Rock Creek Watershed Management Plan

The Rock Creek Watershed Management Plan is a comprehensive, small area planning project being conducted through a partnership between the Jefferson County Planning Division, the Missouri Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS), and the Great Rivers Alliance of Natural-Resource Districts (GRAND). The first of 12 watershed management plans to be conducted in Jefferson County, the Rock Creek Watershed Management Plan will address a broad range of issues including: land use, site-specific development guidelines, flooding, and water quality. Funding for the project comes from a Federal Water Quality Management (604b) grant funded by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources.

The project began in early 1998. Throughout 1998-99, work was focussed on the development of the technical aspects of the plan, including creation of a natural resource database to be used in the Geographic Information System (GIS), surveying and field work to establish cross sections of Rock Creek, and aerial mapping to develop 2' contour information for the watershed. This technical phase of the plan will culminate in the creation of an integrated GIS querying tool, running of computer models to simulate different storm events to analyze their impacts throughout the watershed, and a re-evaluation of the 100 year floodplain.

Once the technical elements are in place in early 2000, the community involvement phase of the plan will begin. This will occur through several public meetings in which residents of the watershed will be asked to help set priorities for land use and development guidelines based on the technical information presented by the staff. Completion of the plan is anticipated to be the end of 2000.