The public is invited to attend the Thompsons Creek Watershed Partnership meeting on July 31 in Bryan. The meeting will be at 2:30 p.m. at the Brazos Center, 3232 Briarcrest Drive.
This partnership will serve as the forum for public input, which will drive the development of a voluntary, stakeholder-driven watershed protection plan, or WPP.
“Anyone with an interest in the watershed can become a member of the partnership by participating in meetings and becoming involved in the development of the WPP,” said Duncan Kikoyo, Texas Water Resources Institute, TWRI, research specialist with Texas A&M AgriLife Research in Bryan-College Station.
The WPP will outline strategies that can improve local water quality.
Thompsons Creek concerns
Water samples collected by the Brazos River Authority and TWRI from Thompsons Creek and its tributaries, Still Creek and Cottonwood Branch, confirmed the presence of bacteria concentrations that were above the applicable standard for recreational activities that may involve water ingestion.
The meeting will provide an overview of surface water quality management in Texas and the stakeholder structure and possible decision-making process. It will also introduce the watershed planning process and discuss features or properties of the Thompsons Creek watershed critical for the reliable assessment of water quality.
Funding for developing a WPP for the Thompsons Creek watershed is provided by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, through a Clean Water Act Section 319(h) grant from the U.S Environmental Protection Agency.
TWRI is a unit of AgriLife Research that combines expertise across the agencies of Texas A&M AgriLife.
For more information, contact Kikoyo at duncan.kikoyo@ag.tamu.edu. Read more about the watershed at thompsonscreek.twri.tamu.edu.
