Louisiana Watershed Receives National Watershed Award

Middle Tangipahoa Watershed
St. Helena & Tangipahoa Parishes, Louisiana

The Middle Tangipahoa Watershed includes 237,600 acres located in the central part of the Tangipahoa River Basin which has a total area of 520,600 acres in Louisiana and Mississippi.

The Tangipahoa River is designated as a scenic stream in Louisiana, and the middle portion of this river was used extensively for water contact recreation. In early October 1987, the safety of the Tangipahoa River was questioned following publicity regarding a graduate student's thesis which concluded that the Tangipahoa River does not meet water quality standards for primary contact recreation. This prompted the Girl Scouts of America, who operate a large camp on the river, to write to the Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) requesting further investigation of the problem.

In 1988, the Department of Environmental Quality and the Department of Health and Hospitals posted warning signs at road crossings warning the public against swimming or tubing in the river due to high fecal coliform bacteria levels. Prior to the posting, the Tangipahoa River provided an estimated 179,000 recreation days annually which is valued at $798,000. Besides swimming and tubing, fishing and canoeing were enjoyed by recreational enthusiasts. Approximately 273 of the state's 800 dairies drain into the Tangipahoa River Watershed. Approximately one-fifth of the dairymen in the area lacked the resources to install adequate waste facilities on their farms. In addition to the dairies, numerous homes and camps discharge their sewage into road ditches that drain into the Tangipahoa River.

As a result of an increased level of sampling, estimations were made that approximately 50% of the water quality impacts from fecal coliform were associated with animal waste management facilities, primarily dairies; and approximately 50% from poorly sewered or unsewered areas. The Middle Tangipahoa Watershed Water Quality Plan is a direct result of the Tangipahoa River Cooperative River Basin Study. A Nonpoint Source Interagency Committee was formed and their first primary task was to work on interagency agreements and to submit an application for the Middle Tangipahoa watershed to be included in United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA's) Water Quality Initiative Program. Once the application was approved, 1.1 million dollars of cost-share funds were allocated to assist in the installation of no-discharge lagoon systems in the watershed. Approximately 200 of the 273 dairymen agreed to participate in the dairy lagoon program.

Since the posting of the Tangipahoa River in 1988, a united effort on the part of federal, state and local agencies, concerned individuals and public interest groups, have resulted in measurable improvements in the river. LDEQ's Ground Water Protection Division within the Office of Water Resources has participated in oversight activities such as soil core borings and observance of lagoon construction in order to ensure that the lagoon systems were sited in areas where soils have sufficient clay content. Design specifications for these systems were developed by the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), and the Louisiana Cooperative Extension Service (LCES).

During fiscal year (FY)-92-93, the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation (LPBF) applied for and received 3.8 million dollars to reduce the level of pollution entering Lake Pontchartrain. A portion of these funds have been allocated to assist the dairymen in Tangipahoa River on installation of animal waste management systems. Approximately 125 agreed to participate in the program, with installation beginning in FY 1994. To date, 150 waste management systems have been installed. In addition to participating in the animal waste portion of the fecal contamination problem, the LPBF has also cooperated with the Department of Environmental Quality on the septic tank portion of the problem. The Nonpoint Source Section entered into a cooperative agreement with the Louisiana Cooperative Extension Service to implement a parish wide educational program on maintenance of existing septic tank systems.

Prior to 1988, only 2,059 individual sewage systems were installed. Since that time over 5,500 systems have been installed. During the Spring of 1993, meetings were held with parish officials and county extension service staff, parish sanitarians, NRCS, and state water quality staff, to discuss the targeted areas to be included in the education programs. Target audiences were prioritized for various public outreach activities and economic alternatives were discussed and investigated for the low income areas in the parish, who could not afford acceptable treatment alternatives. The success of the educational program will be tracked by the Department of Environmental Quality and the Department of Health and Hospitals.

As a result of all of these efforts, the Tangipahoa River has begun to show measurable water quality improvements at two of the three monitoring stations along the river according to monitoring data collected by LDEQ (See enclosed table). A citizen's action group, called Citizen's for a Clean Tangipahoa (CFACT) has been formed and has become very active in educating the public on the problems that exist within their watershed and what steps that they as citizens can take to assist the agencies on improving the quality of the water in the Tangipahoa River. Many of the agencies who have worked on the Middle Tangipahoa River Watershed Project have participated in the educational activities with CFACT and the Tangipahoa-St. Helena Soil and Water Conservation Districts (SWCD). These same groups were instrumental in getting the Louisiana Senate to adopt a Concurrent Resolution which in so doing, created the Tangipahoa River Task Force. LDEQ is working on a scope of services for a citizen's monitoring project in the Tangipahoa River, to serve as an additional educational methodology for linking nonpoint source pollution with individual actions of people who live within the watershed. EPA Region 6 has selected the Tangipahoa watershed as a priority watershed and funded the educational outreach and citizen's monitoring program through a 104 (B) (3) grant.

With the installation of the planned measures which will in turn revitalize the river, it is projected that the following categories of benefits will accrue to the area

Environmental

• Fecal bacteria in the Tangipahoa River will be reduced to acceptable levels.
• Waste management systems installed on dairies will improve the entire operation resulting in a cleaner and healthier environment for milk production.
• 500 tons of dairy waste per farm per year will be prevented from leaving the farm.
• The area around rural homes will be cleaner, healthier, and more environmentally acceptable.
• Raw sewage and animal waste will no longer be in road ditches.
• Fish and wildlife habitat will be improved in the river and its tributaries.
• Use of commercial fertilizers for forage production will decrease.
• Localized air quality problems will decrease.
• Rural water well owners will assess risks to their water supply.

Recreational - Recreational user days will be increased to the level of past years.

Social and Economic

• The Girl Scouts of America will be able to fully utilize their camp facility along the river.
• Property values will increase along the river.
• Recreational business will return, thereby increasing employment and sale of related goods and services.
• Area residents will be assured of a better quality of life with improved recreational, environmental quality, and economic opportunities.
• On farm dairy income will be improved by using dairy waste as a fertilizer supplement.
• Proper grazing use of forage resources will decrease the need for high inputs of fertilizers thereby decreasing overhead cost.

Fecal Coliform Data for the Tangipahoa River
Comparison of 1988-89 and 1994-95
(September through august)

State water quality criteria require that 75 percent of collected data must be less than 400 MPN/lOOmL. Kentwood and Arcola continue to show improvement based on the median and the 25^th quartile levels. Robert shows a marked increase based on the 25^th quartile.