Jump River and Main Creek
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Purpose

Jump River and Main Creek watersheds and implications for total phosphorus load reductions to the Jump River Embayment of the Holcombe Flowage

Objective

The Jump River Embayment of the Holcombe Flowage is located in Rusk and Chippewa Counties. The embayment is a 303d listed water due to high phosphorus concentrations and severe summer algae blooms. The Jump River and Main Creek watersheds provide the water and nutrient loading to the embayment. Monitoring by the U.S. Army Engineer Waterways Experiment Station (USAEWES) in 1995 and 1996 (James et al. 1998) documented the nutrient and sediment loads delivered to the embayment by these two streams. Both stream watersheds had an average total phosphorus (TP) export rate of 0.31 kilograms per hectare per year (kg/ha/yr).

Outcome

Watersheds with more developed land usually require a higher level of monitoring effort to estimate TP export rates (Robertson and Roerish 1999). However, these are minimally developed subwatersheds where the magnitude of TP fluctuation is low and TP’s tend to be poorly correlated with streamflow. Also, multiple subwatersheds have been simultaneously assessed and composited. This makes it likely that reasonable estimates of TP export rates have been obtained. High groundwater TP’s are undoubtedly one reason for the high TP export rates in these areas (see “Groundwater Monitoring” TP results below). Poor TP retention by some softwater wetlands might also be a contributing factor (see “Dissolved Oxygen” discussion below). An Ontario study in an undeveloped area of Precambrian bedrock (like this study area) found that watershed TP export increased with increasing watershed wetland percentage (Paterson, et al. 2006).

Related Reports

Run Project Summary Report
View Umbrella-Projects
View Related-Projects

TMDL/303d Projects
Refine Load Estimates
Jump River and Main Creek
2008
Complete
 
Reports and Documents
Jump River and Main Creek Final Report
Final Report for Jump River and Main Creek Special Project (303d waters)
 
Activities & Recommendations
Monitor Targeted Area
September 2005 through September 2006. The Jump River Embayment of the Holcombe Flowage is located in Rusk and Chippewa Counties. The embayment is a 303d listed water due to high phosphorus concentrations and severe summer algae blooms. The Jump River and Main Creek watersheds provide the water and nutrient loading to the embayment. Monitoring by the U.S. Army Engineer Waterways Experiment Station (USAEWES) in 1995 and 1996 (James et al. 1998) documented the nutrient and sediment loads delivered to the embayment by these two streams. Both stream watersheds had an average total phosphorus (TP) export rate of 0.31 kilograms per hectare per year (kg/ha/yr).
 
Watershed
Lower Jump River
 
Waters
Jump River
Monitoring Data