Christina River Basin Group Receives
$1 million EPA Grant to Implement Watershed Restoration Action Strategy (WRAS)

The Christina River Basin Clean Water Partnership (CRBCWP) was presented with a $1 million grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in November.  The group was one of 20 community-based groups that received federal funding under President Bush's $15 million National Watershed Initiative. The groups were selected because they best demonstrated the ability to achieve on-the-ground environmental results in a short time.  Each of the selected watershed organizations exhibited strong partnerships, showed innovative ideas, and demonstrated compatibility with existing governmental programs.  The grant will be distributed over three years.

The Christina River Basin is 565 square miles of mostly rural but suburbanizing landscapes and is home to almost half a million people in three states. 62% of the basin's population lives in Delaware.  The basin covers portions of New Castle County , Delaware; Cecil County, Maryland; and Chester , Lancaster , and Delaware Counties in Pennsylvania .  The basin includes four major watersheds: the Brandywine Creek Watershed (325 square miles), Red Clay Creek Watershed (54 square miles), White Clay Creek Watershed (107 square miles), and the Christina River Watershed (78 square miles).

The Christina Basin is a distinctive resource in Delaware because it is:

• The only source of public surface water in Delaware , providing 100 million gallons per day of drinking water to over 400,000 people, which is 60% of the state's total population.
• Home to almost half of all the citizen's in New Castle County.
• Contains the state's first and third largest cities.
• The habitat for the only six trout streams in Delaware.
• The environment of neo-tropical bird species in the Piedmont forests, which are found in only 3% of Delaware.
• The only watershed in Delaware that includes three states: Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Maryland.

Streams in the Christina River Basin suffer from impaired water quality resulting from:

• Nutrients --- 130.5 stream miles have high nitrogen and phosphorus loads, which deplete dissolved oxygen levels;
• Toxic metals --- 13 stream miles are impaired due to elevated zinc levels;
• Bacteria --- concentrations of pathogens along 134.2 miles of stream frequently exceed the primary recreation standards for swimming;
• Sediment --- streams are degraded by high sediment loads which range between 311 to 975 pounds per acre per year, depending on the subwatershed;
• Impaired habitat --- biological diversity of the streams have been improving, however 39% of the non-tidal Piedmont streams have poor habitat due to the increased frequency and rate of runoff from urban/ suburban development and rural activities; and
• Fish consumption advisories --- health warnings advising against the consumption of fish have been posted along 82.2 stream miles due to PCB contaminated sediment and high levels in fish tissue.

Potential sources of pollution in the watershed basin include agriculture, combined sewer overflows (37 in Delaware ), NPDES Wastewater Discharges (14 in DE, 82 in PA), roadways, solid and hazardous waste or superfund sites, underground storage tanks, and urban and suburban runoff.

In 1997 low flow and high flow Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs) were established for the Christina Basin.  The Low Flow (point source) TMDLs were issued by the EPA in October 2002.   The High Flow (stormwater) TMDLs are expected to be completed by December 2004.  These TMDLs are established along impaired waterways in accordance with Section 303(d) of the federal Clean Water Act.  In 1998 Delaware identified 15 stream segments within the Christina Basin that did not meet water quality standards for nutrients and dissolved oxygen.

The CRBCWP was formed in 1994 and coordinates the activities of the Watershed Restoration Action Strategy (WRAS).   The group has a similar function to that of the Tributary Action Teams and the WRAS is similar to the Pollution Control Strategy recommendations that the Teams in the Appoquinimink, Murderkill, Nanticoke , and Inland Bays Watersheds have been working on over the past couple of years.

The mission of the CRBCWP is to conduct a cooperative, interstate effort to restore the water quality of the streams and tributaries in the Brandywine, Red Clay, and White Clay Creeks, and the Christina River watersheds in Delaware, Maryland, and Pennsylvania to fishable, swimmable, and potable status by 2015.   In order to complete that mission, the CRBCWP has set goals to:

• Substantially reduce nutrient pollutant loads to meet the fishable water quality standards in accordance with the future Christina Basins TMDLs;
• Remediate the existing sources of zinc to reduce toxics loads;
• Reduce bacteria loads in the streams to meet he Delaware swimmable primary recreation water quality standard of less then 100 parts per 100ml.;
• Clean up the hazardous waste sources of PCBs to reduce loads and ultimately lift existing fish consumption advisories;
• Reduce total sediment loads from land and stream erosion sources to less then 250 pounds per acre per year; and
• Improve stream habitat to a "good" rating in the Delaware Portion of the Christina Basin.

Since 1995 The CRBCWP has had several successes, including:

• Developing, promulgating, and implementing a series of low-flow TMDLs.
• Conducting monitoring and modeling for development of high-flow nonpoint source (NPS) TMDLs.
• Installing more than fifty agricultural best management practices (BMPs).
• Restoring more than 10,000 linear feet of stream banks.
• Establishing a stormwater BMP tour for municipal officials and designers.
• Engaging more than 300 residential property owners in SMARTYARD lawn management and rain barrel stewardship programs.
• Establishing the Christina Basin Task Force as a mechanism for stakeholder participation.
• Updating municipal comprehensive plans and zoning ordinances in dozens of municipalities to incorporate sustainable land use management strategies.
• Preserving hundreds of acres of riparian and other lands.
• Overcoming issues of inconsistent policies and institutional barriers spanning multiple jurisdictions.

The CRBCWP will use the grant money they have received from EPA over the next three years to continue implementation of the recommendations from the WRAS in priority areas.  They will examine and implement agricultural best management practices, storm water control, stream bank restoration, residential landscape and runoff control, and enhance public education and participation.  These priority areas were established by the group using a "report card" to determine the health of streams and subwatersheds within the Christina Basin in an "A" through "F" format.  The health of each stream and subwatershed was graded based on 19 water quality, stream habitat, and watershed indicators.  The grades were then used to help prioritize the watersheds to focus funding and implementation goals for protection or restoration strategies in the subwatersheds.

The partnership plans to focus efforts on implementing public outreach and education activities and community participation in residential BMPs. This includes continuing Christina Basin stakeholder input, hosting an annual bus tour of implementation projects, through publications, and public forums.  There will also be a web site for the Basin as a source of GIS data for the CRBCWP and information on the Basin and projects being worked on.

The Delaware Nature Society, University of Delaware - Water Resources Agency, and Chester County Conservation District will work together to implement agriculture and residential BMPs for controlling and reducing pollutant loads and improving water quality to protect stream bank stability and pollution reduction potential through reforestation.  They will also work to engage local citizens in active watershed stewardship.

The Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC) will work with the Chester County Conservation District in Pennsylvania to coordinate stream restoration efforts.  The goal in this collaboration is to improve stream habitat for plants and animals in the channel and riparian corridor, along with reducing sediment loading caused by streambank erosion. Approximately 15,000 feet of stream channel is slated for restoration.

The Chester County Conservation District and UD Water Resources Agency will collaborate on stormwater projects, including retrofitting existing systems from stormwater detention ponds to stormwater wetlands.  Nine stormwater ponds are expected to be retrofitted throughout the basin with funds from this grant.

All BMP projects will be monitored for their success in reducing pollutant loads and improving stream water quality.   A series of monitoring stations will be established to measure stream chemistry and bio-habitat before and after implementation of the improved practices.

Water quality improvements are being made statewide through the collaboration and cooperation of groups in Delaware and across state and county lines.  These partnerships are necessary because water resources flow independently of political boundaries.  The partnership and work being done in the Christina Basin is an outstanding example of the successes we can have by crossing those boundaries and working together.  The efforts of the CRBCWP in northern New Castle County and southeastern Pennsylvania and the four Tributary Action Teams in Delaware are highly commendable.

---

Resource Links

Documents prefaced with this icon are saved in Adobe PDF format, and require that you have the free Adobe PDF Reader installed on your computer

Documents prefaced with this icon are saved in Macromedia FlashPaper format, and require that you have the free Macromedia Flash Player installed on your computer.  (This is already installed as a browser helper on most computers.)

Christina Basin Watershed Restoration Action Strategy

Executive Summary (1.89 MB PDF)
Executive Summary (1.01 MB FlashPaper)

Complete WRAS Document (8.08 MB PDF)
Complete WRAS Document (4.69 MB FlashPaper)

WRAS Cover and Table of Contents (8.08 MB PDF)
WRAS Cover and Table of Contents (4.69 MB FlashPaper)

Chapter 1 --- The Watershed Environment (454 kb PDF)
Chapter 1 --- The Watershed Environment (389 kb FlashPaper)

Chapter 2 --- Problems, Goals, and Objectives (1.31 MB PDF)
Chapter 2 --- Problems, Goals, and Objectives (583 kb
FlashPaper)

Chapter 3 --- Christina Basin Report Card (573 kb PDF)
Chapter 3 --- Christina Basin Report Card (753 kb FlashPaper)

Chapter 4 --- Priority Watersheds of the Christina Basin
(4.74 MB PDF)
Chapter 4 --- Priority Watersheds of the Christina Basin
(1.25 MB FlashPaper)

Chapter 5 --- Recommended Watershed Restoration Action
Strategy (90.5 kb PDF)
Chapter 5 --- Recommended Watershed Restoration Action
Strategy (171 kb FlashPaper)

Chapter 6 --- WRAS Progress in Delaware (565 kb PDF)
Chapter 6 --- WRAS Progress in Delaware (767 kb FlashPaper)

Appendix A --- Stream Water Quality Sampling Data: Delaware
Source Water Protection Reports, May 2002
(52.6 kb PDF)
Appendix A --- Stream Water Quality Sampling Data: Delaware
Source Water Protection Reports,  May2002
(279 kb FlashPaper)

Appendix B --- Piedmont Basin Water Quality Data, 303 (d)
Report (60.8 kb PDF)
Appendix B --- Piedmont Basin Water Quality Data, 303 (d)
Report (294 kb FlashPaper)

Appendix C --- List of Participants in the Christina Basin Rain
Barrel Program (48.1 kb PDF)
Appendix C --- List of Participants in the Christina Basin Rain
Barrel Program (49.4 kb FlashPaper)

Appendix D --- Results of Christina Basin Rain Barrel Survey
(57.7 kb PDF)
Appendix D --- Results of Christina Basin Rain Barrel Survey
(147 kb FlashPaper)

Appendix E --- SMARTYARD Water-Friendly Lawn Care
Education Program (352 kb PDF)
Appendix E --- SMARTYARD Water-Friendly Lawn Care
Education Program (270 kb FlashPaper)

---