Twin Creek - A Legacy Fulfilled

Twin Creek is a 47-mile stream west of Dayton © Dave Gosse

A generous bequest from a Dayton woman is helping protect a creek in southwestern Ohio that is barely known outside its own region – yet is beloved by the people who live along its banks and praised by biologists who have studied it.

Twin Creek, a 47-mile stream that drains 316 square miles of rolling farmland west of Dayton, is the subject of an agreement between The Nature Conservancy and the Three Valley Conservation Trust. The Conservancy is paying for a full-time conservation scientist, Dave Gosse, who is working to identify protection strategies and provide scientific support for the Trust.

The money to pay for Gosse’s position comes from the remainder of a $700,000 bequest by Gertrude Schantz Weng, a prominent Dayton resident who willed money to the Conservancy in memory of her mother and father, father, Mary Schantz and Adam Schantz, Jr., “to be used for acquisition, maintenance, and protection of natural areas within the Miami and Little Miami Valley region of Southwest Ohio.”

“She was a true devotee of nature who loved the out-of-doors and who had a strong sense of wanting to leave something for the future,” recalls Irv Bieser, a member of the Conservancy’s board of trustees in Ohio and the Ms. Weng’s lawyer.

Three-quarters of the bequest was used to acquire land in the region, including critical lands as the ODNR Division of Wildlife’s Beaver Creek Wetlands, in the headwaters of the Stillwater River in Darke County and at Charleston Falls in Miami County. Because of matching gifts, the bequest has leveraged well over $800,000 in additional funds. And through the grant to Three Valley, will leave a conservation plan that will guide protection of Twin Creek for many years to come.

“It’s quite remarkable, how her gift has contributed over the years,” Bieser said.

Twin Creek is a gently-sloping stream that flows over glacial till and is constantly recharged by cool, clean water from numerous underground pools. Scientists say it’s among the most biologically rich creeks in the state, especially for aquatic macroinvertebrates. A dozen species of freshwater mussels and 62 species of fish call Twin Creek home, including fish that need clean, clear water to live, like the black redhorse sucker. The lands that line the creek include many pools that protect amphibians.

Gosse comes to the project from the Conservancy, where he has worked on protection through the Virginia Field Office and conservation planning in The Upper West Gulf Coastal Plain and the Mississippi River Delta ecoregions, through the Arkansas Field Office. He’s been working since last August in the Twin Creek Watershed, and is getting to know the creek and its people.

“It’s amazing to find such a jewel here,” says Gosse. “Not knowing the area, this was completely unexpected. And it’s not just the biological diversity, but the human element – the willingness of the community to take on the protection of this resource - that gives this project such potential.”

The threats to this watershed include unsustainable development and farming practices that allow sediment and nutrients into the stream, Gosse said. The challenge is to work with the farming community to protect the creek, while maintaining a viable farming culture.

“The area Three Valley is trying to protect runs between Dayton and Cincinnati, some of the fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the state,” he explains. “We want to keep people farming; if they don’t it opens up the area to development, and we definitely don’t want to do that.”