The Mohawk River Basin Program 3,460 square mile watershed - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

The Mohawk River Basin Program

• 3,460 square mile watershed
• Includes all or parts of 14

counties

• 172 municipalities.

Madison Montgomery Oneida Otsego Saratoga Schenectady Schoharie Albany Delaware Fulton Greene Hamilton Herkimer Lewis

• 2009 New York Ocean and Great Lake

Ecosystem Council Report

• How best to manage natural resources

and human activities

• Ecosystem-Based Management Approach

to Watershed Planning

• 2011 Mohawk River Basin Program

created

Our Waters, Our Communities, Our Future

Where it all began...

• Shared vision
• 50,000 foot perspective
• Overarching goals and
• bjectives
• Targeted actions

Challenges, Goals and Progress

Mohawk Program who???

• Changing perceptions
• Creating a Sense of Place
• Forming partnerships

MAKING CONNECTIONS AND FORMING PARTNERSHIPS

• Union College
• Annual Mohawk Watershed Symposium
• Schoharie River Center
• Environmental Study Teams
• HRECOS
• New stations at Utica (Ilion), Lock 8 (Glenville) and Rexford
• United States Geological Survey (USGS)
• Ice Jam Cam
• Prattsville Flood Inundation Mapping
• Fish Assemblages in the Mohawk River

• SUNY ESF
• Status of Blueback Herring in the Mohawk and

Hudson Rivers

• American Eel Survey work (with DEC and USGS)
• Mohawk River Watershed Coalition
• Representatives of the 14 Soil and Water

Conservation Districts within the watershed

• Mohawk River Watershed Management Plan
• The Environmental Clearinghouse (ECOS)
• Water Assessments by Volunteer Evaluators

(WAVE)

GRANT FUNDING FOR PROJECTS

2012 – Mohawk River Basin Program Mini-Grants

• Conservation easement to preserve ~120 acres of active working

farmland in the Town of Glenville

• Schoharie County Recreation Map

http://www.schohariecounty-ny.gov/CountyWebSite/2013RecMap.pdf

• ECOS: Along the Bike Trail Guides

http://www.ecosny.org/ecos-publications

• Trail connection – Mohawk Landings Park (Town of Colonie)
• Waterfront Development Feasibility Study (Aqueduct Park, Niskayuna)
• Schoharie River Center – Environmental Study Team

• Community Science Water Quality Monitoring to

Support Data Collection, Student Engagement and Public Outreach ▪ Water sampling blitzes throughout the Mohawk River and its major tributaries ▪ Samples to be analyzed and mapped ▪ Looking for trends of chronic contamination ▪ K-12 STEM Educators from Middleburgh High School and Madison Oneida BOCES New Visions Program in Utica

Research Foundation for SUNY Cobleskill

Onondaga Environmental Institute, Inc.

• Lessons for the Mohawk River: Youth Engagement and Environmental

Stewardship

• Youth engagement through classroom lessons and field activities
• Targeting students in New York Mills and Oriskany school districts
• Activities will increase environmental awareness and stewardship,

leading to increased knowledge and understanding of the Mohawk River watershed

Schoharie Crossing State Historic Site Kiosk

• Partnership with USGS and NYS OPRHP @ Schoharie

Crossing State Historic Site

• First phase of a 2 phase project completed, 2nd phase in

progress

Oneida County Soil and Water Conservation District

• Washington Mills Sewer Line

Protection and Streambank Stabilization ▪Stabilization of existing sanitary sewer line in the Sauquoit Creek ▪Restore natural function and improve habitat ▪Remove barriers to fish passage; install riffle to accommodate fish passage in low water

Flood Inundation Mapping – Prattsville, NY

http://wimcloud.usgs.gov/apps/FIM/FloodInundationMapper.html

Mohawk River Flooding

• 2014 - 13 state-of-the-art flood

studies in high priority watersheds ▪ 4 - Oneida County ▪ 8 – Herkimer ▪ 1 – Montgomery

• 2017 - Schoharie Creek – initiated by County SWCD
• Restoration/mitigation plans reduce risk and improve resiliency

Sauquoit Creek

Fulmer Creek

PROGRESS REPORT

https://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/58571.html

WHERE DO

DO WE WE GO GO FROM HERE?

The Mohawk Program is growing!!

Andrea Conine, PhD – Research Scientist, NYSDEC Michaela Schnore – Research Support Specialist, SUNY ESF This past summer we added an intern, Courtney Nichols, from SUNY ESF

Updating the Action Agenda

• Water Quality
• Fisheries, Habitats and

Recreation

• Flooding and Resiliency
• Stewardship

Water Quality

Protect Source Water Improve water quality to reduce risks to human health Improve recreational opportunities Reduce Point and Non-Point Source Pollution

Fisheries, Habitats and Recreation

• Enhance aquatic and riparian

habitats

• Reduce the influx of invasive

species

• Understand, manage and

improve Mohawk River fisheries

Develop strategies to mitigate the impacts of invasive species

Mohawk River TMDL development

(Total Maximum Daily Load – Maximum amount of a pollutant that can occur in a waterbody)

• Enhanced monitoring of bacteria, nutrients

and chlorophyll

• Project started in 2015, monitoring first

phase commenced in 2016

• Goal: Development of a TMDL for main-

stem Mohawk from Utica to Cohoes

LENS: Load Estimator of Nutrient Sources

• Tool that helps to prioritize

watersheds for clean water plans

• Calculates estimates of annual

nutrient load from a watershed

• Requires a geospatial analysis

to generate inputs into the tool

Input: square-meters of each land cover class

LENS summary tab

Combines outputs from each page Quantifies estimated percent contribution of each phosphorus load source

Compiled results

Output is a table with each watershed as a separate row ▪Percent of each land use type ▪Estimated percent contribution of each phosphorus source

Recommendations

Monitor: Forested: Schoharie Creek at Burtonsville & West Canada Creek at Wilmurt Agricultural: Ninemile Creek & Sauquoit Creek Developed: Lisha Kill & Nail Creek Install temporary stream gages: Historical Lisha Kill gage Nail Creek Ninemile Creek

Mohawk Source Water Monitoring Project

• Purpose: Characterize how nutrients

and algae interact and influence the potential formation of disinfection by-products

• Study will take place on main-stem

Mohawk between Pattersonville and Cohoes

• One reference site on the Hudson

River in Waterford

Main-Stem Mohawk Flood and Ice Jam Study

Thank You

Katherine Czajkowski – Mohawk Watershed Coordinator 518-402-8251 katherine.czajkowski@dec.ny.gov