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Why Glenns Creek?
In short, there is a growing community interest and a convergence of concerns and opportunities. Glenns Creek has been one of the most actively monitored watersheds in the Kentucky River basin. Volunteer community members have sampled sites since 1999. Volunteers have regularly found high levels of bacteria and nutrients at multiple locations, both of which can be problematic. The Kentucky Division of Water had never performed a formal assessment for recreational use of Glenns Creek, and only a portion had been assessed for aquatic life support.
Further, a tragic lightning strike in 2019 caused a bourbon spill and fish kill on Glenns Creek and the Kentucky River, requiring subsequent clean-up. Based on these findings and events, Kentucky Watershed Watch, Kentucky Water Research Institute, Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service, Kentucky Division of Water, and Beam-Suntory partnered together to monitor Glenns Creek and its tributaries throughout the entire watershed in 2021 and 2022 in order to better assess its overall condition.
What is Watershed Planning?
A watershed is an area of land that drains to a common point, such as a stream or river outlet, lake, or the ocean. All land area is located in a watershed, and watersheds can be different sizes, from the whole Mississippi River Basin to a small local creek’s watershed. Precipitation either soaks into the soil and travels underground to a waterbody, or it runs off the surface.
A watershed plan is intended to provide a comprehensive assessment of the water quality for recreational and aquatic life use and management measures to achieve healthy conditions when the water body is impaired for a use. Watershed plans identify point source pollution, which comes from a single, identifiable concentrated source, and nonpoint source pollution, which comes from diffuse sources transported by runoff or groundwater.
Section 319 of the Clean Water Act established the Nonpoint Source Management Program to provide assistance for nonpoint source management efforts. To be eligible for implementation funding under this program, the US EPA requires that watershed plans contain nine elements, known as their a-i criteria.
To achieve a plan that includes these minimum elements, the US EPA recognizes six steps in the watershed planning and implementation process.
1.) Build partnerships.
2.) Characterize the watershed.
3.) Finalize goals and identify solutions.
4.) Design an implementation program.
5.) Implement the watershed plan.
6.) Measure progress and make adjustments.
The relationship between these steps and elements is shown below. Hover over each detail to see where it fits into the watershed planning and implementation process.
The Six Steps in the Watershed Planning and Implementation Process
This webpage represents an online watershed plan developed between 2021 and 2025 by the University of Kentucky in conjunction with project partners. Each of the webpages addresses a key element in the watershed planning process with links to technical reports to support the planning.
Along with support for assessing the health of the waterways, the interest of community stakeholders has grown. The City of Versailles completed construction on a new wastewater treatment plant in 2020 to reduce sewage overflows, initiated the development of a stormwater management program, and is seeking to revitalize Big Springs Park in the headwaters of Glenns Creek. The Kentucky Distillers Association has continued to advance environmental sustainability efforts and looks to implement local watershed stewardship principles and practices in conjunction with the Beverage Industry Environmental Roundtable. Agricultural partners expressed interest in developing Glenns Creek as a future Conservation Focus Area to encourage targeted funding for conservation practices.
With the groundswell of expressed community support for improving the watershed and subsequent input, the development of a Glenns Creek Watershed Plan was thought to provide a science-based, community-informed pathway to achieving healthy waterways and increased access to local, state, and federal funding to achieve its goals.
This plan was developed by the Kentucky Water Research Institute and the University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service with the support of project partners.
Goals for Glenns Creek
As a result of stakeholder meetings and engagement over a four-year period, seven goals were identified for the watershed:
1.) Improve water quality to support safe recreational use, including wading, swimming, boating, and fishing.
2.) Improve stream and riparian habitat and water quality to fully support the aquatic ecosystem.
3.) Reduce trash and litter in Glenns Creek and its tributaries.
4.) Increase environmental awareness about the uses and quality of Glenns Creek and its tributaries.
5.) Improve the aesthetics of the waterways, including reducing nuisance algae, to enhance ecotourism.
6.) Increase safe access to waterways, particularly at Big Spring Park and Millville Community Park.
7.) Build a community partnership to collectively work to improve water quality.