Beneficial Areas

Identifying land uses and activities that have a negative impact on water quality or the assimilation of increased water quantity is often the primary focus of watershed planning. While managing the impacts of these activities can and does improve water quality and assimilation, it is equally important to identify the existing land use conditions and activities in a watershed that currently enhance or protect water quality and reduce the risk of flood related damages. As these areas are protected, the potential of further degradation will be reduced.

Buffered Stream Reaches

The term buffer includes those areas where permanent vegetation has been established with the intention of trapping pollutants and managing other natural resource concerns, such as field wind breaks, vegetated fence rows, filter strips, and riparian buffers. Buffered stream reaches can be beneficial to the watershed in many ways. Loadings of sediments, nutrients, and pesticides can be significantly reduced after passing though a vegetated buffer adjacent to the stream or ditch. These corridors are also important to the wildlife of the area as they provide habitat and food sources perhaps not found elsewhere. Overhanging vegetation, even if only tall grasses, allows the water course to be shaded in areas, creating a cooler environment, maintaining more consistent dissolved oxygen levels within the water, and providing a conducive habitat for aquatic organisms.

Within the Upper Wabash River watershed, there are approximately 330 miles of streams. Based on visual inspection of digital aerial photography, it has been estimated that approximately 208 stream miles, or 63% have 30 feet or more of vegetated buffer on one or both of the streambanks. Additionally, the mainstem of the Upper Wabash River appears to have a healthy riparian buffer system in excess of 75 feet of vegetation on either bank. These buffers provide a valuable water quality benefit and should be protected from encroaching development or neighboring land uses. Those stretches lacking sufficient cover should be revegetated. NRCS Practice Standard 393 suggests that with a minimum average flow length of 30 feet, reductions in the dissolved contaminants, nutrients, and suspended sediments in the
overland runoff can be achieved. Healthy riparian buffers and/or corridors along the Wabash River and tributary streams may also provide flood control benefits, reductions in personal property damages, and increased retention and detention during high water events to allow for enhanced infiltration. Root systems associated with properly maintained and proportioned streambank vegetation such as tall grasses and woody vegetation also reduce the potential for streambank erosion and destabilization. When these root systems are removed or prohibited from growing, streambanks are more susceptible to sloughing and eventual collapse.

Areas of buffered stream reaches considered critical and in need of long-term protection include those reaches of the Wabash River main-stem with greater than 75 feet of riparian corridor. Smaller streams and tributaries with greater than 50 feet of buffered streambank should also be provided protection. These areas not only provide habitat for land and aquatic species, they also provide crucial protection and enhancement capabilities for overall water quality, provide storage areas for high water events, and reduce potential monetary damages and injuries due to flooding.

A method for protecting these well buffered areas is to adopt a basin wide ordinance requiring a minimum of 75 feet setback along the Wabash River and tributaries, ensuring that the riparian area will be maintained and protected from encroachment. Other effective measures include developing a Greenways Plan, purchasing floodplain and/or conservation easements along the mainstem and other currently established riparian buffers, and continual outreach and educational efforts to inform individual landowners of the importance and overall value of riparian buffers.

Wetlands

Within the Upper Wabash River Watershed, there are nearly 2,000 acres of woody or emergent herbaceous wetlands. There are approximately 70 acres within the 05120101-010 subwatershed, 430 acres of wetlands within the 5120101-040 subwatershed, 600 acres of wetlands within the 05120101-050 subwatershed, and within the 05120101-060 subwatershed an approximate 700 acres of wetlands exist. Areas identified as wetlands by the National Wetland Inventory (NWI) are located in Exhibit 6.

These wetlands have the ability to serve several functions in regard to the protection and enhancement of water quality. Water flowing into, or stored in a wetland may be retarded allowing increased time for the uptake of nutrients, settling of suspended solids, and evaporation or infiltration of excess water. If wetlands did not exist, this water would be directed to the nearest open water system; pollutants included. The ability to recharge the surrounding area with slowly
released water helps provide a more consistent soil moisture level in an agricultural setting, while allowing for groundwater recharge at the same time. Wetlands also serve the watershed as wildlife habitat areas providing cover from predators while also serving as a food source. Several projects listed above involved restoration or protection of critical wetlands and these areas will be beneficial to the functioning of the natural landscape as well as the historical
heritage of the area.

The individual County Comprehensive Plans have identified the importance of wetlands to the environmental and the need for protection of existing wetlands. The Adams County Comprehensive Plan of 1994 discusses the need to consider existing wetlands in reviewing development proposals, promote preservation of existing wetlands, and to encourage landowners to restore marginally productive farm land to wetland status. Jay County has stated that any development that will destroy or harm any environmentally sensitive areas, such as wetlands) should be discouraged. While the Wells County Comprehensive Plan does not specifically identify wetlands, it does state that an extensive system of conserved open space following the county’s major watercourses has been proposed.

In order to provide the most benefit to the Upper Wabash River Basin, the 11-digit HUC prioritized for wetland protection should be the 05120101-060 subwatershed, while the 11-digit HUC prioritized for wetland construction or restoration efforts should be the 05120101-010 subwatershed. However, as none of the 11-digit subwatersheds have more than 2% of the land use classified as woody or emergent wetlands, protection, restoration, and construction efforts should be carried out watershed wide.

Protected Lands

Areas that are protected through the purchase of conservation easements carry with them obligations for perpetuity. These areas are often obtained as a measure of protection prior to land use alterations. However, it is possible, and successful to purchase a particularly sensitive area and restore the flora, fauna, and water quality benefits that had been removed or damaged. Areas maintained through a conservation easement have the ability to lessen pollutant loadings, provide habitat, reduce flood damages, and allow for protection of critical land uses. Parks, recreational areas, and open space areas allow for the increased potential for infiltration of stormwater, uptake of nutrients, and entrapment of solids such as sediment, thus reducing the loadings to streams, rivers and ditches. These low development areas, if placed in sensitive locations can also reduce monetary damages caused by frequent flooding. Flood damages to the open space or recreational areas could be far lower than damages to residences or other
structures routinely found along a water course.

Click HERE for full listing of Protected Lands within the watershed.

Areas with Central Sewer or Other Treatment Facilities

Residential areas that are serviced by a centralized wastewater facility such as a WWTP or an operational package plant have reduced the potential for sewage or other household effluent to enter a nearby drainage ditch, stream or river. While there are risks and impacts associated with such services, the benefits far outweigh the detriments regarding the protection and enhancement of water quality. Treatment facilities have the ability to efficiently and effectively treat household wastewater while discharging significantly cleaner water into the receiving water bodies.

Areas serviced by centralized treatment facilities in the watershed include the Town of Geneva and the Town of Bryant. The City of Bluffton, the City of Portland and the Town of Berne are areas serviced by centralized treatment facilities, very near to the watershed boundaries. As these incorporated areas continue to grow in population, it may eventually become necessary to extend the service areas for the wastewater treatment plants. This may provide the opportunity
for residences to abate their current on-site septic systems, thus reducing the overall potential for untreated household wastewater to enter the streams and tributaries in the Upper Wabash River watershed.

Critical service areas are those municipalities with separated storm and sanitary sewer utilities operating at less than or equal to half the design capacity. Feasibility studies need to be completed for these critical areas to determine the facility’s operational ability and cost projections to extend services to those residents within 2 miles of the current service area.