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Burns Ditch and Trail Creek (Indiana)
Project
Status: modeling is complete
Due to the similarity and
proximity of the Burns Ditch and Trail Creek watersheds in northern
Indiana, the Corps of Engineers will develop one model for both watersheds.
River Basin
Characteristics
The Burns Ditch (a man-made waterway) and Trail Creek watersheds discharge
to Lake Michigan at Burns Waterway Harbor in Portage and Michigan City
Harbor, respectively. The Burns Ditch basin includes portions of Porter,
Lake, and La Porte counties, and covers 331 square miles. Major sub-tributaries
to the Burns Ditch include the East and West Branches of the Little
Calumet River, Deep River, and Turkey Creek. The Trail Creek basin falls
entirely within La Porte County and covers approximately 59 square miles.
Major sub-tributaries to Trail Creek include the East and West Branches,
Wolf Run, and Waterford Creek.
Land use within the two watersheds
is primarily agricultural, with some forested, urban, and industrial
areas. Within the Burns Ditch basin, the East Branch of the Little Calumet
River is a main source of sediment due to high agricultural use. Urban
development in the upstream portions of the basin contributes to elevated
levels of sedimentation in Lake George, a manmade lake created by the
City of Hobart in the mid-1800s. The Lake George Dam also has important
effects on the river reach located downstream of the lake. As a result,
dredging has been conducted along the East Branch of the Little Calumet
River and in Lake George at an expense of more than $2 million. Similarly,
in the Trail Creek basin, the Federal navigation channel at Michigan
City acts as a sediment trap requiring frequent maintenance dredging.
Modeling
Approach
The Corps has contracted with the Michigan
State University (MSU) Institute of Water Research and Purdue
University - Agricultural and Biological Engineering to expand the
capabilities of an existing web-based land use planning system to create
an enhanced, user-friendly watershed analysis tool specific to the Burns
Ditch and Trail Creek watersheds. This new tool integrates the capabilities
of MSU's Digital Watershed
tool and Purdue's L-THIA
tool, allowing users to access either of these models to browse local
datasets to learn about a specific location of interest, generate local
maps depicting specific data, and predict outcomes of various land use/management
scenarios.
Modeling for the Burns Ditch
and Trail Creek project is complete and available online at: Burns
Ditch & Trail Creek Watershed Management System. A training
workshop for state, regional, and local partners is scheduled for December
19, 2006, at the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission (NIRPC)
in Portage, Indiana. See agenda: 19-Dec-06
Training Workshop Agenda
Use and Applications
Tools resulting from this project may be used by stakeholders who are
actively engaged in planning and other stakeholders who support planning
in the Burns Ditch and Trail Creek watersheds to conduct preliminary
assessments. Specifically, stakeholders can obtain an overview of the
two watersheds using a map service and generate land use and impervious
surface estimates. Second, stakeholders can assess before and after
consequences of applying soil conservation and non-point source pollution
measures to agricultural lands or land use changes (e.g. agricultural
land to residential). Third, hydrologists may use a model to design
a number of erosion and sediment control structures.
Project
Partners
Michigan State University
(MSU) - Institute of Water Research
Purdue
University - Agricultural and Biological Engineering
Northwest
Indiana Regional Planning Commission (NIRPC)
U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency - Region 5
Purdue
University Extension
Save the Dunes Council
Indiana Department
of Natural Resources (IDNR)
National Park Service
- Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore
USDA-Natural Resource
Conservation Service
For more information contact:
David F. Bucaro, P.E.
Planner / Hydraulic Engineer
Environmental Formulation Section,
Planning Branch
US Army Corps of Engineers
- Chicago District
111 North Canal Street, Suite 600
Chicago, IL 60606-7206
Phone: (312) 846-5583
david.f.bucaro@usace.army.mil
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Sedimentation
in Lake George (in the Burns Ditch basin) required 590,000
cubic yards of dredging in 2000.
