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Reducing Nutrient Loads from the Opequon Creek Watershed

Reducing Nutrient Loads from the Opequon Creek Watershed. Chesapeake Bay Targeted Watersheds Grant Program. Project Team Meeting Oct 19, 2007. Opequon Creek Watershed. 345 sq. miles Land use Agriculture Beef and few dairies Pasture and cropland Orchards Development I-81 corridor

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Reducing Nutrient Loads from the Opequon Creek Watershed

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  1. Reducing Nutrient Loads from the Opequon Creek Watershed Chesapeake Bay Targeted Watersheds Grant Program Project Team Meeting Oct 19, 2007

  2. Opequon Creek Watershed • 345 sq. miles • Land use • Agriculture • Beef and few dairies • Pasture and cropland • Orchards • Development • I-81 corridor • Industrial / commercial • Housing • Forest / recreation

  3. Opequon Creek Watershed • What are sources of nutrients ? • Point sources • Agricultural nps • Urban nps • Development • Residences (septic)

  4. Project Objectives • Evaluate nutrient reduction performance and cost-effectiveness of BMPs • Wetlands – pocket and floodplain • Water quality swales • Fencing alternatives • Develop, implement, and evaluate strategies to overcome barriers to adoption of BMPs • Develop market-based offsets for the FWSA • Develop a comprehensive nutrient-reduction strategy for the Opequon Creek watershed

  5. Project outcomes …. • Improved Chesapeake Bay • Strategies for nutrient reduction taking a comprehensive watershed view • Increased knowledge of: • effectiveness of selected BMPs • creative, sustainable solutions to increase the adoption of both innovative and traditional BMPs • characteristics and components of an effective point/nonpoint nutrient offset program • how to accelerate nutrient reduction in a complex agricultural / urbanizing watershed

  6. Approach • A watershed view of nutrient management • Resources primarily used for monitoring and to design and encourage adoption of BMPs • Flood-plain wetlands • Pocket wetlands • Water quality swales • Fencing (supplemental cost-share) • Work with city / developers / current programs to facilitate and instigate BMP implementation • Expecting to leverage additional funds

  7. Opequon Creek Watershed Monitoring Program • USGS gages • Tributaries and LU impacts • BMP evaluation • Pocket wetlands • WQ swales • Fencing

  8. USGS State monitoring FWSA Stream baselinemonitoring Fencing alternatives study Project components Modeling &Watershed assessment BMP effectiveness studies Nutrient ‘trading’ offset model Overcoming barriers study

  9. Obj 2. Develop, implement, and evaluate strategies to overcome barriers to adoption of selected BMPs Hypothesis: barriers to BMP adoption include both design and programmatic/policy issues Approach: assemble focus groups, conduct personal interviews, and use other appropriate sampling techniques to gather data

  10. Obj 2. Develop, implement, and evaluate strategies to overcome barriers to adoption of selected BMPs • Progress: • Developed barrier identification questionnaire for urban BMPs/LID • Vetted questionnaire with local consultants and government officials • Established contacts with appropriate state agency, fellow academics, and other interested NFWF Targeted Watershed Grants • Met with VWRRC and Virginia Tech Civil Engineering faculty to discuss new BMP database/BMP optimization approach • Next steps • Meet with DCR, CWP, and other TWG recipients to explore synergies • Begin collecting data • Workshop???

  11. Issues and Questions • BMP monitoring component • Stream monitoring component • Overcoming barriers • Nutrient trading • Modeling and impact assessment

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