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Last Updated on Friday, 03 September 2010 10:44

Written by Heather Hamilton

Douglas –The Pathway to Water Quality exhibit is a new attraction making its debut on the state fairgrounds this year. Designed as an outdoor classroom, the exhibit combines the efforts of multiple agencies, landowners and community citizens to implement voluntary measures to enhance and protect Wyoming’s water resources.
Completion of the project will take several years, but demonstrations for children and adults will be held during the 2010 state fair.
“We started the pathway in front of the Agriculture and Natural Resource building and will have a courtyard there. Demonstration sites will look at different ways to manage and protect water quality. They are designed as take-home demonstrations that can be applied to a variety of situations in both rural and urban environments,” explains Southeast Wyoming Coordinator with Wyoming Natural Resource Conservation Service Grant Stumbough.
The entire pathway will be constructed using a new material known as drivable grass, which is comprised of little blocks of pervious concrete. Grass or sand can be placed between each block, hence the name. Below the top layer is six inches of gravel and below that is six inches of sand. The pathway is designed as a filter to absorb excess water that would otherwise run off. Upon absorption, the gravel and sand filters the water rather than it simply running off into the river.
“When complete, the pathway will probably be about half a mile long and the entire path will be made using drivable grass. In addition to acting as filter, the pathway will guide people along a myriad of water quality exhibits and demonstrations complete with informative signs at each stop. There will be several wetlands and retention ponds for the cleaned water to flow into. Trees will be planted and grass plots will be placed along the pathway with information on each grass species, similar to what was previously located in front of the Agriculture and Natural Resource building. We have a variety of project and demonstration ideas to consider and implement over the next ten years,” notes Stumbough.
The project is funded in part by a $20,000 Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) grant and has currently been pre-approved for a Conservation Innovation Grant (CIG) offered through the NRCS in the amount of $84,000. Donations from industry participants are also being utilized and Stumbough says more people are becoming involved all the time.
A plastic mesh called Eco-grid is anther product similar to drivable grass that Stumbaugh is excited about for livestock producers.
“This is a product designed for use where there is a lot of livestock traffic and manure, such as corrals. Below the mesh are about six inches of gravel and six inches of sand. You can also plant grass right over the top of the mesh. It acts much like drivable grass in that it absorbs and filters excess fluids instead of allowing them to run off, thus converting it to clean ground or surface water,” explains Stumbough.
“The whole idea is to prevent excess water from becoming run off and being wasted. With these products if it absorbed, cleaned and re-used,” he adds.
For more information on these products contact Grant Stumbough at 307-332-9060. To see samples of either product stop by the newly constructed courtyard in front of the Agriculture and Natural Resource building during the 2010 Wyoming State Fair. Heather Hamilton is editor of the Wyoming Livestock Roundup and can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

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Last Updated on Friday, 10 June 2011 10:22

Written by Christy Martinez

New guidelines released by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers push the jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act (CWA) farther than it’s ever been before, but not quite as far as those proposed by Congress last year.
The guidelines, of which the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is also a part, are known as the “Draft Guidance on Identifying Waters Protected by the Clean Water Act.” The notice of their release was published in the May 2 edition of the Federal Register.
“From what I understand, they go as far as they think they can get by with,” says Wyoming Stock Growers Association Executive Vice President Jim Magagna. “They go in the direction that Congress tried before with the Clean Water Restoration Act, and they would basically try to incorporate every type of body of water they could.”
The U.S. Cattlemen’s Association (USCA) cautions that the guidelines would broaden the overall scope of regulatory targets under the Clean Water Act, allowing for an increased number of waterways to fall within the jurisdiction of the EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The guidelines expand coverage of the CWA to bodies of water that have a “significant nexus” to traditional navigable waters or interstate waters already covered by the law. These include tributaries to traditional navigable waters or interstate waters, wetlands that are adjacent to such jurisdictional tributaries and “other waters” within close physical proximity to waters already covered by the law, and which affect the chemical, physical or biological integrity of traditional navigable waters or interstate waters, as well as “other waters” physically separated from tributaries or waterways subject to the law.
The 39-page document also focuses on “innovative partnerships” in which the Obama administration hopes to engage with state, local and tribal governments, as well as the private sector, to enhance water quality. USCA says this will encompass water quality standards and maximum daily load programs governing discharges into water bodies, likely expanding the application of the law’s water-related permitting requirements.
Prior to release of the guidelines, in a bipartisan fashion, Rep. Frank Lucas (R-OK), chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture, joined 169 of his Democrat and Republican colleagues in sending a letter to the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers expressing concerns with moving forward with the new guidance.
“While the agencies may claim the guidance is legally nonbinding, the truth is the administration has defined regulatory terms that will ultimately lead to over-regulation and intrusion into individual and states’ rights,” said the congressmen.  
“Once again, the EPA is trying to broaden its jurisdiction without authority to do so,” they continued. “Changes to the regulatory scheme of the Clean Water Act should be done through notice and rulemaking or legislative action. Issuing a guidance document is informal and ambiguous. If this is important to the administration, we urge it to reconsider this approach and move forward with a transparent rulemaking process.”
USCA leadership says the proposed guidelines should be a cause for immediate concern by livestock producers across the country because they would “increase compared to current practice” the number of waters identified as being protected under the law and build a foundation to expand federal jurisdiction over a wide variety of waterways that could potentially include ditches and stock ponds.
“Protecting the health of our waterways is important to all of us, farmers and ranchers included. However, these new guidelines are an onerous approach to that goal and they underscore the federal government’s escalating overreach into our daily operations,” comments USCA President Jon Wooster. “The broad nature of these guidelines imposes more government regulation and intervention into ranching and farming businesses, and leaves producers vulnerable to additional permitting costs and requirements as well as litigation. USCA opposes these guidelines and will work to expand opposition among policy-makers.”
Comments on the guidelines will be accepted through July 1.
Christy Martinez is managing editor of the Wyoming Livestock Roundup and can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .