In 2011, the East Fork Watershed Collaborative, was awarded a Conservation Innovation Grant (CIG) from the US Department of Agriculture to develop and study a new conservation approach to protecting surface runoff in an agricultural setting. Using ideas from the collaborative, which includes private, local, state, and federal agencies, a retrofitted urban stormwater basin was installed in Jackson Township, Clermont County, to collect and treat runoff from agricultural fields by removing sediment, phosphorus, nitrogen and other pollutants. This is an ongoing research project to determine the removal efficiency, cost effectiveness, and overall applicability of this project in the agricultural landscape. We are hoping a system such as this can be used to decrease nutrient loadings to our streams and lakes and decrease hazardous algae blooms that our plaguing our waters.

Clermont CIG site featured in Ohio Water Environment Association’s Buckeye Bulletin