Water Resources Center certification and Plum Creek payoff

Seven years ago, Plum Creek was added to the state’s impaired waters list. This stream located between the Mississippi River and Warner Lake in Stearns County was impaired for E. coli bacteria. While E. coli doesn’t typically cause disease, it is used by the MPCA as an indicator for other types of harmful organisms that can be in the water from animal waste (wild animals, people, or livestock and poultry).

Jerry Finch, a local township supervisor in 2014, wanted to fix the problem. Finch felt he needed more knowledge and skills to make it happen, so he took the suggestion of MPCA staff to get training at the University of Minnesota. “So I went to the U and signed up for the watershed specialist course,” which is offered through the Water Resources Center.

Finch earned his watershed specialist certification with mentoring from the Stearns County Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD). Finch used what he learned to organize about 20 other people who live near the creek into the Plum Creek Neighborhood Network. They worked closely with the local township board, the county SWCD, MPCA, the University of Minnesota, and St. John’s University. “That’s the secret to it,” Finch says. “One group can’t do it alone. Most rewarding in all this was all the help we received.”

Much of the work done by the network and its partners was trying to figure out where the bacteria was coming from. Finch was involved in the intensive monitoring for E. coli that was done in Plum Creek over several years. The monitoring revealed levels spiked during heavy rain events/high creek flows, indicating soil (from field erosion) and streambed sediments were likely the most significant sources of bacteria but waste from humans (septic systems) and wildlife (birds, waterfowl) were also possible sources. Inspections identified several areas near the creek susceptible to erosion.

Based on what the groups learned, the local SWCD led several projects to reduce the impact of these potential sources:

• Erosion control structure constructed to address erosion from a county road culvert.
• Suspect septic systems were upgraded or replaced.
• Stearns SWCD assisted a landowner with the installation of a water quality structure to address field erosion that was directly entering the creek.
• Stearns SWCD worked with MnDOT to install a buffer on interstate highway right-of-way land near the creek.
• Area farmers adopted new tillage and planting practices to reduce erosion.
• The work of the network, state and local partners, and land owners made the difference. Monitoring conducted in 2019 by the Stearns County SWCD with assistance from volunteer Ted Stevens showed average E. coli counts dropped low enough that the MPCA determined Plum Creek should be delisted from the EPA Impaired Waters List.

Plum Creek and other waters that are up for delisting can be found in the draft 2020 Impaired Waters List and the online Impaired Waters Viewer tool.

Finch was very happy to hear the news about Plum Creek being delisted. “That was our mission.”