Upper RondoutStream Management Creek Plan Down Sugar Loaf Brook Walking with the water down Sugar Loaf Brook the sound of brook water is in our ears rising and falling as it rushes along cold from the mountain springs. Watercress grows between the stones. Deer have browsed on touch-me-nots and cropped lush nettles along the bank. Jack-in-the-pulpit has ripened its berries. Small salamanders hide under the stones. A brown woods wren keeps house in a brush heap. Thrushes call in the cool deep woods. We walk down Sugar Loaf Brook pushing through windfalls, climbing over rocks. We walk with the water but water never stops to draw a breath or listen, it is going on its journey. We can’t keep up with it. —Inez George Gridley Journey from Red Hill: Selected Poems 1931 to 1996 to… OutlouD BookS 1997 Inez George Gridley (center, top row) first taught in a one-room school at Greenville, Ulster County. Upper RondoutStream Management Creek Plan Acknowledgments The Rondout CReek PRogRam team is Pleased who prepared the document for final publication. to release this summary of the Upper Rondout Additional thanks to individuals who supported Creek Stream Management Plan, a guide for local data collection and management efforts: Hanh residents, municipalities, interested organizations Chu, SUNY Ulster interns Jasmine Ingersoll, and agencies. We look forward to the improve- Mark Dupre and Jesse Dallas, Martin Rosenfeld, ments in the Rondout Creek’s health that result and Eliot Jordon. from consideration of this resource management Working together to create a Stream Manage- tool for the community. ment Plan for a unique area like the Upper The Rondout Creek Program Team gives Rondout Creek, which crosses town and county special thanks to the streamside residents who lines, would not be possible without the help- assisted with the plan by providing valuable ful, active involvement and public support by the information in our public survey, sharing history, Town Supervisors of Denning and Neversink, maps and photographs of the stream, and grant- Bill Bruning and Greg Goldstein, respectively. ing permission for our field crews to access the High-way Superintendents Dan Van Saders stream for data collection. Along the way, many (Denning) and Preston Kelly (Neversink) contrib- landowners shared their direct experiences of uted invaluable information from the field in their living streamside over the years. Through our area of expertise. Thanks also go to the Rondout stream feature inventory, we developed a better Creek Roundtable, Watershed Advisory Group understanding of stream conditions and trends, participants, and the many additional volunteers and look forward to implementing management for support and guidance in developmentof this recommendations that will lead to a healthier plan. Your input helped produce what we believe Rondout Creek. will be a successful tool for addressing priorities Thanks to the partners involved in the writing for stream management along the Rondout. of this plan: Mark Vian, Chris Tran, Jenn Grieser, This plan was adopted by resolution by the and Dan Davis of NYC DEP, Laurie Machung, Towns of Neversink and Denning in November Jim Mayfield, Carol Smythe (Neversink Historian), 2010. and Dave Gilmour (Gilmour Planning). Thank you KaRen RauteR, Stream Program Coordinator to the entire staff of Sullivan County Soil & Water Rondout Neversink Stream Program Conservation District including Brent Gotsch, Grahamsville, NY a master's candidate from SUNY Binghamton November 2010 ii Contents Sugarloaf Brook .......................................inside front cover Acknowledgments ................................................. ii Introduction ....................................................... iv PART I ENVirONMENT Local History ...................................................... 1 Community Stakeholders ........................................... 4 The Upper Rondout Creek ......................................... 7 Land Use & Land Cover .......................................... 15 Recreation, Wildlife & Fisheries .................................. 18 Hydrology & Flood History ....................................... 26 The Riparian Community ......................................... 31 Water Quality ..................................................... 43 PART II RECOMMENDatiONS Plan Recommendations ........................................... 49 PART III IMPLEMENtatiON Water Quality Projects ............................................ 57 Priority Recommendations ........................................ 62 Glossary ......................................................... 67 References ......................................................... 71 Introduction A Tool for The Community proCess foR loCal stReam manage- Stream ment planning is an emerging practice in creating a Management management tool to coordinate decision-making around common goals we identify together for the stream. This stream management plan was created cooperatively in the Upper Rondout Creek watershed community by residents, landowners, local leaders and area agency representatives. Its purpose is to identify common goals and priority management issues for the stream and its adjacent floodplains, forests and wetlands. The residents of the Upper Rondout Creek valley — from the Peekamoose Gorge to the Rondout Reservoir — know the awesome power of the Creek. Over the past several centuries they learned how to harness that power, but also to keep out of its way when floodwaters roared, tumbling giant boulders down the streambed, leaving nothing but the foundations of homes. Over generations, berms and revetment were installed, and in some reaches, the Creek was intentionally redirected in efforts to protect property and people. Abutments and numerous bridges — nine above the reservoir — were built to allow human settlement on both sides of the stream. Hardened road embankments edge in on the creek at many narrow points in the valley. Floodplains and streamside wetlands were filled in some places while diversions to sluice water into floodplain ponds were created in others, and pastures and lawns have frequently been cleared along creek banks and terraces. NYS DEC has historically supplemented the native fish- om eries by introducing sport fish for recreation. Trees in the powerline C hy. P a rights-of-way — which frequently run along the stream banks — are R regularly cut or removed. hotog bp iesen/dv R iv B ek von R e d · Stream Management Plan · Each of these activities contributes to the summer, Yahoo News included the “Blue Hole” overall picture of stream management in practice on the main stem of the Rondout as one of the today on the Rondout Creek. Even with these nation’s top twenty swimming holes. So why does human impacts, the stream remains relatively this Creek need a management plan? wild, and generally quite healthy. It shifts around In past years, most activities affecting the within its floodplain during big floods, as those stream have taken place apart from one another who remember the floods of 1928 or 1996 and Landowners manage their own stream banks and many others will attest. The fishing is good, but floodplains; highway superintendents manage local anglers will tell you it was better twenty road embankments and bridges; power compa- years ago. The water quality is high for the most nies clear their rights-of-way. When there are part, while recent landslides and ditch mainte- major problems, federal agencies such as Natural nance practices contribute to turbidity. Resources Conservation Service or the Federal Everyone cools off during the dog days of July Emergency Management Agency bring resources and August in the scour pools of the Rondout to address immediate needs. NYS Department of Creek. With the forests that have returned to the Environmental Conservation requires a permit hillsides throughout the Catskills over the past for certain activities in or near streams. The U.S. century, water here is cooler and the banks more Army Corps of Engineers also has a similar stable on many tributaries of the Rondout. This permitting program. · Upper Rondout Creek · Each of these players in stream management ş Large trees falling into the stream as a result of has their own objective, specific knowledge or erosion can cause the stream to change course and area of expertise, and individual ideas about what act unpredictably, but will removing the wood needs to be done to keep their section of the destabilize the stream in a different way? stream healthy. No single force, however, holds ş Where should we invest our limited resources for responsibility for coordinating all of these isolated restoration or protection? efforts. More importantly, streams are systems: what someone does on their own stream bank ş How can we know more reliably the condition can create significant effects — good or bad — of the fish community and the quality of the upstream or downstream. One action on the stream stream habitat? invariably affects — and sometimes compromises ş What is the trend in the overall ecological health — the goals and interests and efforts of others. of the Rondout Creek? We recognize the many benefits streams contribute to our community’s quality of life, and also the many risks they pose. If we look at streams In recent decades, advances have been made in as a community resource, they might be better the science of stream form and function. As part managed with a coordinated effort. This coordi- of the process of developing