What is the Paulins Kill Watershed Project Area?
The Upper Paulins Kill Watershed is one of the five major subwatershed basins of the Upper Delaware Watershed. Located within Sussex and Warren Counties in northwestern New Jersey, the Paulins Kill Watershed is about 197 square miles. This watershed area is mainly comprised of forested woodlands, wetlands, and agricultural lands, with only scattered light residential and commercial development and two small lake communities. The only exception is the Town of Newton, which is considered an urban center.
Why Develop a Watershed Restoration Plan for the Upper Paulins Kill Watershed?
The project area of the Upper Paulins Kill Watershed Restoration Plan has been a hot spot for residential growth and planning activity for many years. Significant portions of the stream have been identified as Category One waterways, and the project area also contains habitats for several threatened and endangered species, including the dwarf wedgemussel. However, the main driver for developing a watershed restoration plan for the Upper Paulins Kill is that the stream has been identified by the NJDEP as impaired for fecal coliform/E. coli, total phosphorus, dissolved oxygen, aquatic life, and arsenic at specific locations.
Paulins Kill Floodplain Reforestation Initiative
The WRWMG and its many conservation partners have been working together to establish a four-mile continuous reforestation project along the Paulins Kill. Hundreds of local volunteers have planted native trees and shrubs on adjoining commercial, private agricultural, and state-owned public lands in an effort to shade the Paulins Kill, stabilize the erosive streambanks, prevent pollutant runoff from entering the river, and ultimately improve the long-term water quality of this important tributary to the Delaware River.
The SCMUA-WRWMG is also working to improve wildlife habitat within the 4-mile reforestation corridor project area. As part of this effort, the SCMUA-WRWMG worked with representatives of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to construct shallow water habitat pools and beaver dam analogs in the wetlands of the Paulins Kill.
Beaver Dam Analogs (BDAs): human-made structures that mimic natural beaver dams. BDAs slow stream flow and raise water levels, reduce erosion and sedimentation, and help reconnect the water table to nearby wetlands vegetation.
Shallow Water Habitat Pools: seasonally wet pools that provide habitat for a multitude of plants and animals, including salamanders and other amphibians. Shallow water habitat pools typically fill with rainwater or melting snow in the early spring but only remain wet for a few months until the hot summer temperatures dry them out.
Town of Newton Community Watershed Restoration Initiative
The WRWMG has partnered with the Town of Newton to develop a Community Watershed Restoration Initiative to raise public awareness about watershed concerns while installing restoration projects to directly improve the headwaters of the Paulins Kill. As part of this Initiative, the WRWMG organized litter clean-ups with Halsted Middle School students, initiated a streamside reforestation project along the Paulins Kill at Memory Park, and installed a rain garden at Memory Park with assistance from the Newton Department of Public Works and Merriam Avenue School’s Earthkeepers Club.
Additionally, using National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and NJ Department of Environmental Protection grant funding, the WRWMG facilitated a K-college green infrastructure implementation program where a suite of environmentally-friendly stormwater management projects were installed at the elementary school, middle school, high school, and community college in the Town of Newton.
The following green infrastructure stormwater management projects were installed at each of the Newton Schools:
Merriam Avenue School: rain garden
Halsted Middle School: rain garden, porous asphalt parking lot, and tree trenches using structural soil
Newton High School: rain gardens and porous pavers
Sussex County Community College: detention basin plantings and rain gardens
Rain gardens are considered a best management practice for treating stormwater because they capture runoff from impervious surfaces, allowing water to seep into the ground rather than flowing directly into waterways via storm drains. Additionally, rain gardens are a valuable hands-on educational tool for informing community members about the importance of proper stormwater management.
Paulins Kill Lakes Initiative
Additionally, the SCMUA-Wallkill River Watershed Management Group received funding from the William Penn Foundation and the NJ Department of Environmental Protection to launch the Paulins Kill Lakes Initiative, a program aimed at connecting neighboring lake communities to one another. A goal of the program is to install a wide variety of demonstration green infrastructure projects in Paulins Kill Watershed lake communities to decrease the volume of polluted stormwater runoff entering streams and lakes using natural features (like plants) to manage stormwater. Unlike traditional water management techniques that use pipes to remove water from neighborhoods as quickly as possible, green infrastructure projects mimic nature and allow collected stormwater to slowly soak into the ground and replenish groundwater sources that people rely on.
Through partnerships with lake associations and residents in the area, the SCMUA-Wallkill River Watershed Management Group is creating a movement that encourages homeowners to install pollutant prevention projects on their own properties. Lakes participating in this initiative are: Culver Lake, Kemah Lake, Crandon Lakes, Lake Owassa, Paulinskill Lake, and Swartswood Lakes.
Example Projects:
Crandon Lakes Country Club Rain Gardens
Lake Owassa Floating Treatment Wetlands
Former Culver Lake Golf Course Restoration
As an expansion of its Paulins Kill Lakes Initiative, the WRWMG will be working to complete the restoration of the former Culver Lake Golf Course. The property was permanently preserved by the Greater Culver Lake Watershed Conservation Foundation in 2024 and has now been converted into a publicly-accessible open space preserve that is open to the general public (Culver Brook Preserve). The WRWMG will be 1) reforesting 20 acres of the property, 2) establishing a 3-acre pollinator meadow, 3) deploying floating treatment wetlands into the pond, and 4) constructing shallow water habitat pools on the landscape to benefit local wildlife.
