Chattoga River Watershed Plan

Proceedings of the 2007 Georgia Water Resources Conference, March 27-29, 2007, Athens, Georgia.In 1999, the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (EPD) established TMDLs on eight tributaries in the Chattooga River Watershed located in Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. The Georgia Environmental Protection Division estimated that over 85 percent of the water quality impairments from fecal coliform and erosion and sedimentation stemmed from agricultural related activities. In 2000 and 2001, cooperating agencies and representatives from urban, development, municipal, environmental, forestry, and agricultural interests formed the Chattooga River Watershed Group to use the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) nine-step process to identify contamination sources and to develop a watershed plan. The process determined that the City of Clayton’s leaking waste water treatment facility was responsible for significant amounts of the fecal coliform contamination. Modeling studies showed fecal contamination from agricultural runoff to be below water quality standards (100 col/100 ml). Sediment from harvested forest land, public forest land and development contributed 63 percent of erosion and sedimentation in the watershed according to modeling activities. Agricultural lands contributed only two percent of all erosion in the watershed.Sponsored and Organized by: U.S. Geological Survey, Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Natural Resources Conservation Service, The University of Georgia, Georgia State University, Georgia Institute of TechnologyThis book was published by the Institute of Ecology, The University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602-2202. The views and statements advanced in this publication are solely those of the authors and do not represent official views or policies of The University of Georgia, the U.S. Geological Survey, the Georgia Water Research Institute as authorized by the Water Resources Research Act of 1990 (P.L. 101-397) or the other conference sponsors