What Can You do to Reduce Nonpoint Source Pollution?

• Have soil test done to help optimize fertilizer application.
• Avoid applications of fertilizers which may have a direct impact on water quality.
• Use pesticides according to instructions on the label.
• Recycle as much as possible. Grass clippings and leaves can be composted or mulched.
• Handle household hazardous waste materials with caution and dispose of accordingly.
• Have your septic system inspected and pumped out on a regular basis (every three to five years).
• Keep bare soil covered with grasses, plants, shrubs, or trees to reduce soil erosion.
• Stay off eroded streambanks to allow vegetation to grow and stabilize. Install and maintain vegetation strips along the streambanks to reduce erosion. Create buffer strips!
• Incorporate additional conservation practices into your farming activities. Fence livestock from access to streams to minimize erosion and nutrient loadings.
• Contact your soil erosion officer about noticeable erosion from construction sites.
• Do not remove logs or other natural debris from the stream. This natural debris serves as habitat for aquatic life.
• Participate in Adopt-A-Stream programs.

Identified Water Quality Problems

The Pigeon River Watershed Advisory Committee has identified three areas of concern affecting water quality and the designated uses. The adverse effects of elevated summer temperatures, excessive sedimentation, and nutrient loadings on the environment, and specifically the Pigeon River Watershed, have many area residents concerned about the Pigeon's future. The Pigeon River includes the following trout stream designations: 1) Pigeon River between 120th Avenue and the mouth at Lakeshore Drive and 2) Ten Hagen Creek upstream from Section 22.

Areas of Concern

A cold water fishery must maintain a water temperature below 68¿ F. The causes of elevated water temperature consist of the following:

• ponded areas
• water withdrawals, which cause the water body to be more shallow
• lack of streamside vegetation and shading

Sedimentation is a process which involves erosion and deposition of sediment into a water body. The sources of sediment in the Pigeon River Watershed include the following:

• streambank erosion
• road/stream crossings
• agricultural land erosion
• construction site erosion