Watershed Assessment Project in Elk, Mon Rivers Seeks Feedback
The State Journal
12 March 2012
By Pam Kasey
A pilot project to make map-based information about watershed
health and threats available online at a high level of detail has
reached a milestone.
Watershed groups, county planners and others looking for the
highest conservation or restoration priorities will be helped by
the West Virginia Watershed Assessment Pilot Project, a project of
the Nature Conservancy and the state Department of Environmental
Protection under funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency.
The Nature Conservancy is ready to share its progress over the
past year with stakeholders in the Elk and Monongahela watersheds.
"The goal for these workshops is to present what we are proposing
as an interactive web tool and as a report and getting feedback
about what works for (stakeholders), what they would like to see,
what doesn't working for them," said Ruth Thornton, the Nature
Conservancy's conservation information manager.
The two-year pilot project encompasses five West Virginia
watersheds: over the past year, the Elk and Monongahela and, over
the coming year, the Gauley, Little Kanawha and Upper Guyandotte.
The overarching goal of the project is to create a tool that helps
a range of stakeholders make decisions affecting aquatic
resources, leading to an increase in the functional wetland and
riparian acreage in a watershed.
To do that, the Nature Conservancy's West Virginia field office
has been meeting over the past year with the Environmental
Protection Agency, university researchers and others who have
local knowledge and data, to pull information together and begin
designing the interactive mapping tool.
"We're gathering all sorts of data on these watersheds, mostly GIS
data, map data that is mostly publicly available," Thornton said.
"We got some sensitive datasets as well, like the rare species."
Within the two watersheds, the Nature Conservancy team has drilled
down from the Hydrologic Unit Code-8, or HUC-8, level — that's
United States Geological Survey speak for a watershed the size of
the Elk or the Mon — down to the HUC-12 level. There are 22 of
those in the Mon and 44 in the Elk.
And they're going smaller still, Thornton said, down to units of
100-500 acres: the scale where planning and projects take place.
"We have to look smaller to assess priority areas for
conservation," she said. "We're ranking all of these smaller
planning units and saying, for example, in terms of biodiversity,
these are higher. In terms of habitat quality, these are higher.
Water quality, wetland quality, upland quality, trying to take a
complete look at all of the systems that would be important for
conservation decisions."
Watersheds will be ranked, both overall and in categories.
"So if someone is looking for stream restoration opportunities,
they would probably look for medium-rated areas, and they might
look at things like water quality and quality of riparian
habitat," Thornton said. "The tool will allow them to hone in on
specific target areas that might be good candidates."
Now, a year into the project, Thornton and her colleagues are
ready to meet with stakeholders in the first two watersheds to
show their progress.
"Before we go too much further, we want to make sure the product
we're developing will work for stakeholders and partners," she
said.
She expects the tool to be used by watershed associations and
other nonprofit organizations, counties and towns, as well as
private citizens who want to know more about their watersheds.
"You can learn a lot by looking at what landfills are in the area,
what the land cover is like, where are the gas wells, where is
there acid mine drainage — but also, what are the insects, what
are the fish species, things like that," she said.
The live web tool likely will be available around April 2013, and
Thornton said she hopes more watersheds will be added.
"This is a pilot project on five watersheds, and I believe there
are 42 watersheds in West Virginia," she said. "So we are setting
up the methodology and hopefully, with more funding becoming
available, the DEP or somebody in the state will be able to
continue this and expand it."
Those interested in about progress so far on the Monongahela River
can attend a meeting on April 3 in Morgantown, and those
interested in the Elk can attend April 5 in Charleston. Times and
locations have not yet been set; for information, contact Thornton
at (304) 637-0160, ext. 102.