Jones Soil and Water Conservation District
What is a watershed?
It's the land that water flowsacross or under on its way to a
stream, river, or lake.
Everyone lives in a watershed. You and everyone in your watershed are part of the watershed community. The animals, birds, and fish are, too. You influence what happens in your watershed, good or bad, by how you treat the natural resources, the soil, water, air, plants, and animals. What happens in your small watershed affects the larger watershed downstream.
The landscape is made up of many interconnected basins, or watersheds. Within each watershed, all the water runs to the lowest point, a stream, river or lake. On its way, water travels over the surface across farm fields, forest land, suburban lawns, and city streets, or it seeps into the soil and travels as ground water. Large watersheds like the ones for the Mississippi River, Columbia River, and Chesapeake Bay are made up of many smaller watersheds across several states.
Big Bear Creek Project Background
2002, June 4th storm dumped heavy rains, causing runoff from Little Bear creek watershed to flood Wyoming. This and other flooding events sparked meetings held in Wyoming and Jones Soil & Water Conservation District (SWCD) Commissioners requested technical and financial assistance from the Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS), Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship Division of Soil Conservation, Iowa Department of Natural Resources, and others. NRCS personnel conducted a survey and assessment of Little Bear Creek watershed and determined that several structures (ponds) could significantly reduce flooding in the Wyoming while providing water quality improvement benefits.
2003-2004 Jones County Urban Rural Project developed, and some funding was approved for certain projects, including a small amount of technical assistance to Little Bear Creek area and Wyoming.
2005 Landowner survey conducted to determine interest in various conservation practices, and field office staff worked with individual landowners to prepare cost estimates and designs. Historical fisheries data Showed very good potential for Bear Creek to support a diverse population of fish if water quality improvements could be made. With evidence of high landowner interest and good potential for water quality improvement, the Jones SWCD submitted an application for 319/WSPF funding for a 3-year project in the Big Bear Creek watershed. This was not approved. In the fall of 2005 a detailed watershed assessment was conducted to determine acres of each land use, number of livestock facilities, and feet of streambank erosion needing stabilization.
May 2006 Again Jones SWCD submitted an application for 319/WSPF funding for a 3-year project in the Big Bear Creek Watershed which again was not approved.
October 2006 Jones SWCD submitted and was approved for a 3-year watershed project through the watershed Improvement Review Board (WIRB)
January 2007 The first meeting was conducted kicking off plans to improve water quality in the Bear Creek Watershed with additional benefits to fisheries and wildlife, as well as the hope of reducing flooding events in Wyoming. The Mineral Creek Water Quality project, is a good testimony to what can be accomplished when we all work together to improve out water resources.