Total Immersion

By: Katie Jackson

Eve Brantley is totally immersed in her job, which is especially appropriate since her job is all about helping to protect one of Alabama's most valuable natural resources—our water.

As an agricultural program associate with the Alabama State Water Program, Brantley juggles numerous roles and projects—all part of a career she adores.

"I love my job. I know it sounds corny, but I really love my job, and I think it's because I work with such wonderful people who are trying very hard to make a difference," says Brantley.

A native of Atlanta, Brantley was interested in natural systems from an early age and pursued that interest while attending Berry College in Georgia where she majored in biology and minored in chemistry. When she graduated from Berry with her bachelor's degree, Brantley went on to Clemson University to earn her master's in forest resources, then came back to Georgia to work for the Georgia Adopt-a-Stream program, which is similar to Alabama's Water Watch program.

She worked there until 1998 when she married her husband, Will, who was working as a natural resources planner in Baldwin County, Ala. The couple moved to Alabama's gulf coast and Brantley went to work for the Weeks Bay Estuary, where she stayed for two years before joining the staff of the Auburn University (AU) Marine Extension and Research Center in Mobile. It was there that she got her first real taste of extension and outreach work.

"I love the idea of getting scientific information out where it can be used by people," says Brantley. "What's the point of doing research if it isn't used?"

In 2002, Will took a new job in Montgomery with the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources State Lands Division and Eve started looking for work in the Auburn area. Luckily she had a contact with Jim Hairston, a faculty member in AU's Department of Agronomy and Soils who runs the Alabama Water Program, a state water quality information system, for the Alabama Cooperative Extension System.

Hairston, who is also a Berry graduate, immediately hired her to help with the program and Brantley soon found herself involved in a wide range of projects, including several Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM) grants. The ADEM grants focus on watershed restoration and management, and Brantley's role has been to lead a series of workshops on stream restoration, storm water management and wise use of water resources.

"The need for clean water is universal, so it doesn't matter who you are, you have an interest in water quality" says Brantley. For that reason, Brantley's workshops have reached out to a wide range of people, from traditional agricultural producers to local citizens concerned with water issues.

Brantley also has been working on a grant from the Environmental Protection Agency to do a demonstration project on the Auburn campus, which has been especially rewarding for her.

"We realized that we needed to do more than just talk about restoration, we needed to show people how to do something," she explains. Working with the Auburn University Facilities Division, Brantley and others are helping to restore Parkerson Mill Creek, which runs through the heart of the AU campus. Parkerson Mill Creek was in terrible shape after years of neglect, erosion and pollution, and was an ideal showcase for how such streams can be redeemed.

"You've got to take small steps to show something," she says. "We wanted to show on the campus of Auburn University that we can restore the stream and at the same time use the project for research and education."

Cliff Webber, a research fellow in the Department of Fisheries and Allied Aquacultures, has been conducting research on the creek while Brantley is doing the extension and outreach work on the project. Cathy Love, an engineer in the AU facilities division, also has been a dedicated member of the Parkerson Mill Creek restoration team.

The project, which officially began in 2004, is going well. The team has held several workshops to educate people on campus and in the community about the creek's needs and to develop a restoration plan. When all this comes together, Brantley believes the change will be dramatic.

"We will be designing and building a new stream channel that has a healthy shape and size based on a blueprint of a healthy stream," she says, and what is learned at Auburn can be used throughout the state, the nation, even the world.

Brantley also is involved in a third grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture working with AU's landscape architecture program to look at water issues in rural communities that are feeling the pressure of more people moving to "the country." That project may help communities grow while also protecting their waterways and water quality. That grant also has resulted in the building of several rain gardens in the Alex City area, attractive additions to landscapes that also filter pollutants from runoff water before it enters streams.

In addition to these projects, Brantley is a Ph.D. candidate under Graeme Lockaby, a professor in the School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences, working with the Center for Forest Sustainability doing flood plain research looking at how privet, an invasive species, affects those ecosystems.

Though Brantley's position is funded on soft money from grants and, therefore, may go away if grant monies dry up, she is optimistic about getting future funding for her position and her passion.

"If I can make people aware of how blessed we are in Alabama with water resources, how precious those systems are and how easily they can be degraded, that would be a great accomplishment," she says. "There are things that each one of us can do to improve water quality. It may take some technical expertise, but it is not out of our reach. And we've got something worth protecting."

That commitment is especially important to Brantley because she hopes to make things even better for a very special person—her 2-year-old daughter, Chloe.

"My parents raised me to have respect for people and the world around me and I want to do the same for Chloe, but I want to make sure that, as much as possible, what we have today she can have in the future."

For more information on the work Brantley and others are conducting in the state, and how you can get involved, visit the Alabama Water Program Web site at www.aces.edu/waterquality/.Private donations from outside sources are needed to fully complete the Parkerson Mill Creek project. To contribute, contact Brantley at brantef@auburn.edu or 334-844-3927.

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