Transplant procedure: Scientists, company moving wetland to save it

By Susan Pugh

Published: September 4, 2007

What if there were an ancient vernal pool that supports rare species of salamanders and freshwater shrimp?

What if the industry that owns the site did not realize its land contained the vernal pool with its rare eco-community, and had plans to expand operations into the very area of the vernal pool?

What if two scientists decided to try to save the vernal pool by transplanting it to an area out of the expansion’s path?

And what if their idea won not only the blessing of the industry, but also its assistance in making the transplant happen?

That’s what has been unfolding in Piney River.

The concept of transplanting a wetland, rather than trying to create a new one to compensate for a lost one, is the brainchild of Mike Hayslett and Tom Biebighauser.

Hayslett is adjunct professor of environmental science at Sweet Briar College.

Hayslett stumbled on the vernal pools at the Boxley Materials Company quarry on Warrick Barn Road while doing research for his thesis on ambystoma talpoideum, commonly called the big-headed mole salamander.

Biebighauser is a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Forest Service, based in Kentucky. He doesn’t just know about creating vernal pools; he wrote the book on it.

Transplanting a vernal pool wetland might be as rare as the species in the vernal pool.

Biebighauser, who has restored or created nearly 1,000 wetlands, wouldn’t go so far as to say transplanting a vernal pool is unprecedented. He would say, “It’s a unique practice, where we’re going to pick up a wetland and move it.”

Hayslett said he knows of no other transplant attempt in Virginia.

To convey the potential virtue of a transplant requires a bit of back story.

Vernal pools are the ephemera of wetlands. They come to life with the rain or rising streams of spring, dry up by fall, then return the following spring.

Due to their cyclical nature, the pools cannot support fish. As a result, entire ecosystems have evolved in the safe haven vernal pools offer away from their biggest natural predators: fish.

Animals that thrive in vernal pools include salamanders, wood frogs and fairy shrimp, to name a few. Some vernal pool species are obligates; they must have access to the water during part of the year to carry on their lifecycles.

Vernal pools are scattered throughout parts of the United States. But those in Piney River are unlike others in the Piedmont.

The Piney River land is on a plateau-like ridge. Rather than the red clay that characterizes the Piedmont, most of the Piney River plateau soils resemble those found in areas closer to the coast, Hayslett said.

The plateau is not entirely devoid of clay, though. Scattered around it are bowl-like depressions of white clay – not red – with bedrock below. In spring, the bowls hold rainwater, creating vernal pools.

The Piney River vernal pools, with their closer kinship to coastal pools, are home to the mole salamander Hayslett studied, which he said is found in only 15 places in Virginia.

The mole salamander is listed in Virginia as a species of special concern, according to the 2006 list of the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. Special concern means that while the species is not endangered, it could become so due to limited numbers or loss of habitat.

Fairy shrimp are also rare, according to Hayslett.

When it comes to vernal pools, “no two are alike,” Hayslett said.

The virtue of a transplant is that it would preserve the top layer of soil, which has “all the goodies,” he said.

The top layer holds the keys to an individual ecosystem’s life. It is rich with such things as plant seeds, algal spores and eggs such as those of the fairy shrimp. It also has an individual mix of chemicals from leaf litter and other material, which give each vernal pool its signature identity.

Salamanders crawl out of their woodland burrows every spring to return to the vernal pool of their birth to reproduce.

So strong is a pool’s identity that for some species, such as the salamander, the pool of its birth is the only place it wants to go to reproduce. It is, in short, home.

The idea of the transplant is that for the creatures of the little ecosystem, “it will smell like home; it will taste like home; it will feel like home,” Hayslett said.

Of the vernal pools at Boxley, he said, “This is a really old ecosystem. It’s safe to say this wetland was here long before Europeans were.”

Hayslett and another scientist had worked with Boxley in the past to identify environmental features. So Hayslett and Biebighauser approached Boxley with the transplant idea.

Boxley, a Roanoke-based company, has operations in Virginia and West Virginia. It quarries and produces material for construction, such as concrete and crushed stone.

It is run by a fourth-generation family member, President and CEO Ab Boxley.

“Ab Boxley is on several environmental boards,” said Jack McCarthy, superintendent of Boxley’s operations in Piney River and on Lawyers Road in Lynchburg.

Until Hayslett told the company about the vernal pools, “we didn’t know what they were,” McCarthy said.

Now the company has adapted its expansion plan, not only to save as many pools as it can, but to transplant one.

“I’m glad we’re doing it,” he said. “We don’t want to go in and destroy habitats.”

McCarthy said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Department of Environmental Quality have been informed of the plan.

Biebighauser characterized the company’s response as “amazing.

“Here’s a company that’s willing to help us move (the wetland). The company has a very strong environmental conscience.”

Hayslett said Boxley has diverted resources to make the transplant happen, such as use of heavy machinery, which helps keep costs low.

Biebighauser estimated total project cost at $5,000 to $6,000.

The transplant involves harvesting clay from another vernal pool that is no longer fully functional, Hayslett said. That clay will be used to create a new bowl in an area on Boxley property away from the expansion.

Next, the layer of top soil will be dug up, just like sod for grass, and transplanted to the new bowl, Hayslett said.

Volunteers will plant plants moved from the old pool, he said.

The final step will come in the spring when the salamanders emerge from their burrows and head for their old vernal pool. Their egg masses will be taken to the new pool.

Work is already under way, and the project will be featured at a conference at Sweet Briar College in September.