Wolf River Conservancy
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Headquarted in Memphis, Tennessee, the Wolf River Conservancy (WRC) is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization whose stated purpose is "conserving and enhancing the Wolf River and its environs as a natural resource for public education and low-impact recreational activities." It has approximately 1,000 members from throughout the Mid-South, led by an active Board of Directors and staff and advised by the Wolf River Conservancy Trustees.
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[edit] Planning
The WRC’s long-term goal is to promote the establishment of a greenway along the Wolf River by:
- Educating Mid-Southerners of all ages about the river’s biodiversity
- Addressing policy issues that impact the river
- Identifying critical areas for acquisition by public agencies
[edit] WRC history
The WRC was formed in 1985 by a small group of people concerned about a new dredging and infill project on the Wolf River in Memphis. They had witnessed the effects of similar development-related degredation along nearby Nonconnah Creek. That small group has grown to include more than members from every community along the river. For ten years the group’s emphasis was in advocacy and education -- commenting on wetland destruction or encouraging activities on the river during Wolf River Days. Only later did the group become a land trust organization by holding land or conservation easements in its own name.
[edit] Ghost River campaign
The change occurred when WRC, the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, and local conservationists W.S. “Babe” Howard and Lucius Burch merged their collective resources to satisfy the public’s outcry for the protection of the Ghost River section of the Wolf near LaGrange, Tennessee. During 1995, 4,500 acres -- including the Ghost River -- were saved from a land and timber company auction. This area was ultimately brought into public ownership as the Wolf River Wildlife Management Area and the Ghost River State Natural Area.
[edit] Present day
With a dramatic increase in concern for the Wolf River by an increasingly more environmentally sensitive public, the Wolf River Conservancy continues to advance in new arenas, like the City of Memphis' Wolf River Greenway Master Plan, the Army Corps of Engineers/Shelby County Wolf River Restoration project in Collierville, recreational facilities at the river's source in the Holly Springs National Forest, as well as continued efforts to conserve and enhance the river's bottomland forests in Fayette and Benton counties.
[edit] History of the Wolf River itself
- 10,000 BCE Wolf River formed near the center of the Mississippi embayment in what is now North Mississippi and Southwest Tennessee by runoff from melting glacier shelf.
- 1300-1700 CE Chickasaw tribe settles northern Mississippi, western Tennessee, and eastern Arkansas, replacing the dwindling population of "ancient ones" who had built mound settlements along the Wolf.
- 1682French explorer La Salle claims the region near the mouth of the Wolf River. The French alternately called the river Riviere de Mayot (or Margot), Riviere de Chichicha, Blackbird River, and Loup.
- The original Loup was rumored to be a Delaware Indian guide who disappeared along the river while guiding the French. According to one account, both the English and Chickasaw afterwards called the river Loup in their respective languages: Wolf and Nashoba.
- 1740 Non-local native American scouts working for the French at Fort Assumption (Memphis) survey the Wolf as a possible military supply route from which to destroy Ackia, a Chickasaw stronghold near Tupelo. The group turned back near Germantown.
- Early 1800s The Wolf River is declared navigable, from Memphis to La Grange, by the Tennessee Assembly, which appropriated funds to remove obstructions for keel boat travel. However, the cost efficiencies of the emerging rail mode rendered water commerce obsolete except for short runs between Memphis and neighboring Raleigh.
- 1888 Memphis stops using Wolf River as its principal source of drinking water, switching to artesian wells, which are still recharged by the Wolf's watershed.
- 1960 Because of its foul odor the Wolf is dammed near its mouth and diverted into the Mississippi north of Mud Island.
- Mid-1960s Completion of channelization of the Wolf from the Mississippi upstream to Gray's Creek, east of Germantown, resulting in a lowered riverbed and diminished wetland habitat.
- '1970 Surface drainage, sewage, and industrial pollution caused a group of scientists and environmentalists to pronounce the river "dead" around Memphis.
- 1985 Wolf River Conservancy founded.
- 1995 "Ghost River" section of the Wolf saved from timber auction by a coordinated effort of the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, local conservation activists Lucius Burch and W.S. "Babe" Howard, and the WRC.
- 2005-2008
- Wolf River Restoration Project – U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
- City of Memphis- Wolf River Greenway project
- "Middle Wolf" Campaign - sprawl-proofing the western Fayette County section
- Holly Springs National Forest (Mississippi) - Baker's Pond trail enhancements at Wolf's source
