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The District is currently involved in two watershed improvement projects - the Hickory Creek AgNPS SALT / 319 Project in conjunction with Daviess County SWCD and the Honey Creek AgNPS SALT Project in conjunction with Mercer County SWCD.

A watershed is an area of land that topographically drains water to a common point. In other words, all of the surrounding land area that water flows over before entering a stream channel is its watershed. The term does not indicate the size of an area of land as watersheds can be as little as a few acres or many square miles. Smaller adjacent sub-watersheds such as those that feed intermittent or small tributary streams which flow into larger streams are all encompassed within a larger watershed. This multiplying effect continues until you reach the largest classification, called a region, that includes all of the land area that drains into the largest rivers. For example, The Missouri Region is a watershed made up of hundreds of thousands of square miles, all of which eventually drain into the Missouri River. The order of classifications from largest to smallest is: Region (Missouri Region); Sub-Region (Chariton-Grand sub-Region); Basin (Grand River Basin); Sub-Basin (Thompson River Sub-Basin); and Watershed (Hickory or Honey Creek Watershed). EXAMPLE

AgNPS SALT is an abbreviation for Agricultural Non-Point Source Special Area Land Treatment. These projects are watershed based efforts to reduce agriculture related nonpoint source pollution of streams and rivers. Nonpoint source pollutants such as sediment from topsoil erosion, chemical and fertilizers and animal waste run-off enter the water matrix and adversely effect the quality of water supplies. SALT projects specify certain areas of concern and work to improve water quality through the implementation of conservation practices and through the promotion of other conservation-minded land management strategies. These projects are funded by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources' Soil and Water Conservation Program through the Parks and Soils Tax. Click HERE to view MoDNR's SALT page.

319 refers to Section 319 of the 1987 Clean Water Act which provides grant money to States, Territories and Indian Tribes to support activities such as technical assistance, financial assistance, education, training, technology transfer, demonstration projects, and monitoring to aid in the assessment of the success of nonpoint source implementation projects. These funds are provided by the Environmental Protection Agency through the Missouri Department of Natural Resources.