Summary
The Browns Wonder - Sugar Creek Watershed is located within the larger Sugar Creek Watershed and covers portions of Clinton and Boone Counties, Indiana. The land use of the watersheds is predominately agricultural (over 95% of land use in the watershed).
Concerns such as: sedimentation from erosion, excessive levels of nutrients, and bacteria brought partners together. There are 17 stream segments equaling approximately 75 miles of waterways, in the BWSC watershed that are listed as impaired on the 303d list for E. coli and Impaired Biotic Communities.
Due to increasing community concern over several of the streams in the Browns Wonder-Sugar Creek Watershed, the Clinton County Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD) began searching for partners and ways to implement action and change into the watershed. With support from the Boone County SWCD, Clinton County SWCD applied for and was awarded a 319 grant to develop a watershed management plan (WMP) and an education/outreach program. In 2015, the Clinton County SWCD began writing a comprehensive WMP to address nonpoint source water pollution in the watershed.
The WMP is a strategy for achieving water quality goals by characterizing the watershed, setting goals and actions steps, and developing an implementation plan to address documented problems. The Browns Wonder-Sugar Creek WMP meets the requirements of IDEM’s 2009 Watershed Management Plan Checklist and was approved by IDEM and EPA in October 2017.