Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) officials announced today a $90,000 grant award to the City of Prescott to undertake measures to address polluted runoff from the Prescott Rodeo Grounds to protect Miller Creek in Yavapai County. This project was identified as a high priority in the Granite Creek Watershed Implementation Plan to reduce bacteria loading, primarily from animal waste.
Grant funds will be used to construct a series of sediment and runoff control basins in two northern perimeter locations of the 34.61-acre Prescott Rodeo Grounds property. The basins will capture drainage including sediments and filter runoff before it enters Miller Creek and subsequently Granite Creek, thus improving the water quality of the creek and secondarily that of Watson Lake.
The project site is located in the Upper Granite Creek Watershed, which contains several waterbodies that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency lists as impaired as follows: Watson Lake for nutrients, pH and dissolved oxygen; Granite Creek for E. coli bacteria and dissolved oxygen; and Miller Creek, Butte Creek, and Manzanita Creek, all for E. coli bacteria. Sanitary sewer overflows, septic tanks and livestock operations in the area are believed to be the main sources of this pollution.
“We are excited to continue our support of actions to restore water quality in the Granite Creek Watershed, one of Arizona’s key watersheds. This project follows numerous others we’ve completed to bring back another important part of this riparian area to its natural state,” ADEQ Director Henry Darwin said.
ADEQ’s Water Quality Improvement Grant program (WQIG) is funded through a partnership with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under the Clean Water Act. Since it began in 2000, our WQIG program has funded more than 150 projects reducing polluted runoff from many different sources throughout the state and had a significant impact on improving the health of our waterways. For more information about the program, visit http://www.azdeq.gov/wqig or contact ADEQ Grant and Watershed Coordinator Samuel “Jake” Breedlove at sb12@azdeq.gov or (602) 771-4243.