Streamside Landowner's Handbook

Mississippi Streamside Landowner’s Handbook by Andrew E. Whitehurst Scenic Streams Stewardship Program Mississippi Museum of Natural Science Mississippi Department of Wildlife Fisheries and Parks Mississippi Museum of Natural Science Technical Report No. 100 2003 The services of the following editors are greatly appreciated: Everard Baker & Michael Sampson Mississippi Forestry Commission Chuck Barlow & Kelli Dowell, Legal Section, Mississippi Dept. of Environmental Quality David Derrick, Ph.D., U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Waterways Experiment Station Paul Hartfield, Biologist, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Donald C. Jackson, Ph.D., Dept. of Wildlife and Fisheries, Mississippi State University Bruce Alt & Thomas Monaghan, Ph.D., Mississippi Forestry Association David L. Watts, Editor, Mississippi Outdoors Magazine, MDWF&P Layout: Martin Cate, MDWF&P TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction. Landowner-Based Stream Conservation in Mississippi Chapter 1. Stream Ecology, Channel and Bank Stability. Physical Processes ..................................................................................................p.7 Historical Stream Disturbance in Mississippi ........................................................p.10 Modern Era Stream Disturbance ............................................................................p.11 Changes to Stream Ecology by Dams and Impoundments ..................................p.13 Chapter 2. Soil Conservation in Forestry and Agriculture Best Management Practices and Sustainable Forestry ..........................................p. 17 Recent Analysis of Effectiveness of Forestry Streamside Management Zones ....p. 19 Streamside Management Zones in Mississippi ......................................................p. 21 Harvesting Alternatives ..........................................................................................p. 22 Agricultural Best Management Practices ..............................................................p. 24 Clearing Along Streams for Development, Camps and Boat Ramps ....................p. 26 Chapter 3. Stream Restoration Intervention and Repair ..........................................................................................p. 27 Stream Restoration with Bank Plantings using Native Plants ..............................p. 28 Agencies, Consultants and Vendors for Plant Materials ..................................p. 28 Crosby Arboretum list of Native Plants Along Streams ..................................p. 31 Chapter 4. Mississippi’s Scenic Streams Stewardship Program History ..............................................................................................................p. 33 Eligibility Requirements ....................................................................................p. 33 Steps in the Nomination Process ........................................................................p. 34 Streams Included in the Pilot Program ................................................................p. 35 Nominated Streams ..............................................................................................p. 35 Stewardship Plan ................................................................................................p. 36 Non-binding Agreements ......................................................................................p. 36 Binding Conservation Agreements ......................................................................p. 36 Mississippi Income Tax Credit for Conservation Easements ................................p. 37 Important Features of Scenic Streams Stewardship Program ..............................p. 37 Frequently Asked Questions ..................................................................................p. 38 TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 5. Private Property Rights and Mississippi’s Public Waterways Law Text of Public Waterways Law Miss. Code § 51-1-4 ........................................p. 40 Background and Commentary on the Public Waterways Law ............................p. 41 Rights of Recreational Users................................................................................p. 42 Trespassing in Mississippi....................................................................................p. 42 Riding Off-Road Vehicles along Public Waterways ............................................p. 43 Landowner Liability along Public Waterways ....................................................p. 44 Appendix A. What You Can Do in the Eligibility and Evaluation Process. ..........................p. 46 Appendix B. Full text of Mississippi Scenic Streams Stewardship Act. ................................p. 50 Appendix C. Glossary of Selected Technical and Scientific Terms ..........................................p. 56 Introduction Landowner based stream conservation in Mississippi s we enter a new century, the landscape of Mississippi will change. Cities and Atowns will expand into areas that are now forest, field, and pasture. The agriculture and forestry industries will continue to provide food, building materials, and paper and pulp products for our society. Development and industry will make expanding demands on surface water resources for services such as drinking water, sewage treat- ment, surface drainage, and water for industrial processes. Our rivers and streams will flow through this increasingly populated and complex landscape. When you consider the multiple uses that we presently demand of our rivers and streams, increased demands on them in the future are a cause for concern. Streams accommodate our various human activities, but at the same time they support a rich variety of fish, aquatic animals, and plants. Streams, their flood plains, and hardwood bottomlands provide essential wildlife habitat for deer, turkeys, rabbits, squirrels, most of our migratory and native songbirds, and count- less other varieties of wildlife. People have long felt a strong connection to streams and rivers. They run through our history, our litera- ture, and our personal experiences. Whether it is the scenery, the sounds, the cool water on a summer day, the pull of a fish in the current, or the gliding of a canoe, our streams and rivers provide us with diverse pleasures. Their value to us is not easily measured, but it is great. “There is an intimate relationship between our streams and the development and conservation of all the other great and permanent sources of wealth,” said Theodore Roosevelt in 1907. Throughout history streams have provided human society with water, food, transportation for commerce, and power to turn mills and generate electricity. The appreciation of streams for their natural beauty and for the fish and wildlife they sustain is something that we can easily overlook. We in Mississippi recognize that a healthy stream or river has value in itself outside the measure of commerce or human industry. To maintain this value, streams need the consideration and help of landowners and others. 5 In the Act that created the Scenic Streams Stewardship Program, the drafters wrote that there is a necessi- ty for a “rational balance between the use of these streams and the conservation of the natural beauty along these streams.” Conservation is possible through the concern and effort of landowners of property adjoin- ing rivers and streams. Landowners along streams need to make their land produce income for them. However, their activities along a stream can directly affect it for better or worse. For these select few people, there is tremendous opportunity to be good stewards of the water, land, and wildlife along, and within the stream. Stewardship is “ the careful responsible management of something entrusted to one.” A steward is a conservator. The Scenic Streams Stewardship Program was designed to promote voluntary private conservation efforts along Mississippi’s best remaining natural rivers and streams. The Scenic Streams Stewardship Program asks that streamside landowners consider voluntarily using Best Management Practices (BMP) along streams, for instance leaving a buffer zone of trees and vegetation along the banks. A stream buffer zone or Streamside Management Zone (SMZ) of an appropriate size and width will keep erosion to a minimum, and will maintain stable stream banks. Recommended appropriate widths are based on slope, and are pub- lished in Best Management Practices for Forestry in Mississippi by the Mississippi Forestry Commission. The benefits of keeping stream banks stable through the use of BMPs are numerous. Property values remain strong, soil and nutrients stay in place, and the stream avoids degradation from silt, caving banks and erosion. Also, swimming holes stay deep, and a canopy of trees provides shade which helps keep water temperatures cool. Owners of timberland can strike a balance between fully utilizing their timber resources and leaving ade- quate buffer zones for stream conservation. Trees left standing won’t be turned into cash in a timber sale, but there is real value in keeping streambanks stable. The legislature made the Stream Program completely voluntary so nobody would feel regulated into leaving uncut trees. We hope that through learning more about the value of healthy streams and the dependence of natural communities of stream fish and aquatic life on this health, landowners will choose to practice stream conservation on their own by blending conservation techniques with profitable timber harvest and other land uses. To that end, this handbook is written

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