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No-till, Cover Crops, and Similar Conservation Practices Improve
Water Quality in Turkey Creek
Waterbody Improved
High Escherichia coii (E, coli) concentrations and poor fish
community structure resulted in impairment of Turkey Creek and
placement on Oklahoma's Clean Water Act (CWA) section 303(d) list of impaired waters in 2006
(fish) and 2008, Pollution from crop and grazing lands contributed to this impairment. Implementing
conservation practice systems (CPs) to promote better land management decreased runoff of
bacteria and other pollutants and resulted in improved fish communities. As a result, Oklahoma
removed the E, coli and fish impairments in 2016 from its CWA section 303(d) list. Turkey Creek
now fully supports its primary body contact (PBC) and warm water aquatic community (WWAC)
designated beneficial uses.
Problem
The Turkey Creek Watershed covers approximately
202,750 acres in Jackson, Greer and Harmon counties
in Oklahoma (Figure 1). Land use in the watershed is
about 47% grazing lands (managed pasture and range-
land), and 47% cropland. The Turkey Creek Watershed
supports a system of 31 flood control dams con-
structed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)
Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). These
reservoirs reduce the impacts of flooding in 89.5
square miles and provide an estimated $727,000 in
benefits including reduction of flood damages to crops
and infrastructure. They may also provide benefits
such as irrigation, municipal or industrial water supply,
and recreation. These structures protect 243 farms or
ranches and 27 bridges, create or enhance 1,304 acres
of wetlands, and reduce sedimentation to downstream
waterbodies by 224,704 tons per year. The primary
agricultural products from the watershed are cotton,
wheat, soybeans and cattle.
Water quality monitoring in the early to mid-2000s
determined that challenges with grazing land manage-
ment contributed to a 2006 listing of the 51.64-mile
stream as having an impaired fish community when
the 2004 fish collection produced an Index of Biotic
Integrity (IBI) score of 16, which is 64% of refer-
ence condition scores for the Central Great Plains
Ecoregion. Waterbodies are considered to be not
supporting the WWAC beneficial use if the IBI score
is less than 80% of reference condition scores. E. coli
Figure 1. Turkey Creek is in southwestern Oklahoma.
samples collected during this time were also elevated
when the geometric mean of samples collected during
the recreation season (May 1 - September 30) was 210
colony forming units per 100 milliliters (CFU/100 ml).
A stream is considered impaired for E. coli if the geo-
mean is greater than 126 CFU/100 mL Based on these
results, Oklahoma added segment 311600020060_00
to the CWA section 303(d) lists in 2006 and 2008 for
nonattainment of the WWAC and PBC designated
beneficial uses, respectively.
Story Highlights
More than '170 landowners in the watershed worked
with the Greer, Harmon, and Jackson county con-
servation districts; NRCS; Farm Service Agency (FSA)
and the Oklahoma Conservation Commission (OCC).
They implemented CPs through Oklahoma NRCS's
Legend
Monitoring Site
Turkey Creek Watershed Structures
	Turkey Creek
I I Turkey Creek Watershed (Jackon Co.)
County Boundaries

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Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP),
Conservation Stewardship Program (CStwP) and
general conservation technical assistance program;
FSA's Conservation Reserve Program (CRP); and
through the OCC's Locally Led Cost Share Program
(LLCP). From 2000 to 2020, landowners improved
crop land and grazing management, which reduced
runoff of sediment, bacteria and other pollutants by
increasing vegetative cover and reducing bare soil.
Landowners implemented access control (882 acres
[ac]), brush management (10,335 ac), conservation
cover (2,977 ac), conservation crop rotation (2,635 ac),
cover crop (5,773 ac), critical area planting (100 ac),
diversion (5,560 feet [ft]), fence (149,138 ft), filter strip
(7.9 ac), forage harvest management (94 ac), grade
stabilization structures (2), grassed waterway (45.3 ac),
groundwater testing (4 tests), heavy use area protec-
tion (3,118 square feet [sf]), irrigation pipeline (11,685
ft), microirrigation system (657 ac), irrigation water
management (676 ac), livestock pipeline (109,307 ft),
nutrient management (11,060 ac), pasture and hayland
planting (3,003 ac), pest management (3,539 ac),
prescribed grazing (19,971 ac), range planting (111 ac),
no-till (45,330 ac), reduced tillage (4,535 ac), mulch
tillage (838 ac) and other CPs.
Results
The OCC documented improved water quality in
Turkey Creek due to installation of CPs through its
statewide nonpoint source Rotating Basin Ambient
Monitoring Program. By 2016, the E. coli geometric
mean had dropped to 57.9 CFU/100 mL and remained
at similar or lower levels through the 2022 assessment
period (Figure 2). Also, by 2016 the fish IBI scores had
risen to 18, which was 82% of reference condition
scores for the ecoregion during that assessment
period (Figure 3). Based on these data, Oklahoma
removed Turkey Creek from the 303(d) list for E. coli
and fish in 2016. Turkey Creek now partially supports
its WWAC and fully supports its PBC beneficial uses.
Partners and Funding
The OCC monitoring program is supported by the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) CWA
section 319 funding at an average annual statewide
cost of $1 million. Approximately $500,000 in EPA 319
funds support statewide water quality educational
Turkey E. coli
2800 1600
215.8	57.9
2014	2016	2018	2022
Figure 2. E. coli in Turkey Creek decreased with the
installation of CPs.
Turkey Creek Fish
20
18
16
14
! 12
| 10
! 8
6
4
2
0
• • • •
90
80
70
60
50 !
40 '
30
i
20 i
10
2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018 2020
• score • % reference
Figure 3. Fish communities in Turkey Creek improved
with reduced sediment loading to the stream.
efforts through Blue Thumb. Approximately $773,610
of these federal and state matching funds have been
devoted to Turkey Creek.
From 2008 to 2018, NRCS and FSA supplied more
than $4,250,000 for CP implementation in Oklahoma
through EQIP, CStwP, and CRP. In addition, many prac-
tices were funded by landowners based on recommen-
dations through NRCS general technical assistance.
Finally, the OCC; Greer, Harmon, and Jackson county
conservation districts; and landowners funded more
than $231,359 worth of CPs (at least $109,481 of which
was funded by landowners through the LLCP). Finally,
the OCC invested at least $123,250 in operations
and maintenances costs to maintain and protect the
watershed structures in Turkey Creek.
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U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Office of Water
Washington, DC
EPA 841-F-21-001AA
November 2021
For additional information contact:
Shanon Phillips
Oklahoma Conservation Commission
405-522-4728 • shanon.phillips@conservation.ok.gov

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