Over the course of the past year, the Wallkill River Watershed Management Group (WRWMG) has made great strides in the continuing mission to restore, maintain, and enhance the surface waters of the watershed. Despite the changing tide of watershed management planning projects around the state of New Jersey and a decrease in the amount of grant funding from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) for such efforts, the WRWMG was able to secure additional grant funding from the NJDEP to continue facilitating the surface water quality sampling program which had become the crowning achievement of the project. In 2004, an additional nine (9) sampling sites located on the Papakating Creek, the Clove Brook, and the West Branch of the Papakating Creek were added to the sampling program. As of April 2005, the WRWMG chemical sampling network had officially expanded to a total of seventeen (17) monitoring locations covering five (5) different surface waters. In addition, in September 2004, the WRWMG successfully conducted a continuous thirty (30) hour diurnal dissolved oxygen sampling program for four locations in the Papakating Creek Watershed, in an attempt to provide additional data and insight regarding the likelihood for excessive algae growth within the stream.
Crucial to the continuing success of the WRWMG is maintaining an aggressive education and outreach campaign. Throughout the year, the WRWMG has participated in events such as Wantage Township’s 250th Anniversary Celebration, the Sussex County Farm and Horse Show, the NJDEP 2nd Annual Volunteer Monitoring Summit, the NJ Forest Service Annual Conference, and a Community Mapping with GIS Workshop. The WRWMG has also been actively working with the Sussex County Office of GIS in the development of many watershed related GIS mapping initiatives which will eventually be able to provide watershed residents with an easy way to access water quality data and information collected as a result of the sampling program. The WRWMG was also proud to assist the Friends of Lake Neepaulin (FOLN) in obtaining official name recognition from the United States Board of Geographic Names for the Neepaulakating Creek, which exits Lake Neepaulin and is a tributary to the Papakating Creek. To mark the accomplishment, the WRWMG worked with FOLN to post an official tributary identification sign along Route 639 in Wantage Township.
The Wallkill River Watershed Management Group looks forward to the future, with the ultimate aim of developing a watershed management plan that can be administered for the entire watershed basin, including over the New Jersey/New York state boundary. Tasks to increase public awareness, generate further stakeholder participation, and disseminate information will be ongoing. In addition, continuing to build a comprehensive database of water quality data, gaining a better understanding of water quality within the watershed, and obtaining information of high priority watershed lands with respect to water recharge and riparian health will continue to drive the efforts of the project. Providing all of this information to stakeholders will enable for better informed land use planning decisions to be made. In the end, the mission of ensuring the restoration, maintenance, and enhancement of the water quality and insuring sufficient water quantity in the Wallkill River Watershed will be accomplished.
The grant funding future for the WRWMG looks extremely bright. During the past year, the WRWMG and the SCMUA formally submitted two separate, but related Federal Clean Water Act Section 319 (h) Nonpoint Source grant proposals, entitled “Watershed Restoration Plan for Clove Acres Lake and the Surrounding Lakeshed” and “Watershed Restoration Plan for Papakating Creek and the Surrounding Watershed”. NJDEP had sent notification that they have recommended approval of both projects, combined for approximately $300,000 of grant funding to develop watershed plans to assess and identify restoration and management techniques to restore water quality in the watershed. Theses grants, when funded, will effectively serve as the fiscal backbone of the WRWMG for at least the next two years.