Join the Discussion: Stakeholders Invited to Water Quality Forums Across State 

Who should attend: Watershed stakeholders - people who live and work in the watershed. Examples: Master Gardeners, Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) personnel, city and county officials and workers (i.e. road department, parks), County Extension Councils and subcommittee members, environmental science teachers at local colleges and schools, school board, chambers of commerce representatives, business owners, producers, utility service providers, Farm Bureau members, conservation district personnel, etc.

Please RSVP with Amanda by email at aperez@uaex.edu or call 501-671-2228. 

• (1) Beaver Water District and Illinois River Watershed Partnership Rain Gardens

• Illinois and Upper White River Monitoring 

• Lower Conway-Point Remove and L'Anguille River Watershed Monitoring

• STRebanD Phase II and SWAT Modeling

• Cache River Monitoring and Larkin Creek - Phase II Implementation

• L'Anguille River - Conservation Tillage 

• Boone County - Bull Shoals Conservation

Flow Control System for Reducing Streambank Erosion (2)

Past monitoring has shown excessive turbidity in one section above the river's confluence with the Arkansas River and another section near Waldron as not supporting aquatic life because of elevated metals and total phosphorus. In 2006, the state issued a limit to the amount of turbidity that could be introduced into the waterway without harming water quality. The watershed was designated as a priority in the state's 2006-2011 Nonpoint Source Pollution Management Plan.

Participants attending a September water quality forum hosted in this watershed identified dirt roads and flooding as two priority issues for the Poteau Watershed. Other water quality concerns included erosion, excessive nutrients and sediment.

Phosphorus is a naturally occurring element that can be found in all living organisms, as well as in water and soil. It is an important ingredient for plant health. But if too much phosphorus enters our waterways, the excess amounts can lead to low oxygen levels, algae growth and fish kills. In recent years, Oklahoma and Maryland university researchers built and tested phosphorus removal structures on properties where high amounts of phosphorus were present to trap and filter phosphorus from runoff water.

Landscape filters

Phosphorus Removal Structures, or landscaped filters, have been used in agricultural and residential settings in the Illinois River Watershed to intercept phosphorus particles before they could enter local waterways. The contaminants are absorbed by materials that act as a filter, and then removed from the structure because a build up of phosphorus in the soil is detrimental over time.

photo courtesy of Dr. Chad Penn A phosphorus removal structure was tested on a poultry farm near the Oklahoma/Arkansas border. There are many ways to build this filtration structure. They don't necessarily need to be a box.

Golf courses and cities may be the first users of this type of BMP because of the cost involved. Farmers may also be interested in it. Oklahoma State University is in the process of licensing modeling software for private use and expects to provide the software at no cost to Natural Resources Conservation Service, which helps farmers design BMPs.

Location

These structures can be placed in "hot spots" or drainage ditches where runoff may contain dissolved phosphorus. Researchers have placed them on golf courses, in roadway ditches and near poultry houses. 

Design 

Phosphorus Removal Structures can vary in size and shape. University researchers used a metal box-shaped design. They also tested filling a ditch with steel slag instead of building a contained structure. Anyone can build this BMP, though using software to determine how much water and phosphorus a structure could handle would be more effective.

Material

The ideal filter material to use in this structure would be local, inexpensive and fast acting, as well as something that won't be a pollutant itself. OSU researchers used steel slag, a gravel-like byproduct of the steel production industry, in one of their test structures. Water should be able to easily move through the filter material and not clog. When the material can no longer trap and hold phosphorus, it should be removed. Steel slag that can no longer hold phosphorus can be used on dirt roads or in construction, according to Dr. Chad Penn, an OSU professor researching and testing the BMP. Re-release of phosphorus would not be a concern, he said.