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Inner Bluegrass

Ecoregion on Cumberland Plateau, Appalachian Mountains in KY

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The nearly level to rolling Inner Bluegrass is a weakly dissected agricultural plain containing extensive karst, intermittent streams, and expanding urban-suburban areas that originally developed near major springs. Deep, forested gorges also occur along the Kentucky and Dix rivers. The Inner Bluegrass (71l) is characteristically underlain by Middle Ordovician Lexington Limestone and is lithologically distinct from the rest of Ecoregion 71. Very fertile Alfisols and Mollisols have developed from the residuum of underlying phosphatic limestone; natural soil fertility is greater than in Ecoregion 71k. The original open woodlands, savannas, and swamp forests have been largely replaced by agriculture and urban-suburban-industrial areas. However, deciduous forests containing eastern redcedar still occur in ravines, along the Kentucky River, and near streams. Thoroughbred horse farms, cattle grazing, tobacco, alfalfa, and hay farming are common land uses. Some upland streams are very warm and have seasonally variable flows but others, fed by major springs, are colder and have plentiful perennial flow. In either case, they have moderate to low gradients, cobble or bedrock substrates, and fish assemblages that are similar to the Outer Bluegrass (71d) and the Hills of the Bluegrass (71k). Higher gradient streams draining into the Kentucky River gorge have macroinvertebrate and fish assemblages that are more typical of the Knobs – Norman Upland (71c) than the rest of Ecoregion 71l. Agriculture contributes sediment, nutrients, pesticides, and pathogens to surface water; algal blooms and low concentrations of dissolved oxygen occur especially where the riparian tree canopy has been removed. Wastewater discharge and runoff downstream of urban areas release trace metals into some streams. Package waste treatment plants for small residential subdivisions often discharge into dry valleys, produce effluent-dominated streams, and have a high failure rate. The Kentucky River has some of the highest nitrite plus nitrate and phosphate concentrations in Kentucky. It has been impounded by a series of locks and dams, causing the number of pool-inhabiting fish to increase at the expense of upland habitat species.

— EPA

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