McKenzie Jaynes heads for a tree, which she will mark with a green ribbon as she plots out the path of a planned boardwalk through the wetlands. Behind her, Sarah Whitney searches for trash in the muddy water.
Seth Pemberton, faded “Gulf Shores” baseball cap on his head, stands ankle deep in mud and water, a black plastic garbage bag in his hand. The bag sags with trash.
It’s only been about an hour that Pemberton, a junior in environmental science, has been picking up trash in a wetlands area off Amnicola Highway and about four miles from the UTC campus. Around him, other university students do the same thing, their garbage bags also stretched with the trash they’ve found.
“It’s upsetting,” Pemberton says, looking at the garbage bag filling up with alcohol bottles, plastic soda bottles, fast-food wrappers and other assorted trash. Only about an hour after starting, he’s already on his second bag.
The same weekend as Earth Day, a group of UTC students, most from the Wildlife-Zoology Club, headed out to the 17-acre wetlands, donated to UTC about two years ago by Ray Marler of Marler Construction Co. “I didn’t go to UTC,” Marler says, “but I’m a small business fella in this town and I’d like to give something back. I thought that UTC, being that close, could get more benefit out of it.”
Encircled by industrial supply companies, distribution warehouses and train tracks, the wetlands are virtually invisible from the road that runs right alongside it, which might explain why, at the end of about two hours of work, students had pulled out a car muffler, a waterlogged mattress from a patio couch, more than 10 tires, a TV set, pieces of sheet metal and garbage bag after bag after bag of miscellaneous trash.
The combined mass fills the entire bed of a Ford 350 pickup truck (a broad-shouldered, cornfed beast of truck) and into a mound about a foot taller than the edge of the bed. Last November, a group of about 30 or so came to the wetlands and carried out about 2,200 pounds of trash, filling the same truck to the brim.
“We don’t know when the last cleanup was, so it could be 30 years of junk in there,” says Dr. Tom Wilson, UC Foundation associate professor and graduate program coordinator in biology, geology and environmental science.
He and Dr. David Aborn, associate professor, and Dr. Bradley Reynolds, senior lecturer, both in biology, geology and environmental science, are the faculty team leading the cleanup and restoration of the wetlands. They also are the advisors to the Wildlife-Zoology club. As far at the trash-gathering operations are concerned, the goals are twofold.
“We’ve got to clean that up anyway, so it’s a good opportunity to talk to students about wetlands conservation and the importance of water quality, to get them out there,” Wilson says.
“We do believe the hands-on side of it is a good teacher,” he says. “Not to say the textbook is not, but they’ve got to put it in context and the only way for the students to put it in context is to be involved with it.”
Cullen Harris, a senior in environmental science, was at the November cleanup and found it inspiring.
“What was really cool is that … we put on waders; we were in the mud; we were pulling up garbage, and people had smiles on their faces. They’re having a good time and were feeling really good about it once it was all said and done.”
On the recent Saturday, students in chest-high waders squish through mud that clutches ankles and crunching across fallen tree branches and trunks. In places, iridescent patches of oil glisten on top of the water. But there also are patches of bright-yellow butterweed flowers and bird calls sing from everywhere.
But there also is garbage hidden among the mud and wood. Megan Reed, a senior in psychology with a minor in environmental science, says trash often hides in the muck or in the underbrush, making it hard to see. But she still resolutely slogs through the wetlands, eyes peeled. Picking up bottles and food wrappers and pieces of metal might not seem like a big deal in the vast scheme of things, but “small things can have a big impact,” she says.
There are longer-term plans than just getting students to do the dirty work of cleanup, Wilson says. They can carry out research on plants, animals and insects living in the wetlands; they can determine whether the soil has been damaged by being in a mostly-industrialized area; they can help with any restoration that needs to be done.
“It would be the only student-based restoration project in the city and certainly the county,” Wilson says. “And for UTC, this could be the flagship property for us to do that type of work.”
The UC Foundation has agreed to help build a boardwalk through the wetlands, giving visitors the chance to immerse themselves in the environment without damaging it. Students have wrapped green ribbons around trees, plotting a possible path for the boardwalk.
Maintenance and restoring the wetlands goes hand-in-hand with Chattanooga’s ongoing efforts to be a green city, Wilson says. And once city residents see the wetlands, they may be inclined to help clean it up, restore it, make it healthier and improve the overall environmental profile of Chattanooga, Wilson says. In turn, restoration work can broaden a person’s horizons and help them see a bigger picture.
“It changes, in part, or influences, in part, who they are, so they can maybe think about things in a different way,” he continues. “It opens up other opportunities in their lives, here and elsewhere.”
Cleaning and restoring a single urban wetland won’t change the world, he acknowledges, but it won’t hurt.
“Improving landscapes and green space proximate to homes is a healthier way of living. You’re putting in plants and you’re encouraging species to restore a system. We know healthier systems are healthier landscapes, and we know healthier landscapes, in theory, should mean healthier people.”
