Taylor Creek assessment

Watershed Planning

Sierra SWCD - Your local leaders in natural resources.

Under Section 303(d)(1) of the Clean Water Act, states are required to develop a list of waters within a state that are not in compliance with water quality standards and establish a total maximum daily load (TMDL) for each pollutant.

A TMDL is defined as “a written plan and analysis established to ensure that a waterbody will attain and maintain water quality standards, including consideration of existing pollutant loads, and reasonably foreseeable increases in pollutant loads.

CURRENT PROJECTS

In 2003 the reaches of Taylor Creek above Wall Lake and from Beaver Creek to Wall Lake were listed.  The Taylor Creek stakeholders formed a watershed group to understand, disseminate, and address the impairments identified in the Taylor creek watershed. They submitted a proposal and received funding for watershed group development that would have a product of a comprehensive watershed plan WRAS (Watershed Restoration Action Strategy) addressing the impairments and identifying management practices that could reduce the TMDL’s.The Taylor Creek Watershed Planning Group submitted a grant proposal to the NMED to write a Watershed Restoration Action Strategy (WRAS) which would identity the TMDLs and what Best Management Practices could be implemented to improve those items. After the completion of the WRAS the Workgroup can then apply to NMED for funding to implement the Best Management Practices identified. Currently, the SWCD received funding to write a WRAS and has submitted that WRAS to the New Mexico Environment Department for review. The next step will be to begin the process of securing funding to implement the practices identified in the WRAS. Affected landowners, interested stake holders and governmental agencies serve as members of the Taylor Creek Watershed Planning Group. If interested in reading the completed Watershed Action Strategy, please review the attached document.

Taylor Creek WRAS

In 2005 two more reaches of watersheds within the Sierra District were listed on the 303(d) list: portions of Percha Creek and Alamosa Canyon. Proposal were submitted to the Surface Water Quality Bureau to complete a WRAS, but the proposals were unsuccessful. Neither of these reaches were listed in the FY07 process

A grant has been secured from the US Department of Agriculture-Natural Resources Conservation Service program to complete a Rapid Watershed Assessment on the Alamosa Canyon Watershed. This program, entitled Cooperative Conservation Partnership Initiative, is designed to foster conservation partnerships that focus technical and financial resources on critical natural resource issues in watersheds of special significance located within identified Hydrologic Unit Code watersheds. District staff will be initiating the process to meet with stakeholders and write the Rapid Watershed Assessment, which is very similar in scope to a Watershed Restoration Action Strategy. If you have questions or would like to become involved, please contact our office.