Bacon Creek Watershed

Bacon Creek Watershed Council

If you want to meet a group of folks who care about their waterway, start with the Bacon Creek Watershed Council. Bacon Creek starts in Larue County and eventually flows into Nolin Lake. For most of its length, though, it flows through Hart County, including the City of Bonnieville. Bacon Creek is part of the Green River Basin.

The Bacon Creek Watershed Council is responsible for creek clean-ups and celebrations that bring their community together for a great cause. They first met in April of 2001. At that time the group’s main goal was to obtain funding for the construction of a sewer line to Bonnieville. They were successful and eliminated over 100 straight pipes and failing septic systems! The Watershed Council, along with community stakeholders and partners including KWA, went on to craft a watershed plan to figure out what else was happening in Bacon Creek and how to best address water quality issues.

Bacon Creek Watershed Plan Implementation Project

At the top of their wish list today is making Bacon Creek safe for fishing and swimming again. KWA and the Bacon Creek Watershed Council have been awarded a 2010 EPA 319 Nonpoint Source grant to update the existing watershed plan and put some of the Best Management Practices (BMPs) it calls for into action. The project is focused on the headwaters area including the subwatersheds Middle Bacon Creek, Upper Bacon Creek, Honey Branch, Tampa Branch, Lower Martis Branch, and Upper Martis Branch.KWA is working closely with the Bacon Creek Watershed Council to increase membership and carry out BMPs. This project includes funding for new outreach efforts on the importance of properly maintaining septic systems and agricultural practices that reduce polluted runoff. We will be able to offer some financial incentives for septic system maintainance as well as on the ground agricultural BMPs.