PHOENIX – Arizona Department of Environmental Quality officials announced today that a $120,040 grant has been awarded to the Oak Creek Watershed Council to assist in controlling polluted runoff into Oak Creek from primarily the Settler’s Rest neighborhood in West Sedona.

The neighborhood is located near the top of Carrol Canyon, a popular spot near the Sedona Airport for hiking, people walking their dogs and horseback riding. The Carrol Canyon drainage typically moves runoff with elevated levels of nutrients, sediment and E. coli bacteria and shortly thereafter empties the stormwater into Oak Creek.

The grant is one of eight in Arizona this year administered by ADEQ’s Water Quality Improvement Grant program (WQIG) to address polluted runoff from many different sources. Oak Creek, from its headwaters to its confluence with Spring Creek in Oak Creek Canyon, is listed as impaired for E. coli.

The funding will be used to develop best management practices in the Settler’s Rest area like a series of retention basins and armored spillways and planting of native plants for soil retention and bioremediation. Outreach efforts will be made to encourage other residents and homeowner associations throughout Sedona to adopt similar practices. Erosion control work also will be performed and maintenance of dog waste stations to the extent that funding allows.

“This grant money will help restore water quality in one of the most beautiful and heavily visited tourist areas in the state,” ADEQ Director Henry Darwin said.