Eastern:
(Dare County) Soil and Water Conservation program helps town clear canal and protect thousands from flooding
Across North Carolina, there are dozens of recent projects aimed at reducing flooding – some complete and others still in progress. Those projects are focused on flood prevention by improving streams and waterways, thanks to $38 million set aside by the General Assembly. That allocation of money created the Streamflow Rehabilitation Assistance Program (StRAP) and made assistance available to communities around the state. The following is a Q&A about one of the projects.
Local entity responsible for project: Town of Kill Devil Hills
Funding received: $258,458
Project location: canal in central Kill Devil Hills between W. Landing Drive and W. First Street
Q&A Participant: Derek Dail, assistant public service director in Kill Devil Hills
Q. Can you briefly describe your project?
A. The project removed vegetative debris from a 2,000-foot section of canal that was excessively obstructed with vegetative debris such as thick leaf beds and pine straw litter with snags and downed trees mixed in. The canal is the major conveyance of stormwater in the town and manages stormwater draining an area of approximately 1,540 acres. It provides a drainage benefit to an estimated 5,000 properties. …
(Martin) Women in Ag: Senator Bob Martin Eastern Agricultural Center Manager Susan Tyre
Susan Tyre has been manager of the Senator Bob Martin Eastern Agricultural Center in Williamston for the past six years. The facility hosts more than 120 events each year. This includes commodity group and community meetings in the Meeting Center as well as events like rodeos, monster truck rallies and horse shows that can attract nearly 10,000 attendees an event at their Coliseum. Tyre supervises a staff of seven full-time workers and three part-time workers. Tyre brings energy, organization and a passion for promoting agriculture to the ag center. “Wherever we can our staff works to promote the true story of agriculture to the attendees of events at our facility,” said Tyre. “I developed a passion early in life for telling people where our food and fiber come from. Everyone’s life revolves around six inches of soil and whether or not it rains. Our goal is to promote our facility, the department and agriculture to the highest degree.”
(Sampson) Next Gen Ag: Continuing the legacy of family farming in Sampson County
Kendrick Tyndall has been in love with agriculture for as long as he can remember. Being born into a farming family, agriculture was as natural to him as breathing at a young age. “I was raised on a family farm, so agriculture has always been a part of my life,” he said. From helping his dad raise crops and livestock on Jason Tyndall Farms in Sampson County to supporting the community through his work on the Farm Safety Committee of the Sampson County Young Farmers and Ranchers Chapter, Kendrick is already a prominent figure in the agriculture industry and is working hard every day to further his agricultural career. Around seven or eight years old, Kendrick experienced his first season as a producer on the family farm. “Although I grew up on the family farm and have lots of meaningful experiences there, one of the first that I remember was when my dad let my sister and I plant a small plot of sweet corn around the age of seven or eight,” he said. “Planting that crop, tending to it, harvesting it and then selling it to the community was one of the most rewarding feelings I had ever known. That season, my passion for agriculture and farming was born.” As a fourth-generation family farmer, Kendrick has learned a lot at the hands of his father, including how to grow and harvest corn, wheat and soybeans, as well as how to raise livestock like hogs and chickens. “Whether I had to learn lessons the easy way or the hard way, my dad has always been my mentor and my biggest inspiration,” Kendrick said. “He taught me everything that I know about farming and agriculture up to this point in my life, and he continues to teach me something new every single day.” Today, Kendrick and his father operate the 1,200-acre row crop side of the family farm, producing corn, wheat and soybeans, and raising livestock. …
Eye in the sky: My first forest health flight
N.C. Forest Service Forest Health staff monitor all forest health issues across North Carolina. They conduct specially designed surveys for forest pests which pose unique risk or high hazard to our state’s forest resources. These surveys target forest pests that are currently present in North Carolina as well as exotic pests that are not currently found in the state, but whose arrival could have catastrophic consequences. The N.C. Forest Service continually monitors all forest health threats through aerial and ground surveys, permanent monitoring plots and communication and interaction with private landowners.
To get a better understanding of what lengths our forest health staff go to ensure the most accurate data is recorded, I volunteered as a passenger on an upcoming aerial forest health survey. I arrived at a local airport early on a Tuesday morning where I linked up with seasoned forest health specialists Wayne Langston and Jim Moeller — who are basically responsible for half the state — covering portions of the Piedmont to the North Carolina coast. I received a download of what the day’s objective would entail as we waited for Phil Owens, a N.C. Forest Service pilot stationed out of our central aviation base in Sanford, to touchdown in a Cessna 182 just long enough for us to pile in and head east. With the strict weight limits for this type of aircraft, carrying roughly 528 pounds of fuel, there was about 582 pounds remaining for passengers. I’m certain that there’s a collection of four grown men somewhere out there who do not exceed that weight limit, but we were not them. Wayne proceeded with ground surveys for the day while Phil, Jim and I were wheels up. This was one flight in a series of flights where the goal was to survey 20% of the state to detect forest health disturbances by identifying areas of tree defoliation and mortality, beetle attacks, storm damage and saltwater intrusion. …
Piedmont:
(Mecklenburg) Women in Ag: Charlotte Regional Farmers Market Manager Amie Newsome
Amie Newsome has been manager of the Charlotte Regional Farmers Market for the past nine years. The facility is home to more than 230 vendors during the growing season. Year round it is home for vendors selling produce, plants, specialty products and more. Newsome supervises a staff of five full time workers and one part time worker. Her job includes interviewing prospective vendors, answering questions from the public and current vendors, managing the market’s social media accounts and planning special events. “Our market has a diverse group of people who have a wide array of products,” said Newsome. “They are all so passionate about what they do and sell.” More than half a million people visit the Charlotte Regional Farmers Market each year. Newsome has seen growing interest from visitors in learning about where their food comes from. “Younger generations especially want to be connected to the products that they buy,” she said. “Shopping at the market means they are often meeting the individuals that grew or made these products firsthand. It is a great place to connect.” …
(Randolph) Soil & Water Conservation program aims to reduce flooding
Across North Carolina, there are dozens of recent projects aimed at reducing flooding – some complete and others still in progress. Those projects are focused on flood prevention by improving streams and waterways, thanks to $38 million set aside by the General Assembly. That allocation of money created the Streamflow Rehabilitation Assistance Program (StRAP) and made assistance available to communities around the state.
The following is a Q&A about one of the projects.
Local entity responsible for project: Randolph Soil and Water Conservation District
Funding received: $422,194
Project location: Caraway Creek, southern Randolph County
Q&A Participant: Kaitlyn Johnson, director of Randolph Soil and Water Conservation
Q. Can you briefly describe your project?
A. Debris was removed from almost three miles of Caraway Creek in the southern part of Randolph County. Debris ranged from single fallen trees to piles of logs over eight feet high and 20 feet wide. The large piles typically occurred where there was a bend in the creek, and due to the blockage the creek was trying to reroute around the pile, causing more flooding and land loss issues.
(Vance) Next Gen Ag: Twin Telepathy on the Farm
Twin telepathy is taken to a new level with Chris and Cody Stainback, aspiring farmers and agriculture industry workers from Henderson. Growing up on a fourth-generation family farm, both boys were raised with agriculture in their veins and have had a passion for it as long as either of them can remember. Not only are they both pursuing a degree in agriculture, but they also dream of one day working in the tobacco industry together. From the time they were able to walk, Chris and Cody remember riding with their dad on the farm and helping him with the tobacco crop. “For nearly sixty years our family raised about 300 acres of tobacco,” Chris said, “so, my brother and I fell in love with the crop at a very young age.” Although the family stopped growing tobacco a few years ago, they continue to grow many acres of wheat, soybeans, and sorghum. “Even as kids, dad made us a part of the farm,” Cody said. “We had our own farm uniforms with our names and the logo on them. We thought we were something and nobody could touch us. We’ve always been proud to be here on the farm and that continues to this day.”
(Wake) IMPEC grant helps Locals Seafood expand access to fresh seafood across North Carolina
Earlier in his life, Ryan Speckman lived on the North Carolina coast. When he moved to the Raleigh area, he realized that there was very little access to fresh North Carolina seafood as soon as you moved inland. Speckman, along with Lin Peterson, founded Locals Seafood to change that. Thanks to the vision of Speckman and Peterson, Raleigh now has a state-of-the-art fish processing facility. Locals’ mission is to increase access to North Carolina seafood all across the state and do it in a way that supports the state economy and ensures the quality of the product. Locals buys its seafood from fishing boats based in North Carolina, delivers the product to Raleigh via truck and processes the food in-house with a supply chain fully inside state borders once the fish are caught. Locals Seafood has enjoyed steady growth since its founding in 2010. Now, with the help of Increasing Meat Production, Efficiency and Capacity (IMPEC) grant funding from the North Carolina Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services, Locals is enjoying exponential growth that will allow it to expand its offerings to new parts of the state. …
Western:
Is there hope for hemlocks?
“While we cannot save every hemlock in our forests, we can prevent the species from going extinct.” – Jason Frye, N.C. Forest Service B.R.I.D.G.E Program project leader. In the years following the introduction of the hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA) (Adelges tsugae), a sap-sucking insect native to Asia, hemlocks have steadily declined across their native range, leaving behind the skeletal remnants of what was once a prominent overstory tree dominating the forests of the Appalachian Mountains. The question on many minds is whether hope exists for our ‘redwoods of the east’ or if they’ve reached a tipping point, leaving them unable to rebound. The native hemlock range extends from Canada into the southern Appalachian Mountains, spreading westward into parts of Minnesota and descending eastward into the foothills. Two species of hemlock occur in North Carolina: the eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis) and the Carolina hemlock (Tsuga caroliniana). Eastern hemlocks are long-lived, overstory trees towering heights up to 100 feet, with the oldest known trees exceeding 800 years old. In the Piedmont, more than 200 miles east of the edge of their natural range, a relic population of eastern hemlocks exists in Cary, North Carolina, on a series of north-facing bluffs along Swift Creek. Sustained by a cooler, moist microclimate than the surrounding area, these trees have been able to persist long after the last ice age, or glacial maximum. …
(Burke) Taking the legacy of NC Moonshine around the world
The legacy of moonshine in North Carolina dates back generations, long before the Civil War. Growing up in the South Mountains, Don Smith was surrounded by the heritage of moonshine and learned about the process of making it at a young age. Today, he is not only continuing his family legacy of making liquor in the South Mountains, but he is also carrying that legacy across the country and the world. South Mountain Distilling, located in Connelly Springs, opened its doors on Dec. 31 of 2016, but its history and legacy date back long before then. Don Smith’s family has inhabited the South Mountains since the early 1700’s and his family has been in the moonshine making business for as long as he can remember. In fact, in 1828, his ancestors were involved in the first U.S. Gold Rush, which is when they not only discovered gold, but also a more efficient way to get some of the gold through making moonshine and whiskey. From the time he was ten years old, Don remembers hearing stories from his grandfather and great uncle on the family history of moonshine, how to make moonshine and other liquor products, and the importance of moonshine to the state of North Carolina. “I was always around my great uncle and grandfather growing up, so I constantly heard the talk of how to make whiskey and moonshine,” he said. “At the age of ten, my great uncle took me under his wing and started teaching me how the process worked. He also allowed me to help in small ways, like bringing the mason jars to them when needed.” Although he diverted from the family liquor business for a few years in early adulthood, Don began looking back to his roots of distilling in 2015 and has been fully immersed in it ever since. …
(Wilkes) Program helps clear the way to reduce flooding, increase usage of Yadkin River in Wilkes County
Across North Carolina, there are dozens of recent projects aimed at reducing flooding – some complete and others still in progress. Those projects are focused on flood prevention by improving streams and waterways, thanks to $38 million set aside by the General Assembly. That allocation of money created the Streamflow Rehabilitation Assistance Program (StRAP) and made assistance available to communities around the state. The following is a Q&A about one of the projects. It’s the second in a series highlighting StRAP projects throughout North Carolina.
Local entity responsible for project: Wilkes County Soil and Water Conservation District
Funding received: $500,000
Project location: Yadkin River in Wilkes County
Q&A Participants: Rob Baldwin, director; Makayla Norman, natural resource conservationist and streamflow rehabilitation specialist; and Kayla M. McCoy, natural resource conservationist and grants administrator, Wilkes County Soil and Water Conservation District
Q. Can you briefly describe your project?
A. The work focused on removing stream debris from the Yadkin River in Wilkes County. The removal of this debris helps reduce flooding caused by log jams and also increases the safety and usability of the Yadkin River for paddlers and fishermen. The project covers more than seven miles of the river and floodplain. …
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