Little Rock Creek Watershed Total Maximum Daily Load Report: Dissolved Oxygen, Nitrate, Temperature and Fish Bioassessment Impairments

The Little Rock Creek Watershed is 44,229 acres and is divided between Benton (12,590 acres) and Morrison (31,639 acres) counties. The main stream segment of Little Rock Creek is perennial, whereas, a majority of the tributaries to the creek are intermittent or have been converted to drainage ditches. Little Rock Creek flows south through Little Rock Lake and ultimately discharges to the Mississippi River via the Harris Channel. The drainage area for Little Rock Creek has been further defined by linked surface water and groundwater modeling developed for this study. The groundwater model domain area for the Little Rock Creek Watershed is 215,701 acres, and was selected because groundwater purturbations outside of the surface watershed area will affect the groundwater drainage area, along with climatic variations and variations in groundwater pumping. Groundwater flows west through the Little Rock Creek watershed, discharging both to the creek and to the Mississippi River (south and west of the watershed).