71st SWCS International Annual Conference July 24-27, 2016 Louisville, KY

1. Water Quality Targeting Success Stories
ACHIEVING CLEANER WATER THROUGH
FARM CONSERVATION WATERSHED PROJECTS
Michelle Perez, PhD
Senior Policy Specialist
July 26, 2008
Soil and Water Conservation Society
Symposium

2. Agenda
 Introduce the new report
 Background, key findings, &
recommendations
 Hear from leaders of 3 of the
6 case studies
 Q&A; Discussion

3. Traditional conservation
program approach
• USDA financial conservation programs solves water quality
problems on individual farms

4. Traditional & recent
measures of success
• NRCS reports on
administrative metrics:
dollars spent, contracts
signed, & acres or units of
conservation practices
implemented
• NRCS CEAP modeling
estimates nutrient &
sediment reduction effects of
practices & further
reductions if treat “high and
medium” priority areas

5. Recent landscape-scale
approaches
 Emphasizing watershed-
based projects:
• Demonstration – Conservation
Innovation Grant (CIG)
• Programs – Landscape
Conservation Initiatives
(LCIs) (e.g., MRBI)
• Research – National Institute of
Food & Agriculture (NIFA-
CEAP)

6. Recent ways to quantify success
 MRBI encouraged projects
to monitor water quality at
edge-of-field, instream, and
watershed outlet (Tier 1, 2,
& 3)
 RCPP calls for projects that
achieve and measure
“environmental, social, &
economic outcomes”
”Outcomes-oriented
conservation”

7. Research questions & methods
• Impetus questions: Have recent watershed projects achieved
instream monitored success? How did they achieve that
success?
• Methods
• Literature reviews
• Interviews with NRCS staff, farm conservation & water quality experts
• Emails to conservation community
• In-depth interviews with 2 to 5 leaders per case study & review of their
project documents
• Overarching questions: How can the agency’s federal
conservation programs be more successful in improving water
quality and how can those positive impacts be measured?

8. First major finding
It was really hard to find any watershed projects
with instream monitored success:
1. Mississippi River Basin Healthy Watersheds
Initiative (MRBI) – published two write-ups
about 3 successes
2. Great Lakes Partnership Initiative (GLRI)
3. Gulf of Mexico Initiative (GOMI)
4. Chesapeake Bay Watershed Initiative (CBWI)
5. Illinois River Eucha-Spavinaw Initiative
(IRESI)
6. Bay Delta Initiative (BDI) in California – Walker
Creek Project featured in the report
7. National Water Quality Initiative (NWQI)

9. Likely challenges with watershed project
approach & why we don’t know
• Monitoring programs not in place? Or is it a natural lag time
problem? 87% of reviewed MRBI projects said they’d do instream
water quality monitoring
• Monitoring program design or implementation challenges?
Some project leaders at Leadership in Midwestern Watersheds
meetings struggling with monitoring & many don’t know what
quantifying outcomes means & want more guidance
• Is it a reporting challenge? Projects aren’t reporting to NRCS &
NRCS isn’t asking for results?
• If past is prologue, this stuff is hard - Gale et al (1993) & Osmond
et al (2012) reveal how difficult it is to achieve & detect instream
improvements

10. Found 6 projects with
monitored water quality success
Watershed
size (ac)
HUC size Topography Major crops /
land uses
California
Walker Creek
27,000 ~HUC12 + several
other HUC12s
Rolling hills to
flat flood plains
Almond, walnut,
alfalfa,
Oklahoma
Honey Creek
55,000 or
79,000 in OK
3 of 4 HUC12s in
OK
Rolling hills Beef pasture &
poultry
Iowa
Hewitt Creek
25,000 HUC12 Rolling hills,
some tile drains
CS; beef, dairy,
& swine
confined
Wisconsin
Pleasant
Valley 1 & 2
12,300 ~1/2 a HUC12 Ridge tops,
steep slopes,
valley bottoms
CS, alfalfa,
pasture
Indiana
Shatto Ditch
3,300 A fraction of a
HUC12
Relatively flat,
all tile drained
CS

11. Eleven lessons from case studies
 Why and how projects might be
initiated and financed (5)
 Achieving pollution reductions
through targeted conservation
practice adoption (2)
 Detecting outcomes through
chemical, biological, and physical
water quality monitoring (2)
 Detecting field- and project-scale
outcomes through in-field
assessments (2)

12. Targeted
Watershed
Projects
Stakeholders &
changes
needed to
achieve &
detect
improvements
in water quality
• Many project functions needed
• Many financial resources can be
harnessed to cover project costs
• Sustained funding needed over a long
time

13. Six projects highlights
1. California’s Walker Creek Project
• State regulatory compliance project by Colusa Glenn Subwatershed Program,
Glenn County RC&D, & Larry Walker Associates
• AWEP & BDI EQIP funds for pesticide, irrigation, & nutrient mgt practices
• Representative & long-term monitoring program
• 3 yrs no Chlorpyrifos pesticide exceedance & 5 yrs no Ceriodaphnia toxicity
2. Oklahoma’s Honey Creek Project
• 319 Project by OK Conservation Commission & Watershed Advisory Group
• 319 funds for livestock fencing & alternative watering, poultry litter practices, etc.
• Paired watershed with upstream/downstream monitoring design
• 51% reduction in E.coli = Proposed delisting for E. coli. Also: 35% reduction in
nitrate, 28% for P, & 34% for Enterococcus
3. Iowa’s Hewitt Creek Project
• Extension & farmer watershed council project & Upper Iowa University
• IA Farm Bureau & state funds for PI, SCI, CNT, grassed waterways, no till &
cover crops, & MRBI funds for waste structures
• Monthly & rain event sampling
• 60% decrease in turbidity & social & economic outcomes
(e.g., a “watershed community” and increases in profitability)

14. Six projects highlights
4. Wisconsin’s Pleasant Valley Stream Rehabilitation Project
• WI Department of Natural Resources & Dane Cty Land Conservation District
• State, local, & federal WHIP funds for stream bank stabilization & fish habitat
• Before/after monitoring design with 6 biological, chemical, & physical indicators
• 50% decrease in sediment & trout counts up 70-100% = Proposed delisting
stream for sediment
5. Wisconsin’s Pleasant Valley On-Farm Phosphorus Reduction Project
• The Nature Conservancy, University of WI-Madison, USGS, Dane County LCD
• TNC, CCPI, NIFA funds for nutrient mgt, no till, rotation changes, pasture mgt
• Paired watershed monitoring design with continuous flow stations at outlets
• 55% reduction in phosphorus compared to control watershed
6. Indiana’s Shatto Ditch Project
• TNC, University of Notre Dame, Kosciusko County SWCD
• USDA CIG, EQIP, TNC foundation & corporate donor funds
• Before/after monitoring design; bi-weekly grab samples all year
• 30-40 % reduction in both nitrate-N & dissolved phosphorus

15. Favorite findings & lessons
• Farmer leadership - Very important to three projects
(CA, OK, IA) to lead or design projects & encourage
farmer participation
• Targeting of critical sub-areas - Three projects (OK,
IA, WI) used SWAT or Phosphorus Indices (PI) to
prioritize fields with highest P losses thru application
ranking
• Quick monitoring results - One project (IN) detected
30-40% less instream nitrate & DP just nine months
after cover crop adoption on 70% of acres in very small
watershed with rigorous monitoring
• Field-scale & project-level outcomes - Two projects
(IA & WI) used PI & RUSLE2/SCI to (1) estimate P &
soil outcomes & (2) motivate practice adoption by
farmers thru better decision-making

16. Recommendations
1. Watershed project leaders - Heed available guidance on instream
water quality monitoring (USDA 2003 & EPA 2016) & adopt appropriate
field-scale modeling tools to quantify & report on field & watershed-level
environmental outcomes. Ask for help if you need it.
2. NRCS – Provide additional guidance on water quality monitoring &
quantification of environmental, social and economic outcomes to
watershed project leaders and set up a reporting system to collect
success stories. Collaborate with partners to do this.

17. Recommendations
3. USEPA – Offer training events to disseminate its new 2016 guidance
on water quality monitoring to help LCI and RCPP targeted watershed
project leaders develop and implement effective monitoring plans &
offer to help train NRCS staff to evaluate monitoring plans included in
future LCI or RCPP proposals.
4. The research community – Analyze & better understand whether a
“critical mass” of conservation adoption or an “intensity” of treatment of
each priority acre is needed before projects can expect to achieve
measurable improvements in water quality.

18. Recommendations
5. Congress - Increase financial and technical assistance for USDA’s
Landscape Conservation Initiatives and the Regional Conservation
Partnership Program and the USEPA’s National Monitoring Program
and the research agenda above.
6. Charitable foundations and corporations striving to achieve
sustainable supply chains – Provide significant, sustained financial
support to project leaders as well as to farmers to leverage the USDA
funding & help drive this new outcomes-oriented conservation
approach.

19. Saving the Land that Sustains Us
www.farmland.org
Mperez@farmland.org; (c) 410-353-5492
Saving the Land and Water that Sustains Us
Email me for
launch
announcement