Watershed Education for Communities and Officials

Background

The Black Creek watershed, about 3.3 mi2 in area, is located in the northern section of the Town of Cary. The creek discharges to Lake Crabtree, a flood control reservoir on Crabtree Creek. Highly urbanized, the watershed is nearing build-out with a combination of high density residential, commercial, and institutional development. Classified C, NSW, Black Creek is on the Draft 2004 NC 303d list with impairment for aquatic life and potential sources listed as urban runoff/storm sewer.

The Project
Black Creek is on the EPA 303(d) list for biological impairment due to stormwater runoff in an urbanizing environment. Recent development activity in the watershed has raised community concerns about the Creek and the Town of Cary's popular Black Creek Greenway that runs adjacent to much of the creek and connects to Umstead State Park and Crabtree County Park. Citizens and the Town of Cary are interested in harnessing the local energy of the community to prevent further degradation of the natural resources and to determine reasonable goals for watershed restoration.

This project involves two complementary components:

1. Watershed management and restoration planning: WECO will convene a watershed association of watershed residents, representatives of institutional and commercial entities in the watershed and representatives of the Town of Cary. The watershed association will involve the community to cultivate a watershed vision, educate each other on watershed issues, and collaboratively develop community supported recommendations for the watershed management and restoration plan. The final watershed restoration plan will address the EPA's nine required elements of a watershed plan. This watershed planning process will provide an opportunity at a teachable moment to educate local citizens and officials about watershed issues and involve them in the protection and restoration of a locally precious resource, while involving them in implementing solutions.

2. Watershed assessment and monitoring - The technical team of faculty and graduate students from the Dept. of Forestry and Environmental Resources (DFER) will determine the causes of Black Creek's impairment by: (a) conducting a detailed watershed assessment, (b) planning and implementing a monitoring program to detect changes over time in key stressor indicators and the effectiveness of restoration plan implementation, and (c) developing a geodatabase for input, storage, viewing, analysis, and reporting of complex spatial and non-spatial watershed data.

Photo by Cameron Cobb