Agraria Journal Winter 2021

in Glen Helen. Put another way, 92% of the water that flows over the Cascades in the Glen is coming from neighboring farmland or homesteads, Young’s Jersey Dairy, and the Springfield Air National Guard base. We could follow every best practice for stewarding the water resources within the Glen, but the water quality in the preserve would still be largely determined by the choices made by our upstream neighbors. The same is true for the other watersheds the Glen is part of, principally the Yellow Springs Creek and the Little Miami River. We realized we had a management dilemma that we hadn’t previously given much thought to: How do we protect Glen Helen if we don’t control the water, and, how do we influence the quality of the water if we don’t own the land? Here is where I would love to say that there was a simple solution, a problem solved, and a happy ending. Alas, environmental challenges rarely work out that tidily. Still, we know what the basic parameters of a solution are. There may be some lands in our watershed that it makes sense for us to try to acquire. We’ve added 150 acres to the Glen over the past 10 years and, in time, we may have the opportunity to add more. Of course, this gets expensive, both because of the purchase price, and because it takes time and effort to manage land. But land acquisition has a big advantage: we can manage land we own with a priority placed on ecological stewardship rather than some other competing interest. We may also be able to work with our neighbors and our friends at the Tecumseh Land Trust to see that lands upstream are protected by conservation easements, allowing agriculture to continue, but ensuring that these lands are not subdivided and developed. Indeed, many of the parcels near and adjacent to Glen Helen are already in the land trust. We can’t expect that these neighbors will manage their lands as a natural area, but we can count on them maintaining the conservation values of the land as articulated in their conservation easements. For most of the property owners who live upstream, however, we will ultimately rely on education to make people aware that they are part of the Glen Helen watershed and that the decisions they make on their property will impact the health of the preserve and everything downstream. Moreover, that there are actions they can take to help ensure that the water coming into the Glen is as high quality as possible. One parting example: one of the noxious species in the Glen is Lesser Celandine. Highly, highly invasive, it spreads downstream along creeks. When we identified this plant along the Yellow Springs Creek, we went looking upstream, and found infestations of it in neighborhoods in the town. In backyards in Yellow Springs, tubers from the plant were breaking off, floating downstream, and gaining a foothold in the Glen. We started connecting with homeowners in town, to make them aware of what Lesser Celandine looks like and working with them to eliminate it on their property, both to protect their own land, and to protect the Glen. Along the way, our neighbors gain a better understanding that they are part of the Glen Helen watershed, and that the way they manage their yard will impact the health of the preserve. Runoff is still carrying Lesser Celandine into the preserve, but awareness among our upstream neighbors is growing, and each year, more property owners redouble their efforts to tackle what’s in their own backyard. Nick Boutis is executive director of Glen Helen Nature Preserve. The Birch Creek watershed encompasses a much larger area than the section of Birch Creek that flows through Glen Helen. AGRARIA JOURNAL 2021 31 ROSE HARDESTY