Project Blue Streams

Nashville's legacy, passed from one generation to the next, is its land. Characterized by beautiful, green, rolling land each forest, meadow and valley are part of a watershed. When rain falls on this land, it will, eventually, reach a small stream. Nashville's small streams are everywhere. In conversations with long time residents, we hear stories of young people swimming, floating and walking these creeks. These small streams represent some of the best that Nashville has to offer: a cool resting place on a hot summer day, a fishing hole and bird watching outpost. They are important to our spiritual well-being and our physical health.

In its tenth year, the Cumberland River Compact is returning to its spiritual foundation by launching Project Blue Streams. Project Blue Streams protects and restores Nashville's small streams. Partnering with neighborhood groups, schools, churches and businesses, Project Blue Streams restores streams using a collection of tools ranging from tree planting to stream bank restoration to in-stream habitat rehabilitation. The Cumberland River Compact prides itself on partnering with the scientific community, government agencies at local, state and federal levels and other non-profit groups. Representatives from all these groups have joined the Project Blue Streams steering committee and endorsed its mission.

The importance of Project Blue Streams' work is evident. Three out of four local streams pose a potential threat to human health or have an impaired ecology not supporting aquatic life. Sources of pollution to Nashville's streams are not easy to pinpoint. Very rarely can one walk a stream, find a pipe pouring the pollutants into the stream, redirect the pipe and then have a clean stream. More often, sources of pollution are indirect, leaking sewage pipes, improperly maintained septic systems, improperly disposed pet waste, overly fertilized or manicured lawns, and dirt from construction sites.

Project Blue Streams envisions a city of clean streams and our work is leading the way. In Antioch in conjunction with the Compact's Building Outside the Box Program, a small stream where the federally endangered Nashville Crayfish lives is being restored. The eroding bank is being graded back to prevent further deposition of sediment in the Nashville Crayfish habitat. Exotic invasive vegetation along the stream bank was removed. Finally, the riparian buffer zone is being enhanced with over one hundred native species, including many blooming red buds and dogwood trees.

How to get involved:
Take a look at our Mid-Cumberland Watershed Committee page, and then contact us!

On September 18, 2007, Professor Chris Farrell kicked off environmental efforts to clean-up Brown’s Creek with a first-hand lesson and a trek down to the creek location behind Trevecca's campus.
Read More...

Brown and Caldwell Engineering and Project Blue Streams, a Cumberland River Compact program, doing an Invasive Plant Pull and Tree Planting at Shelby Bottoms Park on February 2, 2008.