Hands-on Workshops Link Land Actions to Water Health

Dave Matthews stood in the shade of a broad sycamore on the banks of Larkin Fork and slipped a small fish into a viewing tank.

A team of Natural Resources Conservation Service field agents and engineers from conservation districts across northern Alabama crowded in close.

“This is a greenside darter,” Matthews, Tennessee Valley Authority aquatic zoologist, said. “It has U-shaped marks along its side and it's an insectivore.”

Larkin Fork flows at the base of northern Alabama’s hazy hills into the Paint Rock River, which threads its way to the Tennessee River below Guntersville Dam.

Fertile farmland slopes to these streams. It’s at that intersection of fields and water, private land and public resources, where Natural Resources Conservation Service employees work.

“As an engineer, I provide technical assistance to all the Alabama counties along the Tennessee River,” Nick Specker, of the Natural Resources Conservation Service, said. “Among other practices, we assist private landowners and other agencies with stream bank stabilization. This is my first time to ever see fish sampling.”

That’s what today was all about.

At an event held at Graham Farm and Nature Center, Natural Resources Conservation Service employees could see what stream monitoring looked like, and in turn share that with landowners.

In all, this workshop – one of several TVA and its partners in the Tennessee River Basin Network hosted in Alabama and Tennessee – can link work on land directly to cleaner, healthier streams, said Shannon O’Quinn, TVA senior water resource specialist.

O’Quinn oversees partnership funding for stream restoration projects through TVA’s Natural Resources plan.

“We have data for the whole watershed,” Matthews told each group as they rotated through the fish sampling station. He handed out cards so participants could contact him and access decades of aquatic data.

“These rivers are the veins and arteries of the Tennessee Valley,” Matthews said. “By monitoring, we know about the health of the Valley region.”

Cedric Williams, National Resources Conservation Service district conservationist, inspects a fish during learning rotations.

It All Ties Together

As the heat of the day built, participants dressed in boots or sandals rotated through three stations – fish sampling, mussels sampling and stream assessment.

Daniel West, senior environmental scientist for the Geological Survey of Alabama and Tennessee River Basin Network president, and Jenna King, fish and wildlife biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, stood at two ends of a long seine net.

“We're trying to get a whole community assessment,” King told participants. “In Alabama and particularly in this drainage here, we have a very high diversity of our little fishes – darters and shiners.”

They caught a stone roller with a lower lip adapted to scrape algae from rocks. A Northern hog sucker and a big-eyed chub.

Many rare species call the Paint Rock home, including snail darters newly off of the endangered species list, highly endangered palezone shiners, state-protected blotchside logperch and some of the rarest mussels in the world, such as the endangered snuffbox.

“I think a lot of people don't realize how biodiverse the Paint Rock River is,” Cal Johnson, senior environmental scientist for the Alabama Department of Environmental Management, said.

“There are 33 species here in Larkin Fork ... and 45 to 48 species in the Paint Rock,” Matthews said. “These rivers are a real gem.”

The fish tell a story of the river, and their diets can offer up important clues about what’s happening on land surrounding these waters.

Omnivore fish eat everything. Insectivores eat aquatic insects. Predator piscivore eat other fish.

“Predator and sucker species are some of the first to start disappearing,” Matthews said. “If I see a high number of omnivores, I'm thinking high nutrient load."

Nutrients such as fertilizer or animal waste can run off the landscape when it rains – that's non-point-source pollution, Matthews explained – or come from a single point-source such as a septic tank draining directly into the river.

The full picture of stream health includes fish data as well as mussel data and stream visualization assessments, which Todd Fobian, from the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, and Jeff Thurmond, of the Natural Resources Conservation Service, demonstrated.

All in all, this data can help Natural Resources Conservation Service employees correlate land use to water health when they’re talking to stakeholders.

“It all ties together,” Matthews said.

Jenna King, Fish and Wildlife Service biologist, and Daniel West, Tennessee River Basin Network president and senior environmental scientist for the Geological Survey of Alabama, demonstrate netting.

Good Farmers, Good People

The health of the Valley region and the nation’s lands were key questions when TVA and the Natural Resources Conservation Service began in the 1930s.

Both were born as New Deal programs to help people during the Great Depression and Dust Bowl.

Today, TVA serves as an environmental steward throughout its seven-state service area, helping the broader community through partnerships, field support and education.

The Natural Resources Conservation Service works within communities nationwide, leading farmers and families to solutions that can help their businesses and the environment.

“We've done a lot down here in Paint Rock Valley, here in Jackson County, such as stream bank stabilization,” Brandon Edmonds, Natural Resources Conservation Service agent, said.

“With cattle farmers, we (also) help with pipeline water troughs, cross fencing, pasture and hayland planting. We do erosion control, cover crops and things like that. It's going to benefit their livestock and them.”

When farmers see their neighbors adopting beneficial conservation practices, it often inspires them to sign on for Natural Resources Conservation programs.

And given that about 94% of Alabama's land is in private hands, individual farmers and landowners largely determine the health of their rivers.

“Having that ownership and buy-in from the private landowners – that’s critical to implementing water quality and water quantity initiatives,” Johnson said. “Without them, it's not possible.”

The health of fish in Alabama’s pristine rivers is tied to the actions of farmers – how they plant crops, irrigate, water animals and dispose of farm waste – and homeowners, who make decisions about fertilizing lawns or planting shoreline buffers.

Fortunately, Natural Resources Conservation Service employees see individual landowners stepping up.

“We’ve got good farmers and they want to do what's right,” Bucky Howe, of Marshall County’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, said. “We try to help them along. Good people – that's what this place is all about.”

At day’s end, these workshops are tools that Natural Resources Conservation Service staff can take into the field to educate farmers and landowners.

“We get to see (firsthand) how it's determined that these species are present and what we’re doing to help them,” John Gale, who works out of the Marshall County office, said.

“And then landowners can say, ‘This is one of the most biodiverse rivers – that's why it's important for me to do these conservation practices,’” O’Quinn said.

“They're able to connect what they're doing up on land to the fish in the water.”

Photo Gallery

Shawn Manning, of the Natural Resources Conservation Service, inspects a fish up close.

Jim Nemati, of Graham Farm and Nature Center, learns about fish from TVA’s Shannon O’Quinn, water resources senior specialist, and Dave Matthews, aquatic zoologist.

Matthews teaches a group of Natural Resources Conservation Service staff about the river life that their work on land protects.

O’Quinn looks on as Matthews holds up a northern hogsucker for fish kisses.

Bucky Howe, of the Natural Resources Conservation Service, displays a fish found in the river.

TVA’s O’Quinn and Matthews link fish life in Alabama rivers to vital conservation work Natural Resources Conservation Service staff do throughout their conservation districts.

PHOTO AT TOP OF PAGE: Nemati and Williams search look for mussels with an open-bottom bucket.

Many partners contribute funding, time and effort to these trainings. These include TVA and members of the Tennessee River Basin Network, Alabama Department of Environmental Management, Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, the Geological Survey of Alabama, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and The Nature Conservancy.