NRCS Texas Employee Receives National Award

Temple, Texas, May 8, 2008 – Eddie Seidensticker, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) soil conservationist, Baytown, Texas was recently awarded the national Cooperative Conservation Award by the Department of the Interior for his work done in East Bay, part of the Galveston Bay system.

The East Bay is a vulnerable, exposed area that runs along the Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge, a valuable area for wildlife in the Galveston Bay system. About 8,000 acres of diverse coastal habitats along the East Bay shoreline needed work to protect it from erosion, saltwater intrusion and destruction of habitat.

In the fall of 2005 and 2006, concrete materials were placed along the shore to create near-shore breakwater structures. Concrete was loaded onto a large metal sled and pushed to the shoreline with a crawler dozer. Once the material was placed near the shoreline, rip-rap was placed offshore using a track hoe. In the spring of 2006, project partners placed 17,000 feet of erosion control structures to protect and restore the shoreline. Experimental reef domes were also placed along the shoreline to simulate historical habitat for oysters.
Eighty-two local citizens, students, and Boy Scouts planted smooth cordgrass at Marsh Mania events in 2006 and 2007 in an effort to involve and educate participants about the functions and values of wetlands.

“Eddie’s work and that of our partners is to be commended,” said Don Gohmert, NRCS state conservationist for Texas. “With his pioneer spirit, Eddie learned along the way, experimenting with different native grasses to find plants that would slow or stop erosion in the bay.”

Seidensticker started experimenting with shoreline erosion control when he was an NRCS district conservationist in Chambers County. He has been asked to speak around the nation about his field trials and experiments with shoreline erosion control techniques.

The Cooperative Conservation awards, first presented by the Department of Interior in 2004, recognizes cooperative conservation achievements that have involved collaborative activity among a diverse range of entities including federal, state, local and tribal governments, private for-profit and nonprofit institutions, other nongovernmental entities, and individuals.

Other partners Seidensticker worked with in the East Bay project include: NRCS; the Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge; Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; Galveston Bay Foundation; NRG Texas, LLC; Texas Commission on Environmental Quality’s (TCEQ) Galveston Bay Estuary Program; and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Texas Coastal Program.

The East Bay project was also honored with the first place Gulf Guardian 2007 Partnership Award chosen by the Gulf of Mexico Program to recognize environmental excellence in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas.

The Department of the Interior hosted a workshop April 22 and 23, 2008, to share approaches for successful partnerships such as East Bay by bringing together diverse stakeholders to generate ideas for future conservation initiatives and collaborative opportunities.

Click on thumbnail for larger image.

(from left to right) Scott Williams, Steve Baker, Debbie DeVore, Dale Hall, Shaun Sanchez, and Lyle Laverty, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; Bob Stokes, Galveston Bay Foundation; Eddie Seidensticker USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service; Ben Tuggle; Dirk Kempthorne; Breck Sacra, NRG Texas, LLC; Philip Smith, Galveston Bay Foundation; and Doug Jacobson Environmental Protection Agency.

Contact

Lori Valadez
Phone: 254-742-9811

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