Wills Creek Watershed - Crossroads RC&D

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W I L L S C R E E K W A T E R S H E D WHAT ISa Watershed ? WHAT ISa Watershed ? Everyone lives in a watershed. A watershed is an area of land in which all the water drains down to a common outlet. All the land in the Wills Creek Watershed drains to Wills Creek. As the water moves down the slopes and across the surfaces, it is influenced by the land and how we use it. It travels across forests, farms, suburban lawns and city streets through streams, lakes and wetlands as surface water, or it seeps into the soil and moves as groundwater. A watershed does not acknowledge political boundaries and includes all living things within its boundaries as members of its community. Every living thing in the Wills Creek Watershed is part of the same watershed community. To the Muskingum River Watersheds Come In All Sizes Watersheds can be very large or very small. Small watersheds come together to form larger watersheds which in turn come together to form even larger watersheds. The small streams flowing through your back yard are all part of a group of sub-watersheds flowing together to form the Wills Creek Watershed. Wills Creek Watershed is part of the group of watersheds that flow together to form the Muskingum River Watershed, which drains into the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. 6 WILLS CREEK MUSKINGUM Watershed MISSISSIPPI Watershed Watershed The Importance of Watershed The Wills Creek Watershed is located in East Central Ohio and is comprised of 436,600 acres (682 square miles) and contains an estimated 1,390 miles of waterways. VS:GSWCD NRCS Wills Creek flows north through Guernsey County into Coshocton County. There it turns west and moves across the Muskingum and Coshocton County line several times before emptying into the Muskingum River just north of Adams Mills in Muskingum County. Healthy Watersheds Threatened Healthy Watersheds Healthy watersheds are some of the nation’s most precious resources. With populations growing and development increasing, healthy watersheds are being threatened. Most threats are caused by land use. Activities such as clearing forestlands, paving new roads and parking lots, application of fertilizers and pesticides, plowing of farmlands, and release of improperly treated waste water affect the health of a watershed. The Watershed Approach Clean water is essential for the health of the Wills Creek Watershed community. All living things within the watershed community are dependent on the water that flows through it. The water is like a memory of the land over which it flows. Land that is abused and polluted is reflected in the quality of the water. We need to consider ways each of us can help protect, maintain and improve the water quality of our watershed. One such way is through the use of the Watershed Approach. The Watershed Approach considers all activities within the watershed that affect its health. It emphasizes the relationships among land management decisions, everyday actions and watershed health. Why is Water Quality Important? Where Does the Water We Drink Come From? The water we drink comes from both private and public water supplies. Both surface and groundwater are used as a supply source. Approximately 32% of all households in Guernsey County obtain their water from private water sources with the majority being rural households.The primary source for the private water supplies is groundwater from drilled wells. Other than household use, private water supply uses include commercial, livestock and irrigation mostly from surface water sources. Public water supplies 68% of all households in Guernsey County. The source of the public water is both surface and groundwater. PUBLIC AVG USAGE WATER SUPPLY SOURCE SUPPLY TYPE GALLONS PER DAY Cambridge Reservoir Filled by Wills Creek Surface 3,586,000 Byesville 8 Drilled Wells Ground 1,053,000 Quaker City Leatherwood Creek Surface 48,000 Cumberland 2 Drilled Wells Ground 54,250 Pleasant City 3 Drilled Wells Ground 51,000 Western Guernsey Service Co. Purchases Water from Cambridge Surface 183,000 Kimbolton Purchases Water from Guernsey Co. Water Dept. Surface 21,600 Guernsey Co. Water Dept. Purchases Water from Cambridge Surface 679,000 W I L L S C R E E K . . . O U R B A C K Y A R D W A T E R S H E D 7 JCK MW:ODNR Small Mouth Bass Micropterus dolomieu Thrives in medium to large streams, with good water quality, current, gravel or rock bottom, and banks with dense patches of waterwillow. MW:ODNR Water strider or Pond skater Gerris remigis Lives primarily on still waters, but also is capable of walking on the surface of running water. Yellow (sweet) Buckeye Aesculus octandra Grows in moist areas. Fruits are smooth, unlike the Ohio Buckeye.
W I L L S C R E E K W A T E R S H E D GEOLOGY A watershed can be described as being made up of several pieces: the land, ecology and water resources. Together these pieces form an environment unique to the watershed. The following pages describe each of the pieces and how they work together to form Wills Creek Watershed. Within these descriptions a better understanding is provided as to how these pieces fit together to form a healthy environment in which to live, work and play. The Bedrock the beginning The bedrock foundations on which Wills Creek is built were formed approximately 350 to 250 million years ago during what is termed the Paleozoic age. During this period of time, a great sea occupied what is now Ohio. The sea was bound to the east by the ancestral Appalachian Mountains. Rivers flowed from the mountains carrying coarse rock and debris which were deposited in the sea forming large deltas. The level of the sea fluctuated over time. This produced alternating layers of non-marine and marine rock. The great systems of alternating sedimentary rock produced by these actions are known as the Mississippian and the Pennsylvanian systems. The non-marine layers consist of sandstones, clays, shales and coals and the marine layers consist of black shales and limestones. understanding the Land 8 SC:NRCS The Glacier Development of the Regional Drainage System Beginning approximately 2 million years ago during the Pleistocene Epoch, huge continental glaciers formed and moved southward over Ohio. Prior to glaciation, drainage in Ohio flowed north. With the advance of the glaciers, thick blocks of ice and debris blocked the north-flowing rivers. This created large glacial lakes that fingered into the smaller streams. As the lakes filled with sediment and water, an outlet formed, diverting the ancestral Muskingum River from a westerly course to its present day southerly course. THE SHAPINGof Wills Creek Watershed The shape of the land, or its landform, influences the watershed and how it functions as an ecosystem. Landform is dictated by the local geology, topography, soil type, climate and the way people use the land. In turn, all this affects the quality and quantity of the resources within the watershed. The landforms as observed today in the Wills Creek Watershed are the result of the development of the land surface over a vast expanse of geologic time. The landforms are expressed as topographic features such as hills, ridges and valleys. These features were shaped by water through the active processes of erosion, weathering and deposition. LM:GSWCD LM:GWSCD Well Typical Geologic Strata in the Wills Creek Watershed Area Topsoil Sandstone Shale Limestone Coal Clay Groundwater The Soils The soils of Wills Creek Watershed developed under a deciduous forest cover in a humid, temperate climate. The upland soils formed on materials developed in place from the weathering of the underlying bedrock. The soils on the floodplains developed from alluvial material deposited as streams carried it down from the surrounding hills. The Land changing how water flows as we now see it GLACIATED UNGLACIATED Today Wills Creek Watershed is dissected by many small stream drainways forming a pattern, similar to branches on a tree, called a dendritic drainage pattern. In the upper reaches of the watershed, narrow ridges are separated by deep valleys with steep side slopes. Narrow floodplains occupy these valley bottoms. In the lower reaches of the watershed, broad valleys have formed between the ridgetops. Terraces are prominent along these valleys. VS:GSWCD W I L L S C R E E K . . . O U R B A C K Y A R D W A T E R S H E D ODNR 9 MW:ODNR Indigo Bunting Passerina cyanea Common in hedgerows and wood margins. Males are blue while the females are plain brown. MW:ODNR Dusky Salamander Desmognathus fuscus Stream side salamander typically found along banks of gorge bottom streams. Prefer hiding under flat rocks. MW:ODNR Black Willow Salix nigra Shrub or tree; Pioneer species invading moist soils.Valuable for control of streambanks.
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Wills Creek Watershed - Crossroads RC&D

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