Confluence of water quality organizations serves region

by Karen E. Culp

SBJ Staff

Two groups hope to direct the stream of water quality issues in the Ozarks. One has a 15-year history in the area, the other is 3 years old. Both want to complement each other and maintain or improve the quality of water flowing through the Ozarks.

Both need money to operate and this year, both are receiving that funding from three public agencies, the city, City Utilities and Greene County.

Clean water is the ambition of both the Watershed Committee of the Ozarks and the James River Basin Partnership. While the partnership is concerned with the entire James River Basin, the committee's primary concern lies with the watershed that affects the city of Springfield's drinking water. Those water supplies include Fulbright Spring, McDaniel and Fellows lakes, the James River and the deep wells the city uses to supplement its water supply.

Stockton Lake, from which a water pipeline runs to Springfield, is also among the committee's areas of concern, but, as its executive director Loring Bullard says, "We don't have a major problem in Stockton yet. We need to monitor it so that it does not get bad, though."

Both Bullard and Pamela Anderson, executive director of the partnership, agree the two groups will cooperate on some projects and that their services complement one another's.

"We do have some overlap with the Watershed Com-mittee, but their area is different ... ours is much larger. It makes sense for us to work together, but we cover two different areas. What we all know is that water quality is important to the economic development and continued growth of this area. If we don't have good water quality in our lakes, we are not going to have as many tourists, anglers and others bringing commerce to our area," Anderson said.

Funding. Both groups rely on a combination of funding sources for their annual operating budgets. The Watershed Committee has an annual operating budget of about $150,000, Bullard said. The city, county and utility split the funding for the organization's operation, with the city and county each supplying 20 percent of the budget, and CU contributing 60 percent.

This year, David Coonrod, presiding commissioner of Greene County and chair of the James River Basin Partnership's board of directors, introduced the idea of those same three organizations' supporting the partnership.

Greene County "upped our contribution to the Watershed Committee by $5,000 this year with the idea that the $5,000 go to the James River Basin Partnership. We presented the idea to the other two supporting entities, with the idea that we would take the funding for the partnership through the Watershed Committee so that everybody would stay in the loop and we wouldn't run the risk of any duplication of services," Coonrod said.

City Utilities' Board of Public Utilities voted at its September meeting to contribute $15,000 to the partnership in the same manner.

"The thinking was that in funding the Watershed Committee, we are funding a resource that directly benefits our customers, the drinking water of Springfield. The James River Basin Partnership isn't doing anything with a direct benefit to our customers, but we are certainly interested in clean water and being good environmental stewards, so our board elected to fund the partnership through the committee," said Duane Galloway, senior manager for governmental relations and environmental affairs at CU.

Springfield City Council members chose to make the city's contribution of $5,000 directly to the partnership.

"I could not understand why we would go through the Watershed Committee when the partnership is an entity unto itself. It makes more sense to me for our contribution to go directly to the partnership so that we set that example for other communities in the James River basin to participate and support this group, because it's not just Springfield that will benefit, but all the communities along the river. I was hoping that if we set that example, those other communities would follow suit with funding," said Councilwoman Teri Hacker, who also serves on the partnership's board of directors.

Some area communities have already started contributing. Nixa, for example, donates office space for the partnership.

Watershed Committee oversight. Both Galloway and Coonrod point to a desire for the Watershed Committee to emerge as a kind of umbrella group for other groups interested in water quality.

"As other entities become involved, we need to make more of an effort to get a bigger bang for our respective buck, and to do that you need to be applying those resources in the most efficient way possible. Having Watershed set up as a kind of umbrella group is a good way to avoid duplication and spread those services out as much as possible," Coonrod said.

Coonrod also points to the potential for other water quality groups to form, such as the Stockton-based group that has now formed and is becoming active.

Galloway and Coonrod agree that the public entities they represent have a limited budgets.

"In this case, the money could be found to dedicate to the partnership, but if larger sums are requested, it could be more difficult. As we move forward in the competitive world, we have to consider what our financial position is," Galloway said.

For that reason, the utility has chosen to let the objectives of the Watershed Committee be its guide in supporting other water quality groups.

"If any other groups had a request, we would probably have it screened (through the Watershed Committee) and then have it come back to the board from the Watershed Committee," Galloway said.

What the groups have done, what they will do. Educational programs and research dedicated to preserving water quality are the backbones of both groups. Their efforts have been directed at what are called point sources of water pollutants, such as treatment plants controlled by municipalities.

One of the efforts made to reduce phosphorus from the point sources discharging into the James River watershed was the implementation, by state legislation, of a phosphorus limit rule for Table Rock Lake. Both groups were active in getting that rule in place.

Now, both are turning their attention toward nonpoint sources of pollution. Nonpoint sources are those such as agricultural runoff, effluent from chemicals used on lawns, and urbanization, which causes more hard surfaces to be developed in an area and increases the velocity of runoff reaching water bodies.

The Watershed Committee has enacted several projects at agricultural sites, focusing on cooperation and demonstration, Bullard said.

"One of the things we want to do is work with a farmer or developer and then set up something that will dem-onstrate good practices for others to follow," Bullard said.

The committee has served as a technical and research assistant to the city of Springfield and Greene County as those entities have developed water quality-related standards.

"We worked with the development of the Urban Service Area plan and got something in place that both achieves what it needs to and follows the desire of most of the parties it affects. We also worked with the county and city to adopt minimum water quality standards. And we will continue to work with developers to install and demonstrate better practices. Our role is one of technical adviser. We are not a regulatory body," Bullard said.

Bullard said the group's biggest concerns right now are with the South Dry Sac and Pierson Creek watersheds, as development in Springfield is moving toward those areas.

Bullard said he realizes "stopping all development isn't the answer, nor should it be. Businesses and farmers understand their role in the environment. What we're here to do is to show them how they can enact better management practices. Sometimes the answer may not be more regulations. More regulations may not help anybody, but if you can demonstrate for someone how they can help, that can be a big step in the right direction for everyone."

The James River Basin Partnership has many of the same concerns about nonpoint source pollution that affects the James River, and ultimately, Table Rock Lake.

"The lakes in Branson are a huge part of our economy. You can't discount that. We need to be working to preserve that resource for our area," Coonrod said.

Anderson joined the partnership in February of 1998 and began using her background in marketing to "get the word out" about the organization.

Most of the partnership's projects now have to do with awareness: it has had booths at many community events and was active in educating people in the area about the phosphorus rule for Table Rock.

"Without the education, that probably wouldn't have been very well-received. As it happened, once it was in its final form, nearly all parties were in agreement with it," Anderson said.

The group has held seminars on water quality, and has another coming up Oct. 28 at Chateau on the Lake in Branson.

"Working with so many different groups, we reach a huge audience. We work with everyone from schools, to chambers of commerce in the towns we serve, to civic groups and other environmental groups," Anderson said.

The partnership would like to have a dedicated ongoing funding source, Anderson said. The group has a budget of $120,000 for the upcoming year.

Whether other groups will get involved in water quality issues for the area remains to be seen.

Bruce Martin, regional office director for the Missouri DNR, said Springfield can easily assimilate two or more such groups.

"Springfield has the most active citizenry in the state on water quality. Yes, we could support more groups, as long as they are all communicating and moving in ways to benefit the area's resources," Martin said.