- return to Clean Lakes -

Nebraska Watersheds News and Views       Spring 2005 Issue 4

Hello, and welcome to the quarterly electronic Nebraska Watersheds News and Views newsletter. I hope this issue and the ones to follow will provide useful information that will increase both your knowledge and interest of water resource issues. The purpose of the electronic newsletter is to provide information on watershed topics and issues, share ideas, programs and publicize events to watershed council members, watershed project coordinators, Extension educators and specialists, agency personnel, watershed management professionals and natural resources professionals. The newsletter is intended for educational purposes only. Newsletter information may be reprinted or reproduced. If you intend to use this material, please acknowledge the authors and the source of information. Interested persons are invited to contribute articles, news items, photographs or other materials for publication. Please, feel free to ask questions, share ideas, or provide feedback.

Steve Tonn-University of Nebraska Cooperative Extension Educator-Douglas/Sarpy Counties/Omaha Lakes Extension Coordinator

In This Issue

• Be A Good Neighbor
• Clues To An Effective Group
• 60 Ways Farmers Can Protect Surface Water
• Impacts of Urban Development on Waterways
• Watershed Activities Views Events Successes

Be A Good Neighbor

Individuals who do not live next to a stream may find it difficult to understand how their actions can impact water quality. No matter how distant you are from a waterway, through creeks, rivers, and underground springs we are all connected because We All Live Downstream.

When you get involved in protecting local water quality you can take pride in knowing your efforts will extend beyond the boundaries of your backyard and help improve the qualify of life in neighborhoods located further downstream.

Nonpoint source pollution is a collective problem - directly or indirectly it is the result of many individual actions. How can you be a Good Neighbor and help to control nonpoint source pollution?

What Farmers Can Do

• Team up with your local Natural Resources Conservation District. Learn how you can get the maximum value out of animal manure. A nutrient management plan may help you save money and at the some time, protect water quality.
• Explore using Integrated Pest Management a program designed to help reduce pesticide pollution. Contact your local Cooperative Extension Office.
• Incorporate "Best Management Practices" into your farming operation. They can help optimize your harvest and reduce soil erosion. You may be eligible to receive cost-share assistance for implementing these approved practices. Contact your Natural Resources Conservation District, Natural Resources District or Farm Service Agency Office for more information.

What Developers and Industry Can Do

• Control runoff from construction sites. Familiarize yourself with your state, county or city erosion and sediment control regulations and seek assistance from your county conservation district office. Minimize disturbances to trees and vegetation. Follow storm water management guidelines when designing and installing drainage systems.
• Practice good industrial housekeeping. Control toxics from industrial sites by developing and following a pollution prevention plan.

What Everyone Can Do

• Plant trees, shrubs, and groundcovers to prevent soil erosion of your property. Report sediment and erosion control problem to your county conservation district.
• Help reduce runoff by using building materials such as brick, flagstone or wood for walkways and patios. Divert runoff from your roof to a well-vegetated area rather than the pavement.
• Call your local Cooperative Extension office for help with soil testing to determine the right amount and type of fertilizer to use on your lawn and garden.
• Dispose of used motor oil, antifreeze, points and other hazardous materials property. Never dump substances down a storm drain, onto the soil, or into a waterway
• Reduce emissions by using public transportation or car pooling. Save energy by turning off lights, lowering thermostats, and insulating hot water pipes in your home.
• Support your local government's role in controlling nonpoint source pollution. Attend planning meetings and hearings, promote activities such as city tree plantings, or help establish a community environmental advisory council. •
• Encourage your school board to promote educational pollution prevention programs •
• Join a citizens’ stream cleanup or water quality monitoring effort.

Source: Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection

- return to top -

Clues to an Effective Group
Steve Tonn- Douglas/Sarpy Counties Extension Educator

We all have opportunities to serve on groups, boards, councils, committees etc. Some are more effective than others. Some are more enjoyable to serve on than others. What makes one group more effective than another? What makes one group more enjoyable to serve on than another? Here are some guides, not rules, to consider. Do they strike you as important? Worth thinking about? Practical in actual group situations? How do they apply to your Watershed Council?

1. A really effective group is made up of individuals who share the leadership and responsibility for the work of the group.
2. It operates in an atmosphere of friendly cooperation, yet it concentrates on its job.
3. An effective group starts with an agenda, to which everyone agrees. It then takes up each item in order of importance or urgency.
4. It clarifies for all the problem or topics for discussion, and works at them in an orderly, systematic way.
5. An effective group wisely budgets its time in a meeting, avoiding lengthy, but senseless deviations, but recognizing new issues when they arise. Inflexibility may hamper progress.
6.  It practices democracy, permitting individuals to contribute, to criticize, and to take the time to make group decisions, through individual reasoning and sharing of ideas.
7. An effective group takes steps when necessary to lessen hostility, ill feelings, or misunderstandings among its members.
8. It appraises its progress, knows when to pause and summarize, keep all members oriented to the task of the group.
9. It encourages the “quiet” people to contribute, realizing that verbal ability is not the only indicator of a valuable group member.
10. An effective group is large enough to draw from various viewpoints and backgrounds of individuals, but small enough to enable all to share, and participate directly and indirectly in its work.

Source: Presentation by Elmer H. Miller at Nebraska FCL Institute, 1996.

- return to top -

60 Ways Farmers Can Protect Surface Water

Distribute residue evenly at harvest
Avoid fall tillage
Determine how your operations will affect residue cover
Estimate residue cover in the field
Adjust equipment to preserve residue
Plant a cover crop
Rotate crops
Select vigorous perennial pasture species
Protect the soil with special-use annual forage crops
Protect the soil with rotational grazing
Use no-till when renovating pasture
Mange timberland to protect soil
Reduce compaction and increase infiltration Install grass waterways
Plant vegetative filter strips or make critical area plantings
Farm on the contour
Use contour strip cropping and contour buffer strips
Install terraces Install grade control structures
Install water and sediment control basin
Use diversions
Install a farm pond
Maintain your drainage system to protect surface water
Control streambank erosion with the willow-post method
Avoid channelization of streams and creeks
Set realistic yield goals
Monitor the level of nutrients
Credit other nitrogen sources
Select nitrogen fertilizers wisely
Apply nitrogen in the spring
Apply fertilizer with a global positioning system
Keep livestock out of water
Divert runoff water
Collect and store contaminated runoff
Install a vegetative filter-if appropriate
Determine accurate manure application rates
Calibrate manure application equipment
Apply manure wisely
Scout fields for insects
Base decisions on the economic thresholds for insects
Use crop rotation and plant diversity to control insects
Spot-treat insect infestations when possible
Scout for weeds and know their economic thresholds
Fine tune your weed control program to cut back on herbicides
Manage crops to compete aggressively with weeds
Don’t assume that no-till requires more herbicide
Band herbicides and cultivate
Control weeds with cover crops
Select the least toxic pesticide
Determine your soil’s potential for runoff
Calibrate your sprayer
Consider direct injection and closed handling system
Observe setback zones
Rinse and dispose of chemical containers safely
Construct a rinse pad
Dispose of other farm wastes safely
Source: North Central Regional Extension Publication 589 – 60 Ways Farmers Can Protect Surface Water

- return to top -

Impacts of Urban Development on Waterways
Steve Tonn, Douglas/Sarpy Counties Extension Educator

Urban development has a profound influence on the quality of the Omaha metro area’s waters. As the City spreads outward, more and more streams, especially small creeks feeding directly in to rivers, are transformed into urban streams. These natural areas are perhaps the most neglected watercourses.

An urban creek may experience many things on its journey from its headwaters in the upper watershed to its mouth at the confluence of a larger creek, stream, or river. It may pass through a park or residential area in one reach, then flow past a shopping mall or industrial park in the next. In a small, steep, wooded draw behind a residential area, it may become a convenient place to dump grass clippings or garbage. It may pass through vacant lots, becoming lost among the discarded appliances, shopping carts, and tires. It may flow through an over-fertilized golf course. It may flow for long distances inside a culvert underground. It may receive stormwater runoff from oily roads, parking lots, and factory drainage ditches. Uninformed neighbors may even dump used motor oil or antifreeze into storm drains that empty directly into the stream.

The situation worsens after construction. Roof tops, roads, parking lots, driveways and other impervious surfaces no longer allow rainfall to soak into the ground. Consequently, most rainfall is converted directly to runoff. The increase in stormwater can be too much for the existing natural drainage system to handle. As a result, the natural drainage system is often altered to rapidly collect runoff and convey it away (using curb and gutter, enclosed storm sewers, and lined channels). The stormwater runoff is subsequently discharged to downstream waters such as streams or lakes.

Once buildings and pavement are introduced, less water is able to penetrate the soil to be filtered of contaminants such as automobile by-products, pesticides, fertilizers, and excess sediment. Not only is the land less able to filter contaminants, but increasing numbers of people produce a greater pollutant load.

There are countless threats to water quality and wildlife habitat due to urbanization. The urban environment contributes 11.8% of nonpoint source pollution into the nation’s waters. Impacts result from residential, transportation, commercial, and industrial uses. Specific impacts include toxic substances that enter the food chain, petroleum products that are harmful to plants, fish and wildlife; excessive nutrients that increase algal blooms; and a reduction in water quality.

Sediment, fertilizer, pesticides, trash, automotive products, oil, paints, solvents, pet waste, gasoline, household chemicals are all examples of nonpoint source pollution. Stormwater management practices help to control nonpoint source pollution through the use of nonstructural and/or structural techniques to intercept surface runoff from developed areas, filter and treat this runoff, and then discharge it at a controlled rate. The overriding condition that governs the quantity of stormwater runoff is the amount of impervious surfaces located on your property (driveways, roofs, carports, sidewalks, etc.) Stormwater quality, however, is governed by the accumulation of pollutants on the entire surface area, regardless of whether it is grassed or paved. As the use of chemicals around the home such as fertilizers, pesticides, engine oils, deicing materials, and similar products increases, the more degraded the stormwater runoff from your property will be. Although the effect of one property on the quality and quantity of stormwater runoff may seem insignificant, the cumulative impact from hundreds of thousands of yards across the Omaha metropolitan area continues to be destructive to our water quality.

- return to top -

Watershed Activities Views Events Successes

Aggressive Education & Incentive Campaign in the Shell Creek Watershed
Janell Wyant, Shell Creek Watershed Project Coordinator

This is the vision of The Shell Creek Watershed Improvement Group (SCWIG), a locally led group of farmers, landowners, teachers, business owners & residents of the Shell Creek Watershed. The Shell Creek Watershed is part of the Great Plains. It is located in the east-central part of Nebraska in northeast Boone County, southwest Madison County, and the northwest and central part of Platte County and western and southern Colfax County. It encompasses more than 300,000 acres, drains a 465 square mile area and is a tributary of the Platte River. From beginning to end it crosses over more than 110 miles. Agriculture is the main economic enterprise in the area.

Current and past management has been detrimental to the soil, water, wildlife, and other natural resources. Significant and multiple natural resource concerns are now plaguing the watershed and impairing the water that first impacts four rural towns and four counties with over 7000 residents before eventually finding its way to the well fields of the Lincoln-Omaha area.

This resource-based regional project started with a landowner initiated effort in 1999 using Community Based Planning and development of a Watershed Management Plan. Thirteen (13) private/public partnerships and over 400 land users have participated. The desired outcome of this project is to begin a healing process and completely restore the environmental functions of this watershed.

The Shell Creek has a rich history of flooding. Heavy rains can push the creek out of its banks somewhere almost every year. Some of these storms cause considerable damage to fields, farmsteads, railroads, livestock, communication, power, and road structures. When heavy rain occurs the soil can’t infiltrate the water fast enough and the water is forced to leave the fields taking with it valuable topsoil, ag-chemicals, livestock waste and crop residue. A key factor in the problem is the management practices being utilized in the area. SCWIG has been awarded a three year Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality 319 grant and Nebraska Environmental Trust Fund grant to offer financial incentives on conservation practices to those people who want to start new conservation practices. The Best Management Practices created by the SCWIG coincide with other existing incentives offered by NRCS and the Lower Platte North NRD. Implementation of an aggressive education campaign and Best Management Practice Incentive program hope to result in a substantial increase in the adoption rate of no-till farming and many other conservation practices. To better manage the project due to the enormous size of the Shell Creek Watershed (309,000 acres), SCWIG has determined to treat the watershed in phases with targeted areas defined. In the initial phase of the project the targeted area is approximately 30,000 acres, 1/10th of the entire project. SCWIG is committed to this project and will spend many years seeking ways to accomplish the aggressive goals set throughout the entire watershed.

For more information contact Janell Wyant at (402) 454-2026 or e-mail janell.wyant@ne.usda.gov

- return to top -

=====================================================================
Issued in furtherance of Cooperative Extension work, Acts of May 8 and June 30, 1914, in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Elbert C. Dickey, Director of Cooperative Extension, University of Nebraska, Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

It is the policy of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln not to discriminate on the basis of gender, age, disability, race, color, religion, marital status, veteran's status, national or ethnic origin or sexual orientation.