TMDL for Middle Fork, Wolf Creek under way

By MARK SAGE/Staff

Shelley Williams said no one is pointing any fingers.
Williams, of the Department of Environmental Quality’s Southwest Regional Office in Abingdon, said the health of Wolf Creek and the Holston’s Middle Fork is everyone’s responsibility.
“It’s a watershed problem,” she said.
Fixing the problem, she said, is a matter of education; however, it’s also a matter of the law. The 1972 Clean Water Act federally mandated Total Maximum Daily Loads for all bodies of water. In Virginia, the 1997 Water Quality Monitoring Information and Restoration Act required an implementation plan, and a 1999 Consent Decree with the Environmental Protection Agency required it be done by 2010, Williams said.
The TMDL is the total amount of pollution a river or creek can receive and still meet water quality standards. It’s the number that pollutant levels on the Holston and Wolf Creek will have to be reduced to, Williams said.
A small crowd from Washington and Smyth counties turned out to the Glade Spring Community Center on Aug. 7 to find out how big the problem is.
On the Middle Fork, it’s about a 44-mile problem, basically the entire length of the river. The watershed for the Holston’s Middle Fork chases Interstate 81 from the tip of Wythe County, through Smyth and into Washington, where it joins with the South Fork to form South Holston Lake.
Unlike the Middle Fork, the South Fork seems to be in good shape. Teresa Frazier, a water quality monitor in the DEQ’s Abingdon office, said last week that “the Middle Fork’s murky water can be seen flowing into the South Fork’s clear water.”
For Wolf Creek, the problem is the 17 miles Wolf Creek runs from Abingdon to the lake.
Neither the Middle Fork nor Wolf Creek meet the standards for clean water in the amount of bacteria – specifically e. coli – or the number and types of water creatures found. Williams said more than 10 percent of the samples from each body of water didn’t meet standards for recreational use, meaning there were 235 bacteria units per 100 milliliters.
The plan to restore clean water to Wolf Creek and the Middle Fork, which will grow out of the study under way now, will aim to cut bacteria and ensure animal health.
The study will first identify all pollution sources. Afterward a computer model will help show where reductions have to take place. From there, Williams said, the next step is to implement the plan and restore the water.
“It’s very important to get you guys involved,” she said at that first public meeting.
A 30-day comment period will follow the meeting. After that, a second meeting, where a draft document will be available, will be held. That meeting will be followed by another 30-day comment period. The document then goes to the Environmental Protection Agency for approval ant to the state Water Control Board for adoption.
Williams said the speed at which it all gets done depends a lot on how fast residents want to push it.
Byron Petrauskas of Engineering Concepts Inc. said sediment and nutrients seem to be the main causes of pollution in both Wolf Creek and the Middle Fork.
“It appears sediment and nutrients are having an effect on the benthic community,” he said.
Benthic is a fancy way of saying the critters that live on the river’s bottom. Officials study the health of aquatic life by counting the numbers of those critters known to be intolerant of pollution, moderately tolerant of pollution and highly tolerant of pollution.
Petrauskas said addressing sediment might address the nutrient problem as well.
He said that each testing station on both the Middle Fork and Wolf Creek saw elevated levels of bacteria during all conditions. However, charts show particularly high amounts in June, July and February.
Williams said that e. coli is only found in the guts of warm-blooded animals. It has to come from people, livestock or wildlife.
The Holston’s total watershed is about 40 percent agriculture land, 9 percent residential lands and 50 percent forested, according to Petrauskas. Wolf Creek is about 45 percent agriculture, 21 percent residential and 33 percent forest. All those areas introduce bacteria to the rivers.
Scat from deer, bear, ducks and other animals enter from the forested and other areas. Runoff from farmland, pastures and fields enter from agriculture lands. And in residential areas, common causes are failed septic systems and straight pipes, which send raw sewage, more or less, into the water. Though straight pipes are illegal in Virginia, Petrauskas estimates there are around 100 in the Holston’s watershed and 25 in the Wolf Creek watershed. He said an estimated 1,000 of the 12,400 housing units in the Middle Fork watershed have failing septic systems. An estimated 180 of the 3,800 housing units in Wolf Creek’s watershed have failing systems, he said.
Estimates for failed septics were based on the age of the house. Straight pipes were estimated by using maps and Census data.
Frazier said last week that much of the trouble along the Holston can be traced back to “all the cows that have access, not necessarily to the river, but to the tributaries.”
Petrauskas’ estimates show 13,000 beef cows, 2,100 dairy cows, 1,377 horses, 545 sheep and 1,249 goats in the Holstons’ Middle Fork watershed. The Wolf Creek watershed is home to an estimated 1,300 beef cows, 270 dairy cows, 253 horses, 46 sheep and 181 goats, according to Petrauskas.
He said one key to solving the issue is education. Farmers should be following best management practices and nutrient management plans. However, any implementation plan will be voluntary, he said. He said ensuring clean water means that people have to relate to their individual watersheds and that that can’t be regulated.
Funding, for septic system repairs and/or upgrades and for fencing livestock out of waters, will be available, according to Martha Chapman of the state Department of Conservation and Recreation.
Petrauskas said the second public meeting is planned for early spring. Meanwhile, all water monitoring data are available online at http://www.deq.virginia.gov.
Contact Shelley Williams at (276) 676-4845 or or Byron Petrauskas of Engineering Concepts at (540) 473-1253 at .
Contact Mark Sage at 228-6611 or .

Tips for reducing water pollution include
Maintaining your septic tank
Bagging pet waste and placing it in the trash
Fertilizing your lawn only in the fall;
Using an alternative water source for livestock to keep them out of streams.
- Source DEQ