The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency ranks north-central Ohio’s Sugar Creek watershed — encompassing parts of Wayne and Holmes counties — as one of the most impaired in Ohio due to sedimentation, nutrient enrichment, bacterial contamination, and loss of riparian (streamside) habitat. But lately the tide has turned for the better. Farmers in the watershed now use at least 12 different Best Management Practices (BMPs) — practical, effective, scientifically proven ways to keep water clean and healthy — by teaming with OARDC’s Sugar Creek Watershed Project.

Started six years ago by OARDC’s Agroecosystems Management Program (AMP), the project combines science with the local community — farmers, residents, businesses, municipal officials, others — to tackle a complex challenge: improving environmental quality throughout the entire watershed. Greater use of BMPs — with details, assistance, and materials from the Project free or on a cost-share basis — stands as a key.

AMP’s Richard Moore, the head of the Project, says the practices, among other things, cut the amount of nitrates (the cause of “blue baby” syndrome), phosphorus (which fuels algal blooms), sediments (which turn water muddy), and bacteria (such as E. coli) that run off into the water. Yet they also help farmers and businesses to likewise boost their earnings.

One method, called the Late Spring Nitrate Test, let a watershed farmer slash his spending on nitrogen fertilizer by $3,000. Using the test, reports the Journal of Environmental Quality, can reduce how much nitrate gets into water by nearly a third.

Another BMP — livestock exclusion fencing — keeps farm animals away from streams, increases soil organic matter, increases biodiversity, and protects against wind and water erosion. Extra: A dairy farmer who worked with the project saw his milk quality soar (thus earning a price premium) and mastitis (infection of the udder) rate plummet after installing the fencing. 

A third BMP, riparian buffers, has created at least eight miles of new, contiguous buffers in the upper part of the watershed alone. The buffers may stop about 75 percent of the nitrates that enter them and serve as a reservoir for phosphorus, keeping it from entering the stream. Moreover, Moore said, they yield a significant “symbolic role in connecting diverse farmer and non-farmer partners.”

Previously, “People in the watershed were not aware of the problem or didn’t think the stream was that polluted,” he said. “Now they have mobilized themselves to address the problem and try to do something about it.”