A Lone Star Healthy Streams workshop is planned for Sept. 14 for residents of the Tres Palacios watershed.

A wide creek, viewed from a sandy shore. There is a weathered-gray wooden dock in the right foreground of the photo, jutting into the water. The water is reflecting the light blue-grey sky. On the opposite short is dense ground-level vegetation and a wooded area in the far background. This is the Tres Palacios creek, part of the Tres Palacios watershed.
The Tres Palacios watershed includes the Tress Palacios Creek. Water quality monitoring has found the creek has higher levels of bacteria and lower levels of dissolved oxygen for state water quality standards. (Texas Water Resources Institute photo)

The free program will be from 1 p.m.-5 p.m. and is offered virtually and in person at the Bay City Service Center, 2105 Ave. M, Bay City. The workshop will focus specifically on issues within the Tres Palacios watershed and its watershed protection plan.

A watershed protection plan is a coordinated framework for implementing prioritized and integrated water quality protection and restoration strategies driven by environmental objectives.

Preregister for the workshop online at https://tx.ag/LSHSTresPalaciosSept14 or call the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service office in Matagorda County at 979-245-4100.

Three Texas Department of Agriculture general continuing education credits will be provided for certified pesticide applicators.

Funding for this project is provided through a Clean Water Act Section 319 Nonpoint Source Grant from the Texas State Soil and Water Conservation Board and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

About the Lone Star Healthy Streams program

The Lone Star Healthy Streams program is a project of the Texas A&M Department of Soil and Crop Sciences and AgriLife Extension. It aims to educate Texas livestock producers and landowners on how to best protect Texas waterways from bacterial contamination associated with livestock production and feral hogs, said Leanne Wiley, AgriLife Extension program specialist, Bryan-College Station.

Currently, about 300 Texas water bodies do not comply with state water quality standards established for E. coli bacteria, Wiley said. By participating in this workshop, livestock producers and landowners will learn specific conservation practices that can be implemented to help minimize bacterial contamination in Texas water bodies.

“Bacteria are the leading cause of water pollution in the state of Texas,” said Larry Redmon, Ph.D., AgriLife Extension program leader and associate department head of the Department of Soil and Crop Science. “When found in rivers, streams, lakes, ponds and other water bodies, fecal bacteria serve as indicator species for the presence of pathogenic bacteria, viruses or parasites, which can cause waterborne illnesses, including typhoid fever, dysentery and cholera.”

For more information on the workshop, contact Wiley at 979-318-2617 or [email protected]; Aaron Sumrall, AgriLife Extension agent, Matagorda County, at 979-245-4100 or [email protected]; or Nathan Glavy, AgriLife Extension program specialist with the Texas Water Resources Institute, at 979-845-1851 or [email protected].

For more information on the Tres Palacios Watershed and its watershed protection plan, visit the Tres Palacios website.

 
Kerry Halladay is the marketing strategy coordinator for the Texas Water Resources Institute, the Natural Resources Institute, the Norman Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture and the Institute for Infectious Animal Diseases at Texas A&M AgriLife.
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