September 2013 Quarterly Newsletter…
Limestone Valley has had a busy summer. We have done our best to describe the work that we have put in on several of our Clean Water Act Projects below:
For the South Chickamauga Headwaters Project:
- We disbursed cost-share portions to landowners for newly completed agricultural projects.
- We worked with NRCS and the additional landowners on getting the other agricultural projects that we currently have contracted finished up. Those that haven’t been finished are in the final stages.
- We continued marketing for our septic system repair program and have now completed more than twenty septic system repairs, which doubles our goal for the current grant. We completed cost-share reimbursements for all finished repairs.
- We submitted a formal water quality report on our sampling endeavors within the watershed.
- We await an additional grant to begin in January 2014 to fund additional agricultural projects, septic system repairs, and monitoring.
For the Coahulla Creek Watershed Project:
- We continued working on the Coahulla Creek Watershed Management Plan draft.
- We have been involved in planning another Conasauga River Watershed Cleanup including sites on Coahulla and Mill Creeks of the Coahulla Creek Watershed.
- We began planning a stormwater meeting to complement our stakeholder meeting process.
For the Salacoa Creek Watershed Project:
- We finished up a consecutive year of sampling each month for fecal coliform bacteria counts, TSS, and several other water quality parameters at several sites within the watershed.
- We continued working on the Salacoa Creek Watershed Management Plan draft.
- We continued recruiting watershed advisory members.
- We held our second of four watershed advisory meetings.
- We had a GIS intern complete several of the watershed mapping components of the grant. We finished the additional mapping elements that were necessary for the project.
For the Lookout Creek Watershed Project:
- We continued sampling fecal coliform bacteria, turbidity, and several other water quality parameters within the watershed at several sites.
- We continued working on the Lookout Creek Watershed Management Plan draft.
- We began sampling macroinvertebrate assemblages within the watershed as part of our sampling efforts.
- We continued focusing on developing partnerships integral to project success.
For the Upper Oostanaula Watershed Project:
- We continued sampling fecal coliform bacteria, turbidity, and several other water quality parameters at several sites within the watershed.
- We continued working on the Upper Oostanaula Watershed Management Plan draft.
- We continued focusing on developing partnerships integral to project success.
- We finished work on the GIS analysis portion of the grant.
For the Holly Creek Watershed Project:
- We completed and submitted a Targeted Water Quality Monitoring Plan detailing our planned water quality monitoring endeavors.
- We began sampling for fecal coliform bacteria and total suspended solids as detailed in the Targeted Water Quality Monitoring Plan at various sites in the watershed.
- We have been involved planning another Conasauga River Watershed Cleanup including sites on Holly Creek of the Holly Creek Watershed.
- We had a GIS intern complete several of the watershed mapping components of the grant.
- We began working on a draft of the Holly Creek Watershed Management Plan.