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Note: This Special Edition of The Forum Newsletter was prepared in HTML to present the Davis Creek Watershed Plan. The Forum Newsletter is published by The Forum for Kalamazoo County several times a year and will be published on the Forum's web site as as resources allow. The Forum for Kalamazoo County is a nonprofit, private organization which works to improve Kalamazoo County for its residents in a nonpartisan way.
Davis Creek Mission Statement
Economic Growth, Quality Of Life Concerns Draw Community Focus
Community Input Used to Create the Plan's Goals & Objectives
Five Separate Water Quality Goals Identified
Watershed Plan Objectives
Davis Creek Water Quality Problems
Water Quality Problems Impair Public and Private Uses of Davis Creek
What Environmental Concerns Need Restoration Actions?
What Environmental Concerns Require Pollution Prevention?
Federal, State and Local Contributions Fund the Davis Creek Watershed Plan
The mission of the Davis Creek Watershed Initiative is to improve the water quality and environmental health of Davis Creek and the Kalamazoo River by severely reducing the pollution and erosion from runoff within the watershed. Education, action and environmental cleanup are our goals by involving the diverse urban and rural landowners in improving the quality of life for people, wildlife and the community.
Davis Creek and the Davis Creek watershed are located in the urban and urbanizing core of Kalamazoo County, Michigan. Within this urbanizing core, the Kalamazoo River and its major tributaries (including Davis Creek) have recently received tremendous public attention as valuable, shared resources for community economic growth and quality of life enhancements.
The Davis Creek watershed came into public focus when the Nonpoint Source Pollution Advisory Committee of the River Partners Program identified this creek as the most polluted tributary in Kalamazoo County. It quickly became clear that the degraded water quality of Davis Creek was due to nonpoint source pollution. Nonpoint source pollution (NPS) is the contamination of surface water and groundwater by sediments, nutrients, organic compounds, pathogens and heavy metals which originate from a variety of diffuse sources. Another common term for NPS pollution is contaminated storm water.
Davis Creek, also sometimes referred to as Allen Creek or the Olmsted- Davis Drain, is a highly modified, predominately urban drainage corridor. The watershed encompasses portions of five local jurisdictions: the cities of Kalamazoo and Portage, and Comstock, Kalamazoo and Pavilion Townships. The watershed has been urbanizing generally in a northwest to southeast direction which is roughly the inverse of the overall flow of Davis Creek. The lower (downstream) reaches are largely urbanized and contain large industrial/commercial tracts which include Wings Stadium, the former Cork Street landfill and Lakeside Oil Refinery. The upper reaches (Pavilion Township) are currently rural, agricultural lands with occasional, dense residential developments. It is anticipated that this urbanizing trend will continue moving toward the origin of Davis Creek at East Lake.
Numerous public meetings and the input from five citizen focus groups were used to reveal the general public's perception of the water quality impairments of Davis Creek.
Water quality impairments were easily evident in the creek's failure to fully support partial body contact recreation, indigenous aquatic life, a warm water fishery and wildlife habitat. The creek was well known as a magnet to children living nearby, and their safety and welfare were a particular concern.
Examination of the identified water quality impairments led the Steering Committee to establish five principle water quality goals for the Davis Creek Watershed Project:
Community work sessions were also used to gather data on current and future desired uses for the creek as a shared public/private resource. This task included on-site interviews with key-stakeholders. The results of the key-stakeholder interviews were published as a supplemental document to the full Davis Creek Watershed Management Plan.
The public meetings and other input mechanisms were used to define various long and short-term planning objectives which might be used to meet the water quality goals for Davis Creek.
These ideas and others were reviewed by the Davis Creek Steering Committee, and distilled into twelve program objectives. These objectives (see below) represent the essential elements of the Davis Creek Watershed Plan.
Water quality tests and biological assessments have shown that the creek is stressed from development and land use impacts associated with the continued urbanization of the watershed. The creek suffers from the following known types of NPS pollution:
The degraded water quality o Davis Creek results in the creek's failure to fully support uses for
The Creek's ground water recharge function is also important since the City of Kalamazoo has several water supply wells located adjacent to the creek.
Achieving long-term water quality improvements may also identify a potential to restore Davis Creek as a cold water fishery. Cold water fisheries are generally considered more desirable (and more difficult to maintain) than the stated goal of a warm water fishery. The creek was once known as a trout stream and had, in earlier decades, been stocked by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.
The lower, highly urbanized watershed area is known to contribute sediment and nutrient loadings from channel erosion, railroad and roadway crossings, and storm sewer discharges. Urban storm sewer discharges contribute organic material, trash, and hazardous and toxic components such as oil and petroleum products from motor vehicles, parking lots, de-icing chemicals, and lawn care products (fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides).
Intensive industrial land usage located along the lower reaches of Davis Creek is also a concern due to past releases of polluting chemicals and the potential for further adverse water quality impacts. This segment runs adjacent to sites with known releases of toxic contaminants to the environment. These Michigan Act 307 sites and other abandoned industrial properties include chemical manufacturing, petroleum refining and distribution, paper products manufacturing, municipal solid waste disposal, and the maintenance and storage of transportation equipment. Particularly noteworthy is an EPA Superfund Site situated at the mouth of Davis Creek where the creek joins with the Kalamazoo River.
In a densely populated residential section upstream of Kilgore Road, citizens have reported offensive odors and occurrences of skin rashes or irritating bums among both children and adults who have come into contact with waters of the Creek. Excess sediment, urban trash and the loss of natural riparian vegetation to residential turf grass are particularly evident throughout this stretch. The watershed is largely rural upstream, with agricultural activities being the dominant land use. These areas have potential to contribute nonpoint source water quality problems through agricultural and residential landscaping practices which cause excess sediment, nutrient and pesticide loadings to the Creek.
The effective prevention of current and future adverse nonpoint source impacts requires an educated, active and involved citizenry. Citizen involvement is necessary for effective implementation of changes in private owner land use practices, community-based river clean-up programs, and changes in personal behavior and attitudes which promote creek corridor conservation, stewardship and water quality protection. Citizen involvement is also critical in developing effective and applicable revisions to local government planning, zoning and drainage control ordinances.
The Davis Creek Watershed Implementation Project is proposed to be initiated in the spring of 1997. Up to $1 00,000 in annual grant funds over a three year period may be available from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality with the requirement that there be a minimum 30 percent match in local funding. The majority of these funds come as pass-through dollars from Section 319 of the Federal Clean Water Act
The Implementation Project will focus on NPS pollution prevention through education of landowners along Davis Creek and within the Davis Creek watershed. Site specific remediation projects will be partnership-based, involving landowners, community leaders and affected public agencies.
A Michigan Department of Environmental Quality water quality planning grant of $49,980 provided the major source of funding needed to develop the Davis Creek Watershed Plan. An additional $16,200 in local funding was obtained through participating agency contributions. Project administration has been the responsibility of the Kalamazoo Soil Conservation District, with substantial programmatic assistance provided by the River Partners Program of The Forum for Kalamazoo County.
Local funding used to prepare the plan included services from the following organizations: River Partners Program of The Forum for Kalamazoo County, KAR Laboratories, Inc., Kieser and Associates, Inc., the Cities of Kalamazoo and Portage, and Kalamazoo County.
Additional local assistance included the extremely valuable time contributed by the many individuals and organizations who served on the Davis Creek Steering Committee and participated in various public work sessions. We gratefully acknowledge these contributions toward improving the waters of Davis Creek and to the quality of life within the Kalamazoo River basin.
Davis Creek Watershed
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