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I NONPOINT SOURCE SUCCESS STORY
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Conservation Practices Improve Dissolved Oxygen Levels in Fish Creek
Waterbody Improved
Low dissolved oxygen (DO) levels resulted in the impairment of
Fish Creek and placement on Oklahoma's Clean Water Act (CWA)
section 303(d) list of impaired waters in 2002. Pollution from grazing lands contributed to this
impairment. Implementing conservation practice systems (CPs) to promote better agricultural land
management improved DO levels in the creek. As a result, Oklahoma removed Fish Creek from
its 2008 CWA section 303(d) list for DO. Fish Creek now partially supports its Fish and Wildlife
Propagation (FWP) designated beneficial use.
Problem
Fish Creek is a 16.84-miie tributary to the Eim Fork of
the Red River in Beckham and Greer counties in the
arid southwest corner of Oklahoma (Figure 1). Land
use in the 20,482-acre watershed is about 98 percent
rangeiand. Less than 1 percent of the watershed is
cropland. Challenges with rangeiand management
contributed to listing the stream as impaired for DO
in 2002 when 32 percent of samples violated the
DO criteria for a warm water aquatic community. A
stream is considered impaired if more than 10 percent
of samples violate the criteria. Oklahoma added Fish
Creek (OK311800000130_00) to the 2002 CWA sec-
tion 303(d) iist for nonattainment of its FWP desig-
nated beneficial use.
Figure 1. Fish Creek is in southwestern Oklahoma.
Story Highlights
Results
Landowners in the watershed worked with the North
Fork of the Red River and Greer County conservation
districts, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural
Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), and the
Oklahoma Conservation Commission (OCC) to imple-
ment CPs through Oklahoma NRCS's Environmental
Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), Conservation
Stewardship Program (CStwP), and general conserva-
tion technical assistance program.
CPs installed between 2005 and 2017 focused on
reducing the impacts of grazing on rangeiand in the
watershed (Table 1). At least 3,000 acres (ac) were
enrolled in the CStwP, which encourages producers
to adopt further innovations that improve grazing
management.
The OCC documented improved water quality in Fish
Creek due to installation of CPs. The installed CPs
worked to decrease the runoff of oxygen-demanding
pollutants to downstream waterbodies. Monitoring
data compiled for the 2002 integrated report showed
that Fish Creek DO levels violated water quality
standards 32 percent of the time (Figure 2). However,
by the 2008 assessment, DO levels had improved
and were violating criteria only 5 percent of the time.
Based on these data, Fish Creek was removed from
the CWA section 303(d) list for DO in 2008. Although
the stream remains listed due to poor fish collections
and is, therefore, only partially supporting its FWP
beneficial use, recent fish collections have improved.
The creek is expected to be delisted and fully support
its FWP in the future.


4 Fish Creek Monitoring Site
Fish Watershed Streams
	 Fish Creek
	 Minnow Creek
~ Fish Creek V\

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Table 1. CPs installed in the Fish Creek watershed.
Practice name
Amount installed
Rotation of supplement and feeding
areas
5,766 ac
Brush management
1,401 ac
Improved grazing management
988 ac
Watering facility
1
Nutrient management
116 ac
Integrated pest management
2,261 ac
Prescribed grazing
5,201 ac
Livestock pipeline
4,816 ft
On-farm forage based grazing
system
2,144 ac
Heavy use area protection
0.2 ac
Grazing management to improve
wildlife habitat
2,144 ac
Partners and Funding
The OCC monitoring program is supported by the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) CWA section
319 funds at an average annual statewide cost of $1
million. Approximately $500,000 in EPA section 319
funds support statewide water quality educational
efforts through Blue Thumb. Approximately $237,229
of these federal and matching state funds have been
devoted to Fish Creek. From 2002 to 2017, NRCS sup-
plied approximately $20,000 for implementation of
CPs in the watershed through NRCS EQIP. Additional
funds were provided through NRCS for CStwP. In
addition, many practices were funded by landowners
based on recommendations through NRCS general
technical assistance and conservation planning.
Fish Creek Dissolved Oxygen
> Exceedance: 32 30 17
18
2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012
2014 2016
Figure 2. DO concentrations in Fish Creek improved after CPs were installed.
^edsj^ U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
0** Office of Water
^ Washington, DC
WJ
EPA 841-F-18-001JJ
pRot^° November 2018
For additional information contact:
Shanon Phillips
Oklahoma Conservation Commission
405-522-4728 • shanon.phillips@conservation.ok.gov

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