Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Availability

Open Access Thesis

Abstract

In 1998 Milford Creek, located in northwest Iowa, USA, was included on Iowa’s Impaired Waters List due to its inability to support aquatic life and excessive algal growth that was attributed to an overabundance of phosphorus within the body. In 2001 there was a lawsuit filed against the U.S. EPA regarding the status of Iowa’s Total Daily Maximum Load (TMDL) program. The lawsuit resulted in a consent decree that required the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) to develop a TMDL for all bodies of water on Iowa’s 1998 impaired waters list by December 15, 2009, this list included Milford Creek (Iowa Department of Natural Resources, 2007). Milford Creeks’ longtime residence on the list opens the door for the inclusion of new data and state of the art modeling to be invoked to try to better understand and assess the geography and sources of phosphorus pollutant loads entering the Milford Creek Watershed. The research presented here will invoke the use of the SLAMM (Source Loading and Management Model) and SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) models to better understand nonpoint pollutant loading into the Creek. Within the Lower Gar Lake drainage area, the surrounding nonpoint land had the estimated potential of loading 6,521 pounds of phosphorus within the research year of 2019. That is approximately 131 % larger than the loading allocations presented in the TMDL, which suggests that the current conditions of Milford Creek are much greater than the load allocations first presented in the TMDL.

Year of Submission

2024

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

Department of Geography

First Advisor

Lisa Tabor

Date Original

5-2024

Object Description

1 PDF (xii, 138 pages)

Language

en

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