Hydrologic Unit Area Designation
The amended Clean Water Act in 1987 provided resources to implement programs to clean up the nation's waterways. Section
319 of the Clean Water Act was a product of the 1987 amendments. The Section 319 grants were available from the U. S. EPA
and were to focus on reducing runoff pollution or non-point source pollution. Nationally, the USDA's Hydrologic Unit Area
(HUA) program provides educational and technical assistance, research, and data-base development in those hydrologic units
where water quality is a concern. In response to President Bush's Water Quality Initiative, the goal of a hydrologic unit
area is to assist farmers and ranchers in voluntarily applying conservation practices to achieve water quality goals
without experiencing economic hardship.
In 1990, Indian Lake was selected as Ohio's first HUA with the goal of reducing the amount of
sediment and nutrients entering Indian Lake and its tributaries. To achieve this goal, a
number of educational, demonstrational, technical, and financial assistance programs were
implemented to help the agricultural producers voluntarily apply the most environmentally
acceptable practices. The primary focus and costsharing encouraged conservation practices such
as conservation tillage and cropping alternatives, grassed waterways, grade stabilization
structures, grass and tree filter strips, animal waste control facilities, nutrient and
pesticide management, and other soil stabilization practices and BMPs designed to help reduce
erosion, improve water quality and other natural resources in the watershed. Section 6,
Section 7 and Section 8 provide information on the
BMP programs.
In 1986, NRCS's assessment indicated Indian Lake had lost over 35 percent of its original
capacity due to siltation. Indian Lake's watershed was selected for assistance activities
because of the concern with the deteriorating water quality. The local citizen action group,
ILDC, demonstrated interest in trying to reduce the need for dredging, which has cost Ohio
taxpayers over $343,000 annually in recent years. ILDC was the driving force in promoting to
have the HUA status established. Factors mentioned in Section 2 made Indian Lake a prime
candidate for a HUA program. Due in part to the findings of the 1989 Ohio EPA Phase I Study,
Indian Lake was designated as a high priority watershed. The funding was for designing
programs to improve water quality damaged by degradation of the biological habitat and to
maintain the recreational viability of the lake.
A set amount of money was appropriated under Section 314 of the Clean Water Act and the
remainder of the money for the project would come from grants awarded under Section 319 of the
Clean Water Act. Section 319 directs states to assess and prioritize severe water quality
problem areas and develop non-point source pollution management solutions. Ohio EPA 319
programs were to be demonstrational and educational with no money spent on monitoring.
Watershed Name Change
The joint board and project team felt the name Hydrologic Unit Area (HUA) was easily
misunderstood. In the summer of 1995, the joint board voted to change the Indian Lake
Hydrologic Unit Area to the Indian Lake Watershed Project, a more self-explanatory name. The
project remains a HUA until October of 1997 and its operation is still the same with only a
name change.
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