Members of the Middle Nolichucky Watershed Alliance and several local and state environmental officials toured a portion of the wetlands site near the Wal-Mart Distribution Center Monday morning.

Terry Horne, an engineer with the Natural Resources Conservation Service, met with the group to create a design plan for a portion of the wetlands near the distribution center's retention pond.

Andrew Tolley, Johnson City environmental manager of the Tennessee Department of Environment & Conservation's Division of Water Pollution Control, noted a common misconception that the ground in wetlands is wet all year long. He said the reality is that some wetlands have wet ground only 15 percent of the time.

The wetlands site in western Greene County has been envisioned as an area for natural regeneration of plants and trees and attraction of rare bird species.

With these visions in mind, several environmentalists and school officials have mentioned the possibility of using the area as an outdoor classroom.

According to Mike McElroy, of the Natural Resources Conservation Service, the educational use would "give the students a sense of being outdoors and seeing a lot of these plants you would normally not see anywhere else."

Alice Loftin and Don Miller, of the Greeneville Chapter of the Tennessee Ornithological Society, urged that the site be managed so as to attract a variety of bird species. "I think it would be a better teaching tool if we could do that," Miller told the group.

Recent History Of Site

The 40-acre, county-owned wetlands site, which is now owned by Greene County, 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 agreed to create and maintain the wetlands in 1996 as part of the package the county government put together to persuade Wal-Mart to locate its distribution center here.

The county later turned 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 Middle Nolichucky Watershed Alliance that the dam built to impound waters of Seven Springs Creek to create the Wal-Mart wetlands is in danger of failing. Both Benko, also of the Tennessee Conservation League, and Kaufmann were present Monday.

Also attending was Lynne York, an owner of adjoining property, who expressed her willingness to cooperate with the wetlands project.