Honoring Earth: Students celebrate Earth Day by cleaning up wetlands

Honoring Earth

Students celebrate Earth Day by cleaning up wetlands

By JOAN KITE Photos by TOM BYL

Approximately 14 students joined Professors Tom Byl, Bill Sutton, and Bharat Pokharel for Earth Day 2021 on a Friday morning in April to clean up the wetlands, located within the Agricultural and Research Education Center affectionately known as “The Farm.”

More than one year after a devastating tornado swept through The Farm, students were still clearing out debris left behind by that storm.

“We got some large pieces of the greenhouses. There was also aluminum siding and a lot of insulation,” said Dr. Tom Byl, who is a research biologist for the Water Resource Division of the United States Geological Survey.

More trash is added by two storm sewers that drain near the wetlands, Dr. Byl said. The wetlands are fed by two springs nearby.

“The storm systems can actually release items at certain pressure valves. There is one that opens up in the woods close to the railroad tracks and you can see it from Google Earth,” Dr. Byl said. “They just release trash. We treat it very seriously. Everyone wears thick rubber gloves.”

Cleaning up the wetlands for Earth Day has become an annual event at TSU and is open to everyone though many students who participate are studying environmental science. The students have celebrated the past four annual Earth Days by cleaning up the area.

The Cumberland River Compact, an organization that seeks to educate citizens, restore the Cumberland River, and provide outreach to communities, provided TSU with some of the tools they needed for their clean-up job.

“Now it has become so routine (the wetlands clean-up). The Cumberland Compact used to provide education, but we’re done it so often, now Bill Sutton explains the safety precautions,” Dr. Byl said.

Debris finding its way into the area can get so bad that one year, professors found beavers using plastic bottles to build their dams.

“The garbage degrades into microplastics. All of this stuff can cause health issues,” Dr. Byl said.

The students were rewarded for their hard efforts with lunch afterward – slices of pizza.

Students gathered and piled debris from the wetlands that they collected in a service event honoring Earth Day (left). Professor Tom Byl and Environmental Sciences student Champagne Cunningham spent Saturday morning in gloomy weather clearing up the wetlands (above). Debris (right) collected was hauled off in trucks and sent to proper disposal facilities.