Geronimo, Alligator Creek meeting to be held Aug. 10

Geronimo, Alligator Creek meeting to be held Aug. 10

Meeting in Seguin will focus on ‘science’ of watershed protection

SEGUIN – The Texas AgriLife Extension Service, Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority and Texas State Soil and Water Conservation Board will be holding a meeting for the Geronimo and Alligator Creeks Watershed Protection Plan Project.

The meeting, which is free and open to the public, will be Aug. 10 at the river authority’s annex in Seguin at 905 Nolan St. It will begin with registration at 5:30 p.m., followed by presentations from 6-8:30 p.m.

“The partnership has already held several informational and work-group meetings in Seguin and New Braunfels to facilitate public involvement in developing and implementing a water quality protection plan for these watersheds,” said Ward Ling, AgriLife Extension program specialist.

Watershed planning efforts were made possible through a Clean Water Act grant administered by the soil and water conservation board.

Ling said partnership organizations and the public were able to identify and recommend strategies to reduce watershed pollution, as well as discuss outreach and educational programs for those audiences using watershed resources.

“An agricultural work group focused on the potential causes and sources of pollution stemming from agricultural and forestry activities on cropland, pastureland and rangeland,” Ling said. “An urban work group addressed potential pollution stemming from residential, commercial and industrial land use. And a wastewater work group dealt with potential sources of pollution stemming from on-site sewage and wastewater treatment facilities.”

Ling said the Aug. 10 meeting will focus on some of the technical findings of potential source analyses done on the watershed.

“We will present some of the science behind watershed issues so people may better understand them, plus we will give them the opportunity to offer further input.”

Topics at the meeting, he said, will include watershed modeling outputs and load duration curves, a discussion of background sections of the draft watershed protection plan, Texas Water Development Board grant funding opportunities, recent flood study findings and request for public comment, and discussion on the value of riparian areas.

“At the meeting, we will present the final SELECT modeling system outputs which will provide an estimate of potential bacterial loading from each source,” Ward said. “We also will discuss our findings on load-duration curves, which will help determine how much the bacteria and nitrogen will need to be reduced to bring the water quality back to standard.”

Geronimo Creek and its tributary, Alligator Creek, which flow through Comal and Guadalupe counties, were identified for watershed protection plan development due to concerns about high levels of nitrogen and elevated levels of bacteria, as reported in the Texas Water Quality Inventory published by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

“As development and population growth in the region surrounding Geronimo and Alligator creeks continues, and urban land use increases, the need for improved water quality is also increasing,” said Debbie Magin, director of water quality services at the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority.

Other key area partners supporting watershed protection efforts include Comal and Guadalupe counties, the cities of Seguin and New Braunfels, New Braunfels Utilities and the Comal-Guadalupe Soil and Water Conservation District.

For more information on the meeting, contact Ling at 979-845-6980 or wling@ag.tamu.edu or Magin at 830-379-5822 or dmagin@gbra.org.

Information on the Geronimo and Alligator Creeks Watershed Partnership can be found at http://geronimocreek.org.

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