Agency’s goal is to protect water, land

By RAY WYCHE

A little known agency is quietly hard at work making Columbus County a better place to live by striving to protect and clean the county’s land, water and air.

The Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD) is a combination agency funded by the three government entities—federal, state and county—and works with landowners in joint conservation efforts to clean up waterways, prevent erosion and enhance wildlife habitat.

In charge of the multi-tasking SWCD is District Conservationist Donna Register, the only federal employee in the agency. Field work is the job of engineering technician Edward Davis, who looks over sites proposed for environmental improvements and discusses possible procedures with Register and the landowners. Davis also handles the cost-share programs of the N.C. Department of Agriculture that are conducted by SWCD.

Technician Greg Davis handles water quality issues for the agency.

A majority of the projects is done on farms and includes such measures as providing some type of barrier or facility to keep livestock out of watercourses and converting land used for row crops to tree farms or pasture land, moves that are less disturbing to the soil. The agency will also offer technical and financial assistance to landowners who wish to convert parts of their fields to wildlife habitat.

One of the most prevalent problems the conservationists deal with is closed hog waste lagoons, particularly those considered as high risks because of weakening earthen dikes designed to contain hog house wastes. Lagoons in close proximity to watercourses are also considered to be high risk.

“We do everything,” Register says of her agency’s work. “No one thing stands out.”

SWCD works on a priority system decided by the staff and the five-member local Board of Supervisors to determine which projects will be undertaken at what time.

Priority areas for the federally funded Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) were determined to be the Red Hill area joining White Marsh east of Whiteville and the Beaverdam section between Chadbourn and Tabor City.

“These areas have rolling terrain and are more prone to erosion,” Register says. “They are also near big streams.”

SWCD’s efforts are not limited to agricultural fields. The agency also has a hand in cleaning up debris deposited in streams by hurricanes, usually in the form of fallen trees. Columbus County recently received a grant to clear the Waccamaw River from Lake Waccamaw to the South Carolina line.

“We are assisting with the planning on that,” Register says.

Most of the programs offered by SWCD are competitive, with the situations presenting the most danger to the environment being funded first.

“We try to get the most for our money,” Register says.

Cost-share is a catchword is SWCD; some programs conducted by the agency are partly funded by grants from the U.S. and North Carolina Departments of Agriculture with the remaining costs assumed by the landowner.

The SWCD will pay up to 75 percent of the costs of certain conservation procedures. These include grassed waterways in fields (to help prevent erosion from rainstorm run-off) and “livestock exclusion” devices such as fences or watering tanks to keep hogs and cattle out of streams.

A new component of the agency is the Conservation Security Program, which is offered in the Lumber River Basin in Columbus County. Under the new program, landowners complete a self-assessment of conservation efforts they have taken on their land; an interview is then conducted with local SWCD officials to determine if the applicant is eligible for the grant.

“The purpose (of the Conservation Security Program) is to reward the good and motivate the rest,” Register says. Probably the biggest program operated by SWCD is EQIP in which the Natural Resources Conservation Service provides financial and technical assistance to farmers who face threats to the environmental quality of their land.

Assistance offered by Register and her staff includes cost share payments for any measure that fits in the agency’s guidelines that will help prevent damage to land, water and air of Columbus County.