Sheridan County Conservation District Checking Goose Creek Water

The Sheridan County Conservation District is checking various areas to make sure the quality of Sheridan County’s water is good for the environment.

Between mid-May and mid-September, the district completed field sampling at 17 various locations along the Goose Creek Watershed.

Monitoring occurs on a yearly rotation between the Goose Creek, Tongue River and Prairie Dog Creek watersheds.

Among the many things they check for is water temperature, and bacteria levels and then use that data to prioritize future water projects to increase awareness about programs and watershed issues.

District manager Carrie Rogaczewski says samples have been collected for more than 20 years and that data is still used to compare differences in the water between then and now, to see if past projects have been successful and what still needs to be done in certain areas.

“Having those long term data sets is really valuable for not only telling us whether the work we are doing is having a positive impact, whether that’s through actual projects or increasing awareness or also to help us understand where we might want to target some resources, or focus some resources for those kinds of improvements.”

Rogaczewski says results of the samples probably won’t be available until early January.