SOQUE BULLETIN- January 14th, 2013

SOQUE BULLETIN
January 14th, 2013
1) SOQUE PARTNERSHIP PUBLIC MEETING - Tuesday, January 15th - Aquatic Center 6pm
2) TREE PROJECTS – huge success!
3) END OF YEAR CAMPAIGN - goal achieved!

18+ volunteers planted 1,700 trees at Fairview Elementary in just over two hours on Thursday January 10th. It was a lot of fun.
Then Friday we planted 350 more (a little more challenging in the rain).
That afternoon we distributed 660 trees that were purchased by the general public.
All in all a pretty awesome week of TREES!
For photos see our FACEBOOK page by pasting this in your browser.
https://www.facebook.com/soqueriverlover

1) SOQUE PARTNERSHIP PUBLIC MEETING - Tuesday, January 15th - Aquatic Center 6pmSo what the the heck is the Soque Partnership anyway? Those of you familiar with the SRWA, may see references to the SOQUE PARTNERSHIP from time to time in the newspaper and other places and may assume its the same thing as the Soque River Watershed Association. That would be a mistake because the Soque Partnership is much, much bigger than our little nonprofit.

Back in 2004 the SRWA started to try and partner with other organizations, agencies, muncipal governments, and perhaps most importantly individual landowners to identify and implement projects that would reduce and eliminate water quality pollution problems in the Soque. It's taken a long while but over the last 9 years we've found dozens and dozens of individuals and groups to partner with on projects (the tree planting above is a great example). For the last 2 or 3 years we've called this collaborative the SOQUE PARTNERSHIP and it's a strong group who have accomplished more than most people know towards Clean Water over the last few years.

The PARTNERSHIP has completed dozens of projects, and achieved some note worthy successes. Most notably a 29-mile section of the upper Soque River is expected to be removed from the state's impaired waters list for fecal coliform bacteria in early 2013 as a result of water quality improvement projects on cattle farms. 22 total farm projects have been completed since 2008, 500 feet of eroding streambank were repaired and replanted into forest, and 3 innovative stormwater features are being installed at the county courthouse. The Partnership has also installed numerous demonstration projects including raingardens at North Georgia Technical College and the City of Cornelia's community center, and rainwater cisterns at Fairview Elementary and Habitat for Humanity.

These are just the highlights, and the PARTNERSHIP has big plans over the next several years. Here's a few example of future and expanding projects:

• If funded the PARTNERSHIP will expand its projects into the Chattahoochee Basin in 2014 requiring a new name. The SOQUE / CHATTAHOOCHEE PARTNERSHIP
• More Streamside Forest Plantings - we hope to expand the number of tree plantings next to streams from 1-2 per year to 3-5 per year.
• Spot Streambank Restoration - many failing streambanks don't need a re-engineered channel, but they could benefit from resloped and vegetated banks.
• Dirt Road Maintenance Workshops - water on steep dirt roads is hard to manage, these programs would show a how-to on constructing a dirt road that lasts and erodes the least amount possible.
• Increasing Rainwater Infilration - nobody likes to talk about stormwater, but if you capture rainwater and put it back into the ground making it groundwater, poof, stormwater is no more. We have many more plans to expand projects like the one at the courthouse, and Fairview elementary that reduces stormwater by taking rainwater and getting it back where it belongs… into the ground.

The Partnership is holding our ANNUAL Public Meeting on Tuesday, January  15th at 6pm at the Habersham County Aquatic Center meeting room. Everyone is invited to attend. During the meeting members of the Partnership will discuss the many successes achieved during the last two years, and new projects and grants that if funded will begin in 2014. You'll get to see photos and hear about the details of past and on-going projects from the PARTNERS who implemented them. We'll have guests from many, many of our past projects.

Come show your support for all the PARTNERS that are working to improve water quality in the SOQUE RIVER. You may be a future PARTNER yourself in these very worthwhile efforts.



2) TREE PROJECTS – huge success!You may have heard that the SRWA and our Soque Partners tried to start the year off right by planting almost 3,000 trees over the last several days. Here's a quick snapshot of the three projects:

1. FAIRVIEW ELEMENTARY-  1,600 trees PLANTED - THURSDAY - January 10th (10am-2pm) - We had upwards of 15 volunteers help us plant 1,500 pine and 100 persimmon and oaks to help stabilize soils at Fairview Elementary and to improve rainwater infiltration. We used dibble bars that allowed each volunteer to plant almost a tree per minute. You can see a video of someone using a dibble bar here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUzeruQT8xE. We had a lot of help to make this project happen and we want to acknowledge their effort:

• Denise Gunn (maintenance director) and Darlene Hudson (principal Fairview Elementary) have been the key supporters from the beginning. Special thanks to Darlene for feeding us pizza!
• The Board of Education and maintenance staff for supporting the idea and providing labor, equipment, and enthusiam
• Tony Strickland and Georgia Forestry Commission for helping us develop a plan, loaning dibble bars, and providing trees.
• David Barnes for providing tractor work to help subsoil making it easy for us to plant.
• Lowe's for donating buckets, cow manure, flags and ground staples, and providing volunteers.
• City of Cornelia (specifically Gary Worley) for providing leaf mulch and wood chips.
• Melissa Maughon who got the girl scouts involved (and they planted 30 trees themselves- very cool)
• All the hardworking volunteers who made it happen so fast! We have the best volunteers!

There was a lot of bare ground to cover, but by Thursday afternoon about 2.5 acres was planted in new trees

2. PROJECT 2 - ELLER FARM - 350 trees PLANTED  - FRIDAY - January 11th (9am-12pm) - We had about 12 volunteers this day and planted 75 white oaks, 25 persimmons, 100 red maples, and 100 river birch, in addition to 50 assorted container trees including yellow poplar, green ash, and sycamore. After planting each tree got geotextile weed mats to give them a headstart on the grass and weeds.The purpose this project was to replant a streamside forest which as it matures will help to hold the streambank in place reducing erosion, increasing stream stability, and serving as a buffer and nutrient sponge. Big thanks to the following folks who made this project possible:

• Thanks to Chris Eller and Joe Barron who farm the property
• Steven Patrick, who helped get this project started.
• Vernon Mintz and North Georgia Converting who donated Geotextile Fabric for the weed mats
• Lowe's who donated ground staples to hold the weed mats down.
• North Georgia Technical College ROTERACT club who provided volunteers   
• These volunteers stuck with it until 1pm in nonstop rain and mud. They is tough!

3. PROJECT 3 - $1 TREE SALE - Sold 661 TREES - January 11th (3-6pm) -   During the planning phases for these first two tree planting projects, we realized we should just make all these trees available to the whole community to purchase and plant….so that's what we did and we can't believe how popular it's been. With 661 trees sold (515 bareroot and 146 container trees), we practically ran out of trees to sell. Individuals came from as far as Cleveland, Gainseville, Clayton, Toccoa, and Dahlonega so this project is having a regional impact. The purpose of this sale is to encourage individuals to think about planting inexpensive bare root trees, and in the process learn about different trees and where they like to grow. We focused on just four trees this year red maple, river birch, persimmon and white oak. Many folks to thank for this effort:

• Steven Patrick and the County Extension office helped print all the brochures and fliers promoting the sale
• The Northeast Georgian ran an ad for us promoting the event and also wrote a front page newstory. The White County News and other area papers also picked up the story.
• City of Clarkesville allowed us to use the Maulding House parking lot as our pickup location (a perfect location for a tree sale I might add).
• Southern Roots Tree Nursery out of Blairsville for providing the container trees.
• Georgia Forestry Commission for bringing out our extra trees (special delivery)

And HUGE thanks to all of you who have shown your interest through purchasing trees
or volunteering to plant them!
We hope to do this again and even bigger next year so please share your feedback.

3) END OF YEAR CAMPAIGN - goal achieved!In the next bulletin we plan to give a proper thank you for every single contributor who helped us meet our END of YEAR campaign goals. We still need to make sure each and every last person is properly included so we'll hold off as we complete our thank letters to them all. But we did want to let you know that the very generous outpourings were successful in meeting and exceeding our goal to raise $4,000 in the last two months of the year. We received a total of $4,600 in end of year gifts! Fantastic.

We greatly appreciate each and every one of you. If you like what we do but just didn't quite get your gift in before the end of the year, you can start 2013 out with a bang, and help us plant even more trees this year by considering a membership or donation. You can be on your way to becoming a SOQUE RIVER LOVER with one simple click on the maple tree  .


Justin Ellis
Executive Director
Soque River Watershed Association
www.soque.org
706-754-9382



ps. - For you beer lovers who are still wondering what we all tasted at the SRWA Christmas Beer Tasting Party you can see all the beers if you post this address in your browser. Happy TASTING.
http://www.soque.org/pdfs/BEER_TASTING_BEERS-2012_improved.pdf