BROOKER, Florida—Once upon a time, there was a massive body of water that flowed deep under the ground where it couldn’t be seen. It was so big, it stretched to four different states, providing drinking water for millions of people.

The story of the 100,000-square-mile Floridan Aquifer is so good, it almost reads like a fairytale. Found underneath all of Florida and parts of Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina, it provides billions of gallons of drinking water every day. It is one of the most productive aquifers in the world.

How do hidden water sources like this exist? Through groundwater, which seeps down into the aquifers, recharging them. Natural land, especially forest land, is critical to the existence of these important water sources.

Forest Land Serves as a Recharge Zone for Aquifers

More than half of all drinking water in the United States originates in forests, according to the National Association of State Foresters. And that’s not just from protected park lands. Close to 30 percent of drinking water comes from privately-owned, working forests, according to this article by the U.S. Forest Service.

“Forests are a recharge zone for groundwater. They’re not paved, they’re not covered with any kind of commercial activity. It’s open land with a lot of vegetation and trees,” says New England Forestry’s Environmental Affairs Manager Janet Price, a biologist who guides the company on water quality and other environmental standards.

“That’s a valuable resource, particularly in parts of the country where an aquifer is the water supply for people who live in the area.”

Forest land allows water to sit and slowly seep into the ground, replenishing the aquifer. The roots of the trees and other vegetation hold soils in place, preventing washouts and erosion. As the water slowly percolates deeper into the ground, the root systems, soil and underlying permeable rock formations serve as a filter, naturally removing impurities from the water. In the same way, forests slow and filter water runoff as it makes its way into streams, lakes and reservoirs. 

Green Infrastructure Becoming a Part of the Solution to Water Supply Needs

Forests and other green infrastructure, such as wetlands, have such a positive impact on water quality that communities around the world are incorporating green infrastructure into their water plans. One great success story in the U.S. is New York City. It uses the watersheds of the Catskill Mountains to provide what is known as one of the highest quality metropolitan drinking water supplies in the world. By investing in this green infrastructure, New York was able to bypass plans to build a multi-billion dollar water filtration plant, as explained in this article by the National Alliance of Forest Owners.

Best Management Practices Protect Water in Working Forests

Many years ago, in the early 1900s, our industry didn’t know how to properly protect waterways during forestry activities. But as the scientific community discovered what was needed to protect water quality and the ecosystems that depend on clean water, the way we work in our forests changed.

Today, sustainable forestry companies like New England Forestry are guided by Best Management Practices (BMPs). These science-based standards specify how to protect various bodies of water in our forests. Each state has different guidelines for different sizes and types of water systems.

One of the most important aspects of BMPs are Buffer Zones, also known as Riparian Management Zones (RMZs) or Streamside Management Zones (SMZs). Spanning anywhere from dozens of feet to hundreds of feet, these areas are separated from the rest of the forest. Within these zones, the guidelines may call for little or no roads, heavy equipment and forestry activities. Harvesting within the area may be limited or eliminated altogether.

“We’re not touching the land very often, but when we do, we map out the buffers along the waterways that are off limits,” Price says, explaining that forests grow for decades with very little human interaction.

Foresters are trained to protect and monitor these areas during all forestry activities, as one of our foresters explains in this video about Cruising Timber. New England Forestry foresters protect 11,800 miles of streams on our land, as of July 2020.

Taking a Proactive Role in Protecting Water in Our Forests

Recognizing the critical role our forests play in protecting water quality, New England Forestry has worked with partners to not only protect, but to improve the quality of the water systems on our land.

Diverting Water to Brooks Sink, Florida’s Largest Sinkhole

One of our Bradford County, Florida, forests contains a Florida wonder: the largest sinkhole in the state, as shown in the video above. Spanning about 200 feet across, Brooks Sink is a major source of water to replenish the Floridan aquifer. In 2000, New England Forestry acquired the property where Brooks Sink is located. We soon found out there was an opportunity to make the sinkhole do much more to replenish the aquifer.

Back in the 1970s, it was a common practice on agricultural and timber properties to install ditches. They increased groundwater flow and made more of the land plantable. Foresters today recognize the importance of protecting natural drainage patterns and restoring them when the opportunity presents itself. Brooks Sink was one such opportunity. 

About 50 years ago, water that had once flowed naturally into the sinkhole was diverted into a ditch which fed into increasingly larger streams and rivers. The water ultimately fed into the Gulf of Mexico instead of the aquifer, and millions of gallons of drinking water were lost.

We worked with the Suwannee River Management District to direct more of the water toward the sinkhole, the way it had naturally flowed before. The district installed flash board risers that slowed the water flow toward the Gulf, diverting a large proportion of it toward the sinkhole.

The riser sends an estimated 220 million more gallons of water per year into the sinkhole, enough to fill 333 Olympic sized pools to capacity each year, according to the Suwannee River Management District.

“It’s a very unique and special project,” Price says. “I don’t know of any other public-private partnership remotely close to that.”

Restoring Optimal Salmon Breeding and Rearing Conditions

In our Pacific Northwest forests, water protection has changed drastically for the better. Many of the roads and bridges in our forests were built in the early 1900s before our company even existed—and before the needs of the salmon population were understood.

When Washington’s salmon population began to sharply decline, the scientific community looked for answers. They found that the bridges and culverts below Washington’s road systems weren’t sufficient to maintain the natural flow of fresh water salmon need. Without being able to access the shallower upland waters, salmon didn’t have a safe place to breed and rear their young.

Washington passed the Forests & Fish law in 2000 to set a standard for water flow near roads and bridges. Since then, the forestry industry has been replacing whatever hinders the water flow, opening miles and miles of streams to salmon for the first time in a century. We work with marine biologists and other experts to ensure each project is good for the fish population both when and after work takes place.

New England Forestry alone has invested more than $22 million in the program over the past 20 years. In that time, we’ve upgraded or removed 750 culverts and bridges, restoring 220 miles of stream habitat.

To learn more about the program, you can see our video and article, How Foresters Restore Salmon Habitat in the Pacific Northwest.

Of course, the project has benefited much more than the salmon population, restoring optimal conditions for entire ecosystems that depend on the clean, cool waters of the Washington uplands.

Taking Pride in Protecting America’s Water

Price says forestry has one of the lightest touches of any type of land use.

“We maintain the land in a way as close to natural as you can get it and still allow it to be productively utilized,” she says.

When we do work in the forest, we take special care to protect the land and water. Buffer Zones are protected from fertilization, which typically happens only twice in a forest’s decades-long lifecycle and was found in this recent University of Florida study to have a negligible impact on water quality. On our steep slopes, we use techniques like tower logging—which lifts logs high into the air with a skyline cable— to ensure we prevent sedimentation. And we replant our forests as quickly as we’re able to after they’re harvested.

Price says forests are one of the most important keys to current and future water quality nationwide.

“America’s water quality would not be where it is today if forestry had not progressed to what it is today,” she says.

The post Working Forests Protect Water Quality Across the U.S. appeared first on New England Forestry Stories.

When an important bat habitat was found in one of New England Forestry’s Mississipi forests, Timber Marketing Manager Adam DeYoung worked with a team of wildlife experts to protect the cave.

Mississippi’s Bat Caves

Mississippi has 15 documented bat species and about 65 known caves. Not all bat species use caves, and only a few of Mississippi’s caves are known to be used by bats. These caves have important geological features and provide important habitat for bat and amphibian species with conservation needs.

“Some of the animals that use these caves include southeastern myotis, little brown bats, gray bats, northern long-eared bats, Indiana bats, tri-colored bats, cave salamanders, and spring salamanders,” says Robert Smith, a wildlife biologist, forester and the coastal program coordinator for Wildlife Mississippi. “Several of these species are protected or petitioned to be protected at the state or federal level because of their apparent population declines.”

The bat cave on New England Forestry land, known as Eucutta Cave, is in Wayne County, Mississippi. Tucked away behind many acres of pine plantation down a little hardwood slope is a small hole in the side of a hill. Eucutta Cave’s understated entrance is in a limestone outcrop of a geologic formation called the Vicksburg Group. It stretches a little over 100 yards back into the limestone depths with some stalactites, flowstone, and other cave formations, along with an underground stream, creating great habitats—and sometimes difficult access conditions.

Adam says the cave is located in a specially-protected Streamside Management Zone, or SMZ, because it is near a waterway. In these buffer zones, which exist all over New England Forestry’s ownership, no forestry activities take place to ensure sedimentation doesn’t impact the water.

Monitoring Mississippi’s Bat Population

Biologists with the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science; Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks; and other members of the Mississippi Bat Working Group survey caves and other bat habitats to track bat numbers and habitat conditions. Repeated trips to Eucutta Cave show steady bat and salamander use.

 “Many people don’t think about bats being migratory or seasonal users, but different bat species use the caves at different times of the year,” explains Robert. “Wintering bats use colder areas in the cave to reduce their metabolic rate, giving them higher survival when there is low prey availability. Summer maternal colonies choose warmer areas since bat pups do not readily thermoregulate and prey availability is high.”

He says Eucutta Cave serves bats in both seasons.

“It’s a major winter bat roost, with about 50 to 150 southeastern bats and 750 tri-colored bats. In the summer, Eucutta Cave hosts a maternal colony of about 300 southeastern bats.”

Protecting Bats from Two Major Threats

There are two main threats to bats in Eucutta Cave: disturbance by humans and infection with white-nose syndrome.

The threat humans pose to bats

Some of the human disturbances observed in Mississippi caves include littering, graffiti, fires and smoke; throwing clumps of mud (presumably at roosting bats); and accidentally flushing mothers with young bat pups. Repeated disturbance of bats can cause them to abandon a roost. If a mother bat drops her pup, especially in an underground stream, the pup might not survive.

While the New England Forestry property that houses the cave is in a very remote location, Adam says he often found signs of human vandalism at the site before efforts were made to protect it.

The threat of white nose syndrome

White-nose syndrome is a disease in bats which has resulted in the dramatic decrease in the bat population of the United States and Canada. This infection is caused by the fungi Pseudogymnoascus destructans. It was accidentally brought into the United States from Eurasia and was first documented in 2006. By 2011, up to 6.7 million bats had died from the disease. Infected bats have been found in 36 states. Mississippi is one of the few states that has tested positive for the fungi but has not had a positive case of the syndrome.

The Mississippi Bat Working Group started monitoring for white-nose syndrome in 2013. To date, Eucutta Cave has not tested positive for the fungus, but other caves within Wayne County have.

The fungi that cause white-nose syndrome may be transferred from bat to bat, or bats may pick it up from the ground. Humans can also carry spores from cave to cave on spelunking gear. Controlling access to the cave with a gate can help reduce human disturbance and accidental transfer of white-nose syndrome spores.

Building the Right Gate To Protect a Bat Cave

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program and Wildlife Mississippi provided most of the funding to install the cave gate at Eucutta Cave, with Rayioner providing additional support, as well as the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks, and other members of the Mississippi Bat Working Group.

Gating a bat cave may sound simple, but cave gates that are really beneficial need to meet certain criteria:

• They have to be sturdy enough to protect the cave. The gate has to have bars close enough so that no one, including children, will get stuck in it, but the bars have to be wide enough to allow bats to fly though the openings.
• The gate has to function as a gate to let people in and out for valid reasons, such as bat monitoring and research.
• Air circulation through the gate is also important. If enough air doesn’t circulate through the gate, then the conditions inside the cave may change, resulting in less bat and amphibian use.
• The air flow also needs to be smooth without a lot of turbulence to enable the bats to fly through the gate openings cleanly and safely. Too much turbulence can result in bats hitting the gate and damaging their wings or dying.

Who knew that designing a gate to enhance smooth air flow could be so important?

To minimize disturbance for bats using the cave, the cave gate would need to be installed after the bats born in summer could fly on their own but before winter bats began using the cave. Wildlife Mississippi hired an expert, Kristen Bobo and her team, who have designed cave gates across the United States, to handle the design and installation. Wildlife Mississippi also contracted with EcoRESTORE, Inc. for assistance in getting materials to the cave site and controlling invasive plant species around the general cave area.

The optimum time from a bat perspective to transport almost a ton of steel and another half ton of equipment through deep sands and down steep hills for cutting and welding is late August. Over three long days in late August 2019, a team of almost a dozen biologists and land managers transported materials to a staging area, and the cave gate was fabricated and installed.

Adam, the New England Forestry employee, says he’s very happy with the project.

“Wildlife Mississippi and their contractors were a pleasure to work with and treated New England Forestry’s land with the utmost respect and care during the whole installation process,” he says. “This project was a great demonstration of New England Forestry identifying a unique and significant site and working in cooperation with wildlife groups to ensure its protection for years to come.”

A Leader in Protecting Bats

Sadly, one of Mississippi’s biggest bat proponents, and arguably the biologist who got Wildlife Mississippi involved in this project, Kathy Shelton was not present when this gate was completed, as she unexpectedly passed away a month earlier.

“Without Kathy’s leadership and coordination from within the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks, this project likely would not have been completed,” Robert says. “Kathy was an advocate for bats and other less charismatic species of Mississippi. Without Kathy, we would not have known half of what we know about bats of Mississippi.”

He said gating Eucutta Cave to conserve natural resources and ensure that Mississippi has appropriate bat habitat was the result of landowners willing to be good stewards, a cadre of caring wildlife biologists, and a federal program providing landowner assistance. Some other caves that have been gated in the past have had significant increases in bat populations; hopefully, the numbers of bats using Eucutta Cave will increase with this protection from disturbance too.

This article was shared with permission from Wildlife Mississippi. Wildlife Mississippi is a private, non-profit conservation organization dedicated to conserving, restoring, and enhancing fish, wildlife, and plant habitat throughout Mississippi. The conservation of Mississippi’s lands, waters, and natural heritage will secure the state’s quality of life by making it a better place to live, work, and raise a family while sustaining a clean environment and a healthy economy.

All photos by Wildlife Mississippi’s Robert Smith.

The post New England Forestry Joins Wildlife Experts to Protect Forest Bat Cave appeared first on New England Forestry Stories.