Lake Reba and the Otter Creek Watershed EarthCache
Lake Reba and the Otter Creek Watershed
-
Difficulty:
-
-
Terrain:
-
Size: 
(not chosen)
Please note Use of geocaching.com services is subject to the terms and conditions
in our disclaimer.
This Earthcache is located at the Lake Reba Recreational Complex in Richmond, Kentucky. This part of the park is open 24 hours a day for fishing in Lake Reba.
The posted coordinates will take you to the parking lot next to the fishing pier and boat docks at Lake Reba. This is a great park. Look around after you complete this EC. You might also check out the Flight 5191 Memorial where a physical cache is hidden.
Lake Reba Recreational Complex is a 600 acre tract of land with tons of different things to do. The Complex includes Gibson Bay Golf Course, baseball fields, football fields, pavilions, a playground, batting cages, miniature golf, a walking path, soccer fields, the Flight 5191 Memorial, and the Judy Rains Memorial Dog Park. It also includes the 75 acre Lake Reba. You can enter the complex from Gibson Bay Drive off of the Robert R. Martin Bypass or from Catalpa Loop off of Route 52 East. The main part of the park is open from 7am to sunset but the Catalpa Loop entrance and the Lake access is open 24 hours a day, year round.
Lake Reba was once a secondary source of drinking water for the City of Richmond and was home to one of Richmond's two water treatment plants. In 1963, Richmond Utilities built a water treatment plant on the Kentucky River in College Hill at Pool 11 and soon thereafter Lake Reba became a fishing lake only.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, a watershed is the area of land where all of the water that is under it, or drains off of it, goes to the same place. In the United States there are 2,110 watersheds.
Lake Reba is dammed at its northern end with a spillway that allows excess water to flow into Otter Creek. That integration makes Lake Reba part of the Otter Creek Watershed. Otter Creek is part of the Upper Kentucky River basin and flows into the Kentucky River at Ford, KY on the Madison/Clark County line. The Kentucky River then drains into the Ohio River at Carrollton, KY.
The Otter Creek watershed covers 65 square miles of north-central Madison County and is part of the Bluegrass physiographic region. Other creeks that are part of the Otter Creek watershed include: Hicks Branch, Tribble Branch, both the East and West Forks of Otter Creek, Lost Fork and Stoney Run. About 85% of the land in the Otter Creek watershed is agricultural with the remaining 15% split evenly between residential, commercial and industrial areas. The City of Richmond discharges treated sewage into the watershed at its Dreaming Creek Water Treatment Plant.
The Otter Creek watershed does have some problems with pollution. The amount of erosion and livestock pollution are higher than the average for the basin and the human population that does not have access to public sewage is much higher in this area than the basin average. Aquatic life is impaired in the East Branch of Otter Creek due to overenrichment. In the next several years the watershed will be further threatened by continued building of new homes in the watershed and the potential construction of a new wastewater treatment plant that will discharge treated sewage into Otter Creek at milepoint 9.6 along Redhouse Road.
Kentucky has many threatened watersheds just like this one. One reason that many central Kentucky watersheds are especially vulnerable to pollution is due to Commonwealth’s world famous karst topography. Karst is a type of landscape characterized by tunnels, caves and sinkholes which are formed by groundwater dissolving soft sedimentary rock such as limestone. Water penetrates the soil and dissolves the limestone creating fissures which are further widened by the increased water flow thus creating larger spaces in the rock. Central Kentucky is located in what is referred to as the “inner bluegrass karst area” which is considered an area of high potential for karst. Due to the ease at which surface runoff can enter the groundwater below through the porous rock and fissures of karst topography, pollution is a big problem. In fact, fissures and sinkholes can act like funnels, channeling potentially polluted water right into the groundwater table.
To log this Earthcache you must post a picture of yourself or your team (I do not accept pictures of hands) with Lake Reba and its fishing pier in the background. Please do not log the smiley until you have a picture READY TO POST and email me the answers to the following questions:
1. What watershed is Lake Reba part of?
2. Is your home located in a watershed?
3. Standing at the given coordinates, look down Lake Reba to the north (left). Estimate how wide the dam is at the end of the lake.
Pictures must be posted and you must answer the questions to get credit for the cache. Photos must include faces, not just hands. If these requirements are not met, your log may be deleted. I am no geologist. Information from this Earthcache was gathered from books and internet sources that are available to the general public.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Purpx bhg bgure ybpny pnpurf!
Treasures
You'll collect a digital Treasure from one of these collections when you find and log this geocache:
Loading Treasures