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Agricultural Best Management Practices are a Boon for
Macroinvertebrate Communities in Little Deer Creek
yw .l. U j Imnrnvprl Little DeerCreekisan H-94-mile-long tributary of Deer Creek
in Carroll and Howard counties. The Indiana Department of
Environmental Management (IDEM) listed the stream on its Clean Water Act (CWA) Section 303(d)
List of Impaired Waters in 2016 for high levels of Escherichia coli and in 2018 for impaired biotic
communities. These and other pollutants have been a persistent problem in the greater Deer
Creek-Sugar Creek watershed and led to the creation of the Deer Creek-Sugar Creek Watershed
Management Plan (WMP) in 2014. Various agricultural best management practices (BMPs) were
implemented in the following years, and follow up sampling on Little Deer Creek in 2019 indicated
that the segment now fully supports aquatic life. IDEM will propose to remove the biotic community
impairment from its impaired waters list in 2022.
Problem
Little Deer Creek joins with Deer Creek in Carroll
County, just southeast of Camden, in north central
Indiana (Figure 1). Its water flows through the larger
Deer Creek-Sugar Creek watershed and eventually
drains into the Wabash River. The Little Deer Creek
subwatershed covers approximately 20 square miles,
with agricultural land uses accounting for the majority
of the subwatershed. According to the 2014 Deer
Creek-Sugar Creek WMP, a 2013 windshield survey
identified livestock access and streambank erosion as
the major stream-related concerns for Little Deer Creek.
In 2015, IDEM's Probablistic Monitoring Program
sampled Little Deer Creek (INB0553_01) and discov-
ered a failing Index of Biotic Integrity (IBI) score of 32
for its macroinvertebrate community. An IBI score of
less than 36 in Indiana indicates that a stream is not
supporting a well-balanced aquatic community. This
led IDEM to list the segment on its 2018 CWA Section
303(d) List of Impaired Waters for impaired biotic
communities.
Story Highlights
In fall 2010, the Carroll County Soil and Water
Conservation District (SWCD) submitted a CWA Section
319 Nonpoint Source Program grant application to
IDEM and identified watershed partners that would
Legend
• 2015 Monitoring
¦ 2019 Monitoring
Stream
Little Deer Creek INB0553_01
	Roads
C3 HUC 12 Little Deer Creek
Figure 1. Little Deer Creek (HUC 051201050503) is in
the Deer Creek watershed in north central Indiana.
Little Deer Creek 12-HUC Subwatershed
of the Deer Creek Watershed

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become part of the project's steering committee. The
purpose of the grant was to produce a WMP for the
Deer Creek-Sugar Creek watershed, provide education
and outreach to the community, assess stakeholder
opinions, monitor water quality, and develop a cost-
share program. The project's overarching goal was to
improve water quality in the Wabash River. The grant
was awarded, and the Deer Creek-Sugar Creek WMP
was approved in 2014.
The Carroll County SWCD received a 319 implementa-
tion grant In 2011 and again in 2017, totaling $859,626,
which supported Implementing over 3,995 acres of
cover crops, 203 acres of nutrient management with
manure, 124 acres of no-tiii field management, 130
acres of mulch-till field management, 0.2 acres of
grassed waterways, one waste facility closure, one
stream crossing, two heavy use protection areas,
one mulch-tiii equipment modification, one nutrient
management equipment modification, one no-tiil
equipment modification, three cover crop equipment
modifications, and one conservation plan in the Little
Deer Creek subwatershed (Figure 2). Additionally, the
U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources
Conservation Service (NRCS) helped implement
2,178 square feet of seasonal high tunnel for crops
and 1,018 acres of cover crops in the subwatershed
in 2015-2017 through the Environmental Quality
incentives Program (EQIP).
Results
In 2019, IDEM returned to Little Deer Creek to conduct
follow up performance monitoring on the stream.
The monitoring now showed an improved macro-
invertebrate IBI score of 40. The fish IBI (which was
not previously failing) had also remained the same,
with a score of 46. Although the Qualitative Habitat
Evaluation Index score decreased from the 2015 score,
it was still passing and showed improvement in the
individual scores for bank erosion and riparian zone
quality. As a result, IDEM is proposing to remove the
biotic community impairment for Little Deer Creek
from the list of impaired waters in 2022.
Partners and Funding
The Little Deer Creek subwatershed has benefited
greatly from various partnerships aimed at restor-
ing the greater Deer Creek-Sugar Creek watershed.
Figure 2. Closing wheel equipment modification for
no-till corn and soybean planting.
The Wabash River Enhancement Corporation was
responsible for writing the Deer Creek-Sugar Creek
WMP. in addition to guiding plan development,
coordinating and facilitating committee meetings,
and planning and implementing water quality and
watershed information gathering. Purdue University
was also responsible for collecting and analyzing water
quality data and conducting stakeholder surveys. The
$859,626 in CWA 319 grant funding awarded to the
Carroll County SWCD for planning and implementation
projects in 2011 and 2017 resulted in the development
of the WMP, extensive agricultural BMP implementa-
tion within the Little Deer Creek subwatershed, as
well as technical assistance and education efforts.
Furthermore, the Carroll County SWCD provided local
match of around $96,133 in 2015-2019 for these
BMPs and a total of $890,626 to date for the two 319
projects as a whole. The NRCS also played a role in the
watershed's improvement by providing BMP promo-
tion, design and installation at a total cost of $53,768
through EQIP.
&
*L PRO^°
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U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Office of Water
Washington, DC
EPA 841-F-21-001BB
November 2021
For additional information contact:
Lindsay Hylton Adams
IDEM
317-308-3378 • lhylton@idem.in.gov
Angie Brown
IDEM
317-308-3102 • abrown@idem.in.gov

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