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Fellows-McDaniels Watershed
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
This project focuses on the City of Springfield's two water supply reservoirs on the Little Sac River: McDaniel and Fellows Lakes. McDaniel Lake, completed in 1929, stored 1.46 billion gallons of water. Fellows Lake (1955), 3 miles upstream, stores 10.1 billion gallons. The combined watersheds of these reservoirs are about 39 square miles, (25,000 acres).
Both reservoirs have experienced nutrient inputs of concern to water supply personnel. Studies of the lakes over a five year period, 1983-1987 indicated that McDaniel Lake was moderately eutrophic and Fellows Lake was at the upper end of mesotrophic. A watershed study started in 1983 as a response to severe taste and odor problems in the water supply. These problems were related to algae blooms believed to have been stimulated by excessive nutrient input from the watersheds. Agriculture was then the predominant land use in the watershed.
This watershed project utilizes a comprehensive approach to watershed management aimed at preventing further water quality degradation of these important drinking water sources. The two categories of nonpoint source pollution believed to constitute the greatest water quality threats at this time are addressed - runoff from agricultural activities, primarily cattle operations; and septic tank leachate from systems in marginal sites and soils.
PRODUCTS AND OBJECTIVES
The outreach plan contains a video/slide presentation to document the monitoring, best management practices (BMPs) implementation and results from the agricultural runoff demonstration project. Also included are fact sheets on the BMPs. A practical guide to performing site evaluations for local inspectors, engineers, soil scientists and other persons who have a stake in the successful performance of on-site sewage systems is under development as well as video tapes/slide shows /brochures and technical sheets to be used as training tools on job site evaluations. A special plan has been developed for monitoring on-site wastewater systems in karst terrain.
While this project is on-going, during the early years of the project a clean lakes study was also taking place on McDaniel Lake. Over the sampling period of the study the lake water quality showed improvement.
Project Period: 1992 - 1997
PROJECT SPONSOR
Watershed Committee of the Ozarks
CONTACT
Watershed Committee of the Ozarks
300 West Brower
Springfield, Missouri 65802-3817
Loring Bullard, Director
telephone: 417-866-1127
email: loring@watershedcommittee.org
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