Members of the Middle Nolichucky Watershed Alliance and several state environmental and wildlife officials on Thursday agreed on a plan to preserve and promote 40 acres of wetlands on Pottertown Road.

The group agreed to contact Terry Horne, an environmental engineer with the U.S.D.A.'s Natural Resources Conservation Service in Nashville about the actual design of a plan to impound more creek water and create the slow, "sheet flow" of water that typifies a large wetland area.

Ken Chase, who represents the Boone Watershed Partnership in Sullivan County on the Alliance, said the group worked out plans to provide access to the site, plans for seeking help with a design to better impound the stream that creates the wetlands, and how to provide long-term educational benefits at the site.

The Alliance has minimal funds, but is in the process of applying for non-profit status, and is seeking corporate and municipal help for the wetlands project, Chase said.

Recent History Of Site

The 40-acre, county-owned wetlands site is adjacent to the Wal-Mart Distribution Center. It was created at the same time the huge warehouse was built.

The warehouse site used about 10 acres of pre-existing wetlands, and the company was required by state officials to create a larger wetlands to offset or "mitigate" the destruction of the 10 acres. Greene County's government agreed to create and maintain the wetlands in 1996 as part of the package the county government put together to entice Wal-Mart to locate here.

The county later turned the maintenance and management of the wetlands over to the Greene County Fishing & Hunting Club. Mark Benko and Fred Kaufmann, who are officers of the club, have told the Alliance that the dam that was built to impound waters of Seven Springs Creek to create the Wal-Mart wetlands is in danger of failing. Both Benko and Kaufmann were present Thursday.

The Alliance has agreed to try to help the club preserve the wetlands, and to possibly enhance them so as to provide better habitat for wildlife and plant life, and possibly help provide an "outdoor classroom," said County Commissioner Tim Armstrong, the
Alliance's president.


Andrew Tolley, Johnson City environmental manager for The Tennessee Department of Environment & Conservation's Division of Water Pollution Control, took part in the walk.

Ginny Kidwell, a Greeneville alderman who is the Alliance's vice president, also participated.

Tolley said that improvements need "to increase retention time of drainage across the site, to maintain water flow to downstream property owners, and further enhance the development of wetlands."

Wetlands' Value Stressed

In addition to supporting diverse life, he said, wetlands filter water that makes its way into streams and ground water, leaving the water cleaner.

Tolley said the goal needs to be "to create a more natural, meandering hydrology" that will keep most of the area actually "wet" most of the time.
Kidwell said several experts agreed that this would happen naturally, over a period of about 20 years, if enough time was available, but improvements are needed now to speed up restoration of the wetlands and return the 40-acre site to a condition that probably existed naturally over a much larger area in western Greene County about 100 years ago.

James McAfee of the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency said that similar projects at Mossy Creek in Jefferson County, and at the Henderson Wetlands near Bowmantown in Washington County, provide excellent opportunities for school children to benefit by seeing the diversity of wildlife and plant life that wetlands support.

Because of its hilly topography, East Tennessee has never had as many wetlands as flatter West Tennessee, McAfee said, and most of the local wetlands were long ago either drained, developed, or surrounded.

Home To Many Species

Jan Bowers, with the TDEC Johnson City office, said about a third of all endangered species live their entire lives in wetlands.

Wetlands also serve a flood control function by holding water during periods of heavy rainfall and releasing it more slowly than it would be released in other areas.
The water impounded in a wetlands area also tempers the effects of drought by releasing water slowly, McAfee said.

Tennessee has more species of freshwater fish and amphibians than any other state, McAfee said, and many of them are wetlands species.

With proper access, "This could be a really good place to bring kids," McAfee said, to teach them plant and wildlife biology, ecology and other earth science classes.