Tenn. taps into better water resources

Elizabeth Storey

Staff Writer

The water quality in East Tennessee may be on its way to improvement. The UT Institute for a Secure and Sustainable Environment partners with the Cumberland River Compact and the Environmental Protection Agency to create better water system management methods.

Surveys will be sent out to 70 to 80 watershed and environmental groups and to local governments all across the state, according to Tim Gangaware, research director at the ISSE.

“What we’re doing is we’re conducting a needs assessment in that we’re going to be surveying watershed groups across the state, along with county and city governments to try to determine what their needs are in terms of watershed management and how the new center might be able to help support their needs,” Gangaware said.

The overall goal of this partnership is to help stake-holders in watersheds that are considered high priority by the EPA Region 4 and to transfer information, training and education of management methods, according to ISSE director Randy Gentry.

Region 4 EPA includes most of the Southeast. Watersheds of high priority are “impaired for their intended use.” Impairments include pathogens in water, according to Gentry. These are the watersheds where research will be conducted first.

“The Cumberland River Compact was chosen for the partnership mainly because of (its) expertise. The CRC has been working on ideas of low-impact development, sustainability of watersheds within middle Tennessee and the Cumberland river basin. Many of our folks here have been doing many similar activities within Knox County and groups throughout East Tennessee. They had some very specific talents that they brought to the relationship that coupled very well with ours. It only made sense to do this together,” Gentry said.

Part of the partnership will seek funds to do research to better understand water quality in these areas, according to Gentry. The rest will be the research itself, ranging from basic hydrology to efficient management systems, and then educating local communities on these systems and how they can improve them.

“I think most communities have a better understanding of their water situations than they did a few years ago,” Gentry said. “I would have to say that because of our most recent issues with the drought, that most people are more aware of it than they would have been otherwise.

“I don’t know that they always know what’s happening with water quality, what the real quality issues are with local streams, what are their practices that they do day to day that impact water quality. That may be anything from construction on the land surface to improper treatment or disposal of waste, and don’t use storm drains for refuse disposal. Those go straight to our streams.”

Rural and agricultural communities seem to suffer the most from poor water quality. Urban communities tend to have more chemical contamination while rural communities face problems with sediment and pathogens mainly due to animal waste, according to Gentry.

In rural cases, Gentry said, “The idea is to get those animals out of the creek or to provide best management practices on the ground that would help clean up those types of activities. We do know how to engineer systems to keep that from happening. It’s just a matter of transferring that information and making sure that those people in those communities know what the best management practice is, and in the long run economically it’s better for them.”

By taking action in watersheds and basins across the Tennessee Valley, the partnership could indirectly benefit the Tennessee River’s quality. Trying to directly take on the Tennessee River would be an incredible challenge, Gentry said.

“It’s a very complex system, so you have to understand how water moves and how it’s managed within that system in order to understand what fixes need to occur,” Gentry said.

The partnership lasts for five years, at which point the EPA will evaluate the situation, see if the stated goals are being met, and decide whether to continue with it for another five years.