LAWRENCE COUNTY-What do fish, fire, native grasses and solar energy have in common?
They all co-exist in a new project that perfectly highlights the Tennessee Valley Authority’s three-part mission of environmental stewardship, economic development and energy production.
On 2,800 acres in Lawrence County, Alabama, biologists monitor and manage habitat for the rare Tuscumbia darter fish.
Biodiversity and natural resources specialists are restoring over one hundred grassland acres surrounding historic sites.
And engineers prepare solar panels, aiming them skyward to produce carbon-free energy for the Valley region.
“This is … taking a holistic approach to project development,” TVA major projects senior manager Robert Kulisek said.
Adam Dattilo, TVA’s biodiversity program manager, agrees.
“We’re nesting meaningful conservation into development of the solar site as a part of the clean energy transition,” he said.
Jon Michael Mollish, TVA fisheries biologist, Jessica Giddens, TVA aquatic zoologist and Matt Reed, TVA aquatic ecologist, do a “darter dance” to drive the tiny fish into the seine nets for sampling in Wheeler Branch, Alabama.
Of Fire and Fish
On a chilly morning in Wheeler Branch, plants waved in the current, creating underwater tunnels where the Tuscumbia darter lays its eggs.
Clad in chest waders, aquatic monitoring crew members stepped into the spring-fed stream.
“Ooh, that’s cold,” one said. He sunk through surface plants up to his waist.
“They didn’t turn the hot water back on,” another joked.
Two stretched a fine seine net across the river while the others lined up shoulder-to-shoulder upstream.
“OK, here we go,” Jon Michael Mollish, TVA fisheries biologist, said.
They shuffled through the water, hips swaying and arms waving to keep their balance. Their steady march drove Tuscumbia darters toward the net, where Mollish yelled, “Ready? And, up.”
Panting, the crew flipped the net, scooping fish and other creatures into its folds.
“Stoneroller,” Cory Chapman, TVA biologist, said, logging a small fish.
Todd Amacker, TVA’s aquatic endangered species biologist, approached with a small, silver-green Tuscumbia darter on a measuring tray.
“54 millimeters,” he told Jessica Giddens.
Giddens, a TVA aquatic zoologist and this project’s data analyst, recorded the animal’s length.
“This little lady, do you see how fat she is?” Giddens said. “You might even be able to see her eggs.”
The spawning fish were a sign of prime stream conditions.
“When you think about fish habitat, you think about what kind of physical structure is in the water,” Aaron Coons, TVA aquatic zoologist, said.
As part of the water quality assessment, Coons and Matt Reed, TVA aquatic ecologist, recorded the flow through the aquatic plants and whether the stream bottom was gravel or sand.
Coons flipped open a densiometer, squinting at its gridded mirror that showed percentages of tree-covered or sunny sky.
“The thought is: You get more aquatic vegetation, you might get more Tuscumbia darter,” Coons said.
And that’s key. Plants need sun, so the Tuscumbia darter needs land management that keeps the streambanks open to the sky.
“There’s an idea that pre-(European) settlement, a squirrel could hop from tree to tree all the way to the Atlantic Ocean,” Amacker said. “And that’s 100% not true.”
The scientists think that, historically, sunny streams ran through grasslands and only the occasional tree stood tall against the horizon – all thanks to fire.
“Fire was part of the ecosystem here naturally even before humans came along,” Josh Burnette, TVA senior natural resources specialist, said.
And that’s why they’re bringing prescribed burns back to Wheeler Branch and the larger landscape beyond.
The tiny Tuscumbia darter fish, which scientists measure before releasing it, lives only in a few streams. TVA protects its habitat and restores surrounding grasslands with prescribed fire.
Fire for Fields of Flowers
The Lawrence County acreage that TVA purchased includes cleared, flat farmland and hills thick with planted loblolly pine, all ancestral lands of the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw and Chickasaw.
The project has required careful collaboration.
The Major Projects group would coordinate building the solar site, Burnette would decide how to manage the land and Dattilo would provide his expertise as biodiversity program manager.
They walked the land.
They communicated through environmental and cultural surveys.
They met with the Alabama State Historic Preservation Office.
And they thought about what the overall site could be with coordinated efforts.
“Instead of viewing this as, ‘No we can’t work here because this (rare Tuscumbia darter) is present,’ we said, ‘Let’s turn this into something meaningful from a conservation perspective,’” Dattilo said.
“This was a project with … the ability to be very flexible in how it’s laid out, paired with a site that has a lot of biological and cultural significance to it,” Kulisek said. “We’ll foster what’s already naturally occurring there.”
That meant looking at the landscape and its history.
“When I step foot on TVA land and … decide (how) to manage it, I’m always looking for clues,” Burnette said.
At this site, he saw wildflowers popping up and native grasses creeping into stands of young trees.
He combed through 1880s land records and found that surveyors had listed boundary trees marking homestead corners – huge, gnarled oaks, shortleaf pines and chestnuts.
“These are very fire-tolerant trees,” Burnette said.
The presence of these trees, rather than thin-barked maples or cedars, meant the land burned regularly.
“The seeds are there in the seed bank,” he said. “(They) just need to be released somehow.”
TVA has already started to help restore native plants with fire.
The enterprise’s natural resources and environmental compliance groups, along with the Alabama Forestry Commission, conducted a prescribed burn near Wheeler Branch and on a hilly 130 acres facing south, near the solar site.
The goal? “Have a rich native species understory – grasses and wildflowers – so it supports bird and pollinator species and a whole suite of habitat,” Dattilo said.
He pictures a mosaic of shortleaf pines climbing the hillsides above grassland in long stretches of sun.
“We’re really excited to see what’s going to come in naturally,” Burnette said.
In the field next to Wheeler Branch, crews planted native grasses and wildflowers, which are already growing tall.
“This is big bluestem here, a native tallgrass species,” Dattilo said, pointing out sideoats grama, Indian grass and little bluestem. “The idea is to manage this grassland as a single unit with this fish at Wheeler Branch.”
Jessica Giddens records key data about fish species living in Wheeler Branch.
Coordination Reaps Rewards
Back in the office, Kulisek pulled up a color-coded digital map his Major Projects group created. It showed 1,400 acres of the defined solar site and adjacent lands that TVA will preserve or restore.
It also marked culturally important assets, such as the Trail of Tears, and environmental assets.
“Wetlands in the green hatch,” he said. “These are the archaeological significant areas, in the pink.”
He indicated pollinator habitat and prescribed burn areas.
“One of the many benefits of solar generation is the flexibility in design,” Kulisek said. “This allowed the team to minimize the view of the solar facility from public roads and historic sites.”
The coordinated project satisfies TVA’s three E’s – energy, environment and economic development. It’s a model for what can happen when TVA teams think about possibilities, rather than obstacles, for conservation.
This year, participants won the Biodiversity Project Conservation Award for the coordinated conservation and energy goals.
It’s a model for future TVA projects.
“Within my group we have a very specific task,” Kulisek said. “We have to develop (power) generation. (By) working with these other groups, we get to understand not just what’s important to (them), but also what opportunities we have for projects like this.”
Back in the sunny Wheeler Branch, Mollish agreed.
“No one agency, no one group, no one person, no one team can solve all the questions,” he said. “That partnership-first approach is paramount.”
Media Release/TVA NewsRoom
