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The Shepherd Project |
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Welcome to the Shepherd Project section of our web site. In this section we will be posting items of interest that take place on the research farm in Shepherd, Montana, where floating islands were conceived and developed, and where we keep on seeking new ways to live as graceful stewards of our fragile resources.
The Shepherd Project farm is situated 30 miles from Billings and consists of approximately 300 acres, bordering on the Yellowstone River. We have adapted our farming practices to improve the habitat for ground nesting wild birds, particularly pheasants, and to increase the organic content of the soil by growing perennials. We avoid using chemicals where we can.
 Our primary focus at present is the development of a large wetland - approximately one-third of our total acreage will be converted into a gigantic water filter in the form of ponds, canals and wetland. We are on the end of a 60-mile irrigation ditch which discharges into the Yellowstone River after it leaves us. The ditch water picks up all kinds of pollutants as it flows through feedlots, farms and urban areas. The Yellowstone is one of the few remaining "natural" rivers, and we want to give it back pristine water, cleaned of the many pollutants it acquires through its proximity to humans. We want to "put our money where our mouth is" and practise the kind of stewardship we are promoting around the world through deployment of BioHaven floating islands.
The Shepherd Research Center has a focus, a mission, surrounding the concept of growth in human understanding of how we can live more compatibly within our ecosphere. We are particularly focused on how humans can live in graceful synergy with wildlife. It is apparent that humans have upset the carbon cycle, as well as the nitrogen cycle, and the repercussions are forcing many other life forms to either hyper-evolve, or disappear. Our vision is to mediate this trend.
Since Haber and Bosch developed the process of making synthetic nitrogen in the early 1900's, nitrogen cycling within the ground and waterways has doubled. Concurrently it is also very likely that carbon cycling within ground and water has also increased. While we do not have an accurate measure of the carbon fraction, carbon is rarely a limiting variable relative to nutrient load in waterways. Herein lies the problem, and the opportunity.
Waterways that we associate with quality and purity have a relatively low nutrient loading. The nutrients that are available in such settings are quickly tied up, normally in desirable life forms. Now with a surfeit of such nutrients available in almost all of our waterways, certain life forms have evolved to capitalize on the opportunity. Phytoplankton is an example of this. Unfortunately phytoplankton, or algae, has been very successful, and while it does make up a portion of the food chain in freshwater settings, a large bloom can result in de-oxygenated water which can support few other desirable life forms. This is the setting.
There are natural systems which have specifically evolved around nutrient surges. Wetlands are an excellent example. They provide a high ratio of the primary limiting variable that can support the ideal "combatant" to out-compete algae. I refer to surface area, required for the growth of microbes and their population. Microbes are nature's scavengers and their role is absolutely critical. Microbes and their residue, biofilm, is the basis of the food chain. Sticky biofilm and what bonds to it is called periphyton, and this will normally include algae. It is the basis from which the food chain advances. Without sufficient volume of microbial breakdown, nutrients stack up, thus setting the stage for an anoxic or anerobic condition in which only a monoculture of specialized algae and microbes can exist. This occurs because of insufficient wetland surface area, in combination with an excess of nutrients. Thousands of our waterways, in fact most of them, have been damaged by this combination.
For instance, even when waterways are only partially impacted by too many nutrients, with too little wetland effect, life forms within these waterways, like fish, can be metabolically altered. Their sex can change. Obviously, this can dramatically limit fish numbers.
Another dramatic restriction on healthy water is very direct. Large volumes of water are devoid of breathable oxygen. Right here at Shepherd, based on agricultural nutrient loading, a six acre pond that is 30 feet deep was devoid of oxygen below the top six feet during late summer. Had trout been stocked in this water they would not have survived since the top six feet of water exceeded 82 degrees farenheit or about 5 degrees above their survival temperature limit. Below six feet they would suffocate. In other words, most of the water in this six acre pond was uninhabitable to fish. This same phenomenon repeats itself in thousands of locations around the U.S., and in millions of locations around the world. Today, a similar development is happenning in marine settings. Something like 370 ocean dead zones have been identified, some of which involve thousands of square miles of water that is unlivable by fish. For perspective, consider what water conditions are like upstream from these marine dead zones, where the nutrient problem will be more concentrated.
How is this combination of nutrients that can result in dead zones, or deoxygenated water.....how can such a problem be an opportunity? How do we turn a super problem into super abundance?
RESOURCE RECOVERY
We now have the science. We have the model, and in fact, the best model. The model is nature's wetland system. And the results are impressive. We know how to duplicate the best, the most productive natural waterways. It happens that these waterways are also the most aesthetic. They are also, curiously, the most sustainable. And perhaps best of all, they are not particularly expensive.
To solve our water quality problems we design for the wetland effect in every waterway. We do this by circulating water around surface area. It is not particularly complicated, and in fact is remarkably straightforward. Microbes, those scavengers, do the bulk of the nutrient conversion work and in the process they kick off the food chain. Algae is still present, but not at overwhelming levels. Surface area and circulation, this is the wetland effect. We incorporate this wetland effect as frequently as possible, and in as much volume as possible.
What does this look like? It looks like incorporation of natural strata on the bottoms of ponds, not smooth pond liner. It looks like water circulation, via on- or off-the-grid power, or via strategic gravity flow design, in every possible waterway including stormwater management ponds. It looks like wetland plantings in every bioswale, in that plants bump up the wetland effect while providing still more surface area for microbes. It looks like incorporation of wetland effect into any structures that occur on waterways, including docks, jetties, terraces, pond liners, and even floating islands. A concentrated wetland effect like that offered by BioHaven Floating Islands or Elevated BioSwales or Living Walkways, will compound our ability to maximize the wetland effect cost affordably. Imagine achieving 198 square feet of surface area for every square foot of top surface of eight inch thick BioHaven Floating Island. Imagine even more concentrated surface area by either thickening such islands, or utilyzing a finer denure fiber within such islands, or docks, jetties, terraces, pond liners, or Elevated BioSwales. Combine this surface area with circulation and nutrients become fish, and other higher order life forms. The alternative is what we have now.
Check out the following photos. As nutrients move through the food chain they convert to the life forms within that ecosphere. With wise stewardship we can duplicate the best of natural systems. The results are delicious! Check out the following photographs, all taken here at the Shepherd Research Center. We have also attached a report on one of the wetlands here at Shepherd. Keep in mind that the small wetland covered in the report also occurs here at the Center, and the water in this wetland is the same nutrient rich water that resulted in the 24 foot anoxic zone in our six acre pond. Rest assured, we are incorporating similar concentrated wetland strategies into the six acre pond now, in order to duplicate the small wetland results. We will keep you posted as we track the transition from freshwater dead zone to hyper abundant fishery in this larger pond.
Bruce Kania
 
 
  
Please browse through the following links to find out more about the activities on our Research Farm
How a freshwater perch fishery developed in the Shepherd Farm wetlands
Development of Floating Islands - a story from the Lead Inventor
 Cleaner Canines - another story by Bruce
Birds of the Shepherd Farm - a delightful survey by birder Billie Hicks
How we created a world-class pheasant habitat on the Shepherd Farm: Pheasant Poster
And to read more about proposed pheasant management in a similar Montana environment please click this link
Fish and water Quality
Please click this link to access some bullet points that may begin to explain the origins of the title statement...that "ninety percent of fish occur in ten percent of the water.".....
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