heavy use areas
239
Fence
491,762 ft
Upland wildlife habitat management
186 ac
Forage and biomass planting
1,329 ac
Integrated pest management
4,882 ac
Forage harvest management
107 ac
Nutrient management
4,179 ac
Livestock pumping plant
1
Prescribed grazing
6,728 ac
Livestock pipeline
50,012 ft
Ponds
48
Waste storage facility
37
Amendments for treatment of animal
waste (in animal units)
16,770
Septic system
16
Watering facility (tanks)
279
Cakeout/composting storage facilities
8
Waste transfer outside watershed
26,627 lb
Waste recycling
134,8881b
Herbaceous weed treatment
890 ac
Roofs and covers
4
Results
The OCC documented improved water quality in
Honey Creek due to the installation of CPs. The
installed CPs worked to decrease the runoff of fecal
bacteria to downstream waterbodies. Monitoring
data compiled for the 2010 integrated report showed
that the geomean of Honey Creek's recreation season
E. coli was 134 CFU/100 mL, which violated the
standard of 126 CFU/100 mL (Figure 2). However, by
the 2018 assessment, bacteria levels had dropped, and
the E. coli geometric mean was 14 CFU/100 mL. Based
Lower Honey Creek E. coli
Maximum:	2,046
Geomean:	134	14
300
_ 250
E
§ 200
g 150
S ioo
ui
50
0
2010	2018
Figure 2. E. coli concentrations decreased after the
installation of CPs.
on these data, Oklahoma is proposing to remove lower
Honey Creek from the CWA section 303(d) list for
E. coli in 2018. Honey Creek now partially supports its
PBC beneficial use; all other assessed beneficial uses
are now fully supported.
Partners and Funding
Through a series of EPA section 319 projects, the EPA,
OCC and Oklahoma's Office of Secretary of Energy
and Environment invested approximately $4,133,803
of CWA section 319 and required matching dol-
lars in the watershed for program management,
water quality monitoring, and installation of CPs.
Using CWA section 319 ($1,362,879) and matching
state dollars ($817,566), plus matching dollars from
landowners ($1,340,940), more than $3.29 million
has been invested in CPs alone through the CWA
section 319 program. Education efforts were supple-
mented through the Oklahoma Blue Thumb Program.
Approximately $500,000 in EPA CWA section 319
supports statewide education, outreach and monitor-
ing efforts through the Blue Thumb program. From
2002 to 2017, NRCS supplied approximately $350,000
for implementation of CPs in the watershed through
NRCS EQIP. The OCC LLCP provided $7,947 in funds
matched by $16,637 from landowners. In addition,
many practices were funded by landowners based on
recommendations through NRCS general technical
assistance and GLC technical assistance.
I
^edsj^ U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
0** Office of Water
^ Washington, DC
WJ
EPA 841-F-18-00111
pR0*t^° November 2018
For additional information contact:
Shanon Phillips
Oklahoma Conservation Commission
405-522-4728 • shanon.phillips@conservation.ok.gov

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