Watershed - Coon Creek (BL03)
Coon Creek Watershed

Details

The Coon Creek Watershed, located in west central Vernon, southwest Monroe, and southern La Crosse counties, covers 238 square miles and includes all streams that drain to Coon Creek as well as the following Mississippi River tributaries: Chipmunk Coulee Creek, Mormon Coulee Creek, Creek 16-6 and Creek 29-1. This watershed contains more than 136 miles of classified trout streams, the majority of which contain self-sustaining trout populations. The Coon Creek Watershed contains steep, wooded hills with farming activities in both the valleys and ridge tops. Streams in the Coon Creek Watershed characteristically contain clear, cold, spring-fed water with gravel and rubble bottoms in their upper reaches changing to predominantly sand bottoms further downstream. Numerous streams in the watershed contain both natural and restored overhead cover for trout and are accessible for fishing through public easements. Beginning in the 1980s, a coordinated effort in the watershed of purchase of public streambank easements, restoration of in-stream cover for trout, streambank stabilization, and stocking of wild brook and brown trout has culminated in the Coon Creek Watershed being called the Montana of the Midwest. License plates from around the country can be routinely found parked along the roads of the watershed, their owners fishing for trout along the nearby streams.

Date  2011

Population, Land Use

The southern tip of the City of La Crosse, the villages of Stoddard, Chaseburg, and Coon Valley, as well as a portion of the City of Westby are all within the Coon Creek Watershed. Suburban growth is occurring throughout the watershed, but largely in the rural areas near the City of La Crosse. Forest cover and agriculture are the predominant land uses in the Coon Creek Watershed, with 41% and 40% of the total area, respectively. Open water and open space encompass the remaining sizeable land use areas in the watershed with 14% of the total area. This area essentially is the Upper Mississippi River Fish and Wildlife Refuge, also known as Pool 8 of the Mississippi River. Urban and suburban environments total about two percent of the watersheds area. Land Use is from the 2001 NLCI dataset. Farming practices utilized since European settlement in the mid-1800's created massive soil erosion and frequent flash floods triggered by the cultivation and pasturing of steep slopes. In 1933, the Coon Creek watershed was designated as the first soil conservation project in the nation within the Soil Conservation Service (SCS), now known as the Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS). The purpose of the project was to determine which flood control and watershed conservation measures were effective in reducing erosion. The successful flood control and conservation practices were then promoted in other areas where similar erosion problems had occurred. The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was mobilized to install contour strips, grass waterways, and fences to exclude cattle from steep hillsides, as well as plant trees and shrubs. They also installed streambank protection such as willow plantings, brush mats, as well as rock and timber pilings on eroding banks. The success of this soil conservation project is evidenced by farmers still maintaining original contour strips, re-vegetated hillsides, and recovery of the Class I trout streams. Numerous studies have been conducted on the Coon Creek Watershed since the 1933 project. It is important to note that the Wisconsin DNR defined Coon Creek Watershed encompasses 238 square miles; whereas the NRCS defined Coon Creek Watershed encompasses 141 square miles including only Coon Creek and its tributaries.

Date  2011

Nonpoint and Point Sources

The communities of Coon Valley and Chaseburg each discharge treated wastewater to Coon Creek. Both the La Crosse and Pineview Mobile Home Parks discharge treated wastewater to Mormon Coulee Creek and the Village of St. Joseph discharges to a dry creek bed tributary to Mormon Coulee Creek. Both Genoa and Stoddard send their treated wastewater to the Mississippi River. Overall, the watershed is ranked medium for nonpoint source pollution. The streams in Coon watershed are ranked medium, the groundwater is ranked medium, and there are no inland lakes to rank for nonpoint source pollution. In August of 2007, what has been called the 1,000 year storm hit Vernon County, including the entire Coon Creek Watershed. Constant rain fell for more than 12 hours saturating soils, flooding streams, washing out roads and causing landslides. The following June, 2008 another high volume storm passed over the area causing flooding nearly as extensive as the 2007 flood. The floods, however, did not wreak havoc on streambanks in the Coon Creek Watershed due to the decades-long effort to stabilize streambanks. Bank stabilization includes the replacement of woody vegetation and trees with grasses. During high water events, these grasses lay down and, along with proper bank re-shaping, allows the stream unimpeded access to its floodplain, thus reducing streambank damage due to high water. The majority of the flood damage in the Coon Creek Watershed was bridge and culvert washouts, landslides, and personal property damage. There are no permitted Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) within the Coon Creek Watershed. However, there may be some acreage approved for land spreading in the Coon Creek Watershed of CAFO generated waste from outside the watershed

Date  2011