January 28, 1999
Watershed Coalition unveils river inventory
By Vicki Hunker
Staff Writer
A member of the Sandusky River Watershed Coalition Thursday unveiled a river resource inventory that he has been compiling for more than two years.
The report is almost ready to be printed and distributed to the public.
"A heck of a lot of information is available and we should be wrapping up the report within three weeks," David Baker said.
Baker, recently retired director of Heidelberg's Water Quality Lab, said the report draws on data collected by the water lab and other sources to create an inventory of the watershed and to begin defining problems.
"We hope that the inventory and the coalition can be a strong factor in accelerating programs in the watershed," he said. "We think it will serve as a good basis."
With a baseline in place, he said, the report will allow the coalition to judge the effectiveness of improvement programs.
One highlight from the report, Baker noted, was that agriculture plays a big part in river and stream quality. Within the watershed, 84 percent of land is in agricultural use, while 12.6 percent is wooded and 1.2 percent is urban.
"Most of the rain in the Sandusky River watershed is going to fall on cropland," he said.
The report also lists the biological resources in and around the rivers and streams, such as aquatic life and mammals, and contains a list of the endangered species that make the watershed their home.
Baker also highlighted a few of the problems with water quality, mainly from agricultural runoff of nitrates and herbicides.
"As far as recreational use, we have problems with high bacteria counts," he said, specifically after rains when water levels are high.
Because the resource inventory is nearly complete, the coalition's next step would be to create a management plan using the information.
Monica Ostrand, coalition coordinator, said the first step in creating the plan will be to identify key problems in each sub-watershed and create educational materials to inform people.
In addition, she has planned 11 meetings, one in each sub-watershed, to take place in March.