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Watershed
Teams Kindle Community Spirit
 “To
help make government work better and achieve results Americans care
about”—those are the criteria that decide the recipients of
former Vice President Al Gore’s Hammer Award, which was recently
granted to TVA for the work of its Watershed Teams in promoting National
Public Lands Day.
Last year the nationwide
event, coordinated by the National Environmental Education and Training
Foundation and held annually on the last Saturday in September, found
TVA Watershed Teams working with 948 volunteers from around the Valley
on projects that helped clean up and improve public lands.
East Tennessee’s
Melton Hill Watershed Team, for example, cooperated with Tennessee Citizens
for Wilderness Planning and the Tennessee Exotic Pest Plant Council
to remove non-native weeds from the Worthington Cemetery Cedar Barrens
Ecological Study Area in Oak Ridge. Alabama’s Pickwick Watershed
Team used a grant from Wal-Mart/Sam’s Club to join the Alabama
Technology Network in stabilizing 200 feet of shoreline near Muscle
Shoals.
“This event
serves as a reminder to the public about the importance of public lands
as an economic resource, an environmental refuge, and a recreation opportunity,”
says Bridgette Ellis, TVA’s Vice President of Resource Stewardship.
“Last year some 45,000 volunteers participated at more than 250
sites around the country.”
National Public
Lands Day is just one mark on the calendar. But its communal spirit
of partnership is something TVA’s Watershed Teams work hard to
cultivate 365 days a year. TVA
formed the multidisciplinary teams in 1999 to consolidate the functions
of its former Land Management Offices and River Action Teams. The Watershed
Teams are assigned to guide stewardship projects within the smaller
river basins contained in the 41,000-square-mile Tennessee River watershed.
Each team takes
a grassroots approach to the job of helping people in local communities
develop and carry out projects designed to protect and restore the individual
watersheds they call home. In
July 2000, for instance, TVA’s Little Tennessee Watershed Team
and the Fontana Lake Users Association cleared 600 tons of woody debris
from the channel where the Tuckasegee River meets Fontana Reservoir
near Bryson City, North Carolina. The wood was mulched or, in the case
of larger logs, fashioned into fortlike fish attractors called “lunker
bunkers.” Twenty-three bunkers were anchored to the dry lake bottom,
where 12 to 15 feet of water would later cover them to create inviting
shelters for spawning fish.
Meanwhile, the
Upper Holston Watershed Team helped stabilize approximately 3,630 feet
of rapidly eroding shoreline at local county and state parks, providing
technical assistance and project-management expertise while county sheriff’s
departments furnished labor and materials. The result was a variety
of benefits to both land and water, including improvements in aquatic
habitat.
One of the most
interesting events sponsored by a TVA Watershed Team last year was the
first annual Smoky Mountain Resource Conservation and Development Council
Envirothon. Eight high schools competed, answering questions in subject
areas that included wildlife and soil identification, aquatic life,
wetland management, and forestry. Technical and financial assistance
was provided by TVA.
“TVA has a
long history of working cooperatively with citizens of the region to
effect a positive change in their quality of life,” says John Shipp,
the agency’s General Manager of Environmental Policy and Planning.
“These Watershed Teams are one of the best things we’ve got
going. They provide the knowledge, the tools, and the resources to help
people really make a difference in their watersheds.”
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