Wyoming Watersheds Progress 2005

Executive Summary

Since 1998, Wyoming’s Conservation Districts, with the guidance and leadership of local watershed steering committees, have taken the initiative to improve water quality throughout the state. All of Wyoming’s 34 Conservation Districts are involved in water quality activities at some level, including monitoring the waters within their districts, developing watershed plans to address identified impairments and threats, and assisting citizens to implement management practices to improve water quality.

Most watershed planning efforts are initiated in response to waters being listed on Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality’s 303(d) List of Waterbodies with Water Quality Impairments. The Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality prioritizes the waters for Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) development, in part based on whether local people have initiated a watershed planning effort. Those waterbodies being addressed by a local watershed planning effort are given a low priority for TMDL development, providing an opportunity for voluntary and incentive based implementation activities to improve water quality. Local people are best suited to address water quality issues - they know and understand the watershed in which they live. Water quality improvement depends on local people volunteering to undertake projects, which is much more likely if the participants were involved in the project planning effort and have ownership of the actions to be implemented. The ultimate goal for watershed planning is to use local knowledge to determine actions needed to improve water quality and then implement them, in order to improve water quality and ultimately remove stream segments from the 303(d) list.

This report provides a update on the status of these locally driven watershed planning efforts. It is designed to provide a brief synopsis of the background on the listing, the impairments or threats identified, the monitoring, planning and implementation activities occurring to remedy water quality issues on a watershed by watershed basis. Private landowners and homeowners as well as local, state and federal agencies are all involved in water quality improvement activities and this report provides a means of compiling an inventory of these efforts in one document.

The information and actions highlighted in this report are a demonstration of local people’s commitment to their water quality and supports the assertion that locally developed and implemented efforts are most effective in addressing natural resource concerns. Although this report focuses on the impaired and threatened waters in the state, there are a number of watershed assessment activities occurring on unlisted waters. As this report is updated in the future information on those efforts will also be included.

The Wyoming Association of Conservation Districts would like to extend our appreciation to the Wyoming Nonpoint Source Task Force, Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality and the Environmental Protection Agency, Region 8 for providing section 319 funding to allow the publication of this report and most importantly providing the opportunity for local people to address their water quality concerns and address them locally.

Also thanks to those entities that have provided financial support to this locally led watershed approach, including the Wyoming State Legislature and Wyoming Department of Agriculture for supporting funding specifically for water quality efforts.

Special thanks goes to Doug Miyamoto, WACD/NRCS Watershed Coordinator for the countless miles driven and hours dedicated to assisting Wyoming’s local people. Also to Jon Ungerer and George Cleek who also served in this capacity.

WACD has also created a web based Watershed Report which includes additional information on these water quality activities. To view this report and additional watershed information please visit www.conservewy.com.