Summary
The Salt-Pipe Creek Watershed is 151,187 acres in size and is located in portions of Rush, Fayette, Decatur, Franklin, Ripley, and Dearborn counties. There are approximately 550 miles of streams in the watershed. Primary land use types in the watershed include forest (55%), and cultivated crops (24%), pasture and hayland (14%). Roughly 72% of the watershed is classified as highly erodible or potentially highly erodible and is at risk for erosion. The watershed is home to the small communities of Lake Santee, Hamburg, and Oldenburg and contains portions of the towns of Brookville, Sunman, and Batesville.
Decatur County Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD), along with Franklin County SWCD, were concerned about the water quality in the watershed, particularly Salt Creek, for many years. After the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) completed a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) report for the Southern Whitewater River Watershed, which included both Salt Creek and Pipe Creek watersheds, Decatur and Franklin SWCDs decided it would be an ideal time to develop a watershed management plan and utilize the data IDEM collected for the TMDL. A 205(j)/319 grant application was submitted to IDEM in 2016. The project was awarded a 205(j) grant in 2017.
Based on water quality sampling conducted by IDEM and the watershed inventories conducted during the Salt-Pipe Creek watershed project, E. coli, sediment, nutrients, dissolved oxygen, and impaired biotic communities were identified as water quality problems in the watershed. According to Indiana’s 2016 Integrated Report, there are streams in watershed impaired for E. coli (383 stream miles), nutrients (35 stream miles), dissolved oxygen (18 stream miles), and biological communities (68 stream miles).
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 Salt-Pipe Creek WMP meets the requirements of IDEM’s 2009 Watershed Management Plan Checklist and was approved by IDEM and EPA in July 2019.