Life & Work with Kathleen Dennis

Today we’d like to introduce you to Kathleen Dennis.

Hi Kathleen, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
We have some pretty amazing people in the organization that has been a member longer than I am. However, when I took over as the Director, we discussed taking on some new directions and efforts to try to build the organization and increase our ‘footprint’ in Southeast Nashville and the Mill Creek Watershed. I will try to give you some of the flavors of how that has developed and feature some of our folks along the way.

The organization was founded in 2009 with the goal to work toward clean water in Mill Creek. This included efforts to restore and protect the waterway and to educate the local Southeast Nashville Communities on how to care for the steam and why it is important to the local community. The group started by pursuing a lot of the usual efforts associated with a watershed group, including stream clean-up efforts, tree plantings, and weed wrangles to remove invasive species. The group also challenged requests for variance to Metro Waters Ordinances that are in place to protect the stream. One of these efforts carried out under the leadership of Micah Hargrove who was a director at the time, helped the developer of a hotel realize the beauty and potential draw that a well-preserved wetland had for clients booking rooms at his hotel. Essentially, our organization challenged the request to remove the wetland and showed the hotel developer how to position the building to take advantage of the view. The rooms that look out on this view are now very much enjoyed by those that visit this hotel, and the wetland is preserved to help support our local waterway.

We’ve also done many tree plantings and Weed Wrangles, the removal of invasive plant species. Our members, Patricia and Brant Millers have been our leadership team in these efforts. They are dedicated environmentalists that has really made an impact on the Nashville area in terms of getting native trees and plants into our community and raising awareness of these types of needs for a community.

Gretchen Anderson and her daughter Caliope Anderson as also amazing contributors to our organization. Gretchen serves as our Secretary/Treasurer and has worked hard on many projects. She was instrumental in helping with the EPA Building Blocks for Sustainable Communities Initiative. The MCWA developed the grant that was submitted to the EPA by the town of Nolensville that clinched this award for the community. Gretchen and I then put together the Stakeholder list for the study and followed through with the consultants that were hired for the project. The result is an extraordinary document that helps a sustainable way forward for the town of Nolensville.

I am a research scientist with a unique background in environmental advocacy, biomedical research, science education, environmental science, and community outreach. I have my undergraduate degree in Biology from the University of California, San Diego, and a Doctorate in Neuroscience from George Washington University, Washington, D.C. I worked in the field of biomedical research for over 40 years making contributions to understanding specific aspects of gene regulation and expression important for brain development and related disorders. Other research includes the exploration of gene-environment interactions with significance to the development of neurodegenerative diseases.

I’ve always fostered an intense love of nature and recognized the importance of exposure to the natural world for good mental health. In 2015, I discovered the Mill Creek Watershed Association and decided to focus my volunteer efforts on the growing need to preserve and promote local conservation efforts in Southeast Nashville. In 2018, the preceding director of the MCWA, Micah Hargrove, stepped down from his position and I offered to lead the organization and so was elected Director at that time.

Some of the contributions I’ve made to the MCWA since then include new directions and efforts in the following; strategic planning, development and implementation of clean water policies, community education, and advocacy efforts, always keeping these efforts grounded in environmental social justice approaches, and in support of the conservation and preservation of clean water in the urban Mill Creek Watershed of Nashville, Tennessee.

https://www.millcreekwatershedassociation.org/. Some of the recent accomplishments under my leadership include a critical role in the acquisition and facilitation of the Environmental Protection Agency’s, Smart Growth Program; Building Blocks for Regional Resilience, for the Town of Nolensville, Tennessee.

One of four cities in the country so awarded in 2021. We helped to develop a team of local stakeholders that had expertise in a variety of important facets of community development, including stormwater and floodplain management, land conservation, landscape architects and native plant experts, and more. Together we worked with a Consultant team hired by the EPA and some leading members of the town of Nolensville to develop a strategic plan for the town to use to grow sustainably grounded on a plan for flood resilience and state-of-the-art stormwater management. This project is now complete. I can provide you with a copy of that document.

Another significant project the MCWA has undertaken under my direction is the conceptualization, development, and implementation of the MCWA’s “Monarch Project”, which will link a series of educational pollinator/riparian buffer gardens with Monarch waystations, (working towards certification through the organization Monarch Watch https://www.monarchwatch.org/) and placed whenever possible, in the riparian buffer along Mill Creek. The first of these gardens was delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic but is now installed along a headwater spring to Mill Creek at the Nolensville High School, in Nolensville TN.

These two efforts have focused on Nolensville for a reason. The town of Nolensville is one of the fastest-growing communities in the country today. It also is developing in the headwater stream area of Mill Creek. Everything that happens in this community has a direct impact on the health and well-being of Mill Creek. When I agreed to take on the Director’s role we discussed invigorating our efforts in Nolensville to help educate the leaders and the community members as to the importance of protecting this beautiful waterway. We coined the phrase “Nolensville’s greatest natural resource” which we now use to include all of Southeast Nashville.

At the time, however, we were working to capture the interest of then, Mayor Jimmy Alexander. One of our members, Gretchen Anderson, and I spoke with him at length about our concept of developing a Green Corridor through Nolensville by focusing on the stream. By making the stream a focal part of the town’s “sense of place”, development could be approached from the point of view that everything needs to protect and enhance clean water.

This could lead to parks and greenways that would provide access to natural areas for the community while helping to recharge groundwater and keeping non-point source pollutants out of the stream. The Government changed in Nolensville and we ended up working with other Board of Commissioner members but ultimately, the work with the EPA came out of these early meetings with the late Mayor Alexander.

We are continuing these types of efforts throughout our watershed. I work a lot with members of the Cane Ridge Community including Twana Chick, John Stern, and the Millers Patricia and Brant. Patricia and Brant have a long legacy of community environmental efforts in their own right. They were members of the MCWA when I joined and I have learned much from them. They are a retired Forester (Brant) and Naturalist (Patricia) and have planted a will of 500 trees within our watershed. They are also our weed wrangle and tree planting captains for the MCWA. I can’t say enough about them and their efforts.

Our organization also continues to advance advocacy work for the protection of the Federally endangered Nashville crayfish (Faxonious shoupi) and the State endangered, Streamside salamander, (Ambystoma, barbouri). Other efforts include riparian buffer management, invasive species removal, tree plantings, and promotion of proper land use and development using up-to-date Green Infrastructure and Best Management Practices.

One of the main objectives I had, when I took the leadership position, was to invigorate the MCWA’s efforts to revitalize and refurbish our Mill Creek communities with forest and stream connections. The MCWA hope to establish walking and biking connections for stranded neighborhoods, linking them with reforested parks, greenways, and the restored river as well as local restaurants, stores, libraries, and other walkable resources to promote healthy habits, exposure to nature, and appreciation of the region’s most precious natural resource, clean water. This goal is informed by my scientific background and research in molecular and cellular neuroscience.

In brief, humans evolved in the natural world and our bodies and brains function best when we are exposed to that environment. Many aspects of our mental health are elevated with time spent outdoors and especially in quiet natural areas. I have added as a goal or part of the mission of the MCWA to help support community health and well-being by helping to restore natural areas along the creek that provide easy access for all Mill Creek Community members to nature. In this way, our organization can contribute to the calming of stress and anxiety that impacts our community today.

Here is a write-up that I did for a film about our organization and may provide you with more information about us.
Greetings from the Mill Creek Watershed Association (MCWA)! Our organization was formed in 2009 with the goal to restore and protect Mill Creek. This river is a 27.9-mile-long tributary of the Cumberland River that stretches from southeast Williamson County to the Cumberland River in eastern Davidson County. It begins south of Nolensville, were myriad small streams, the headwater streams, come together to form two main branches that flow through Nolensville. These two streams join to form the main branch of the river just south of Sunset Road. Mill Creek continues into Metropolitan Nashville, gathering water from several small creeks and other tributaries. It then winds through the Cane Ridge, Antioch, South Nashville, and Donelson communities before emptying into the Cumberland River about 2 miles upstream from downtown Nashville and directly upstream from the city’s primary drinking water treatment plant.

A Watershed is all the land that drains into a particular body of water. The Mill Creek watershed drains 108 square miles of land in southeast Nashville and Williamson County and is home to a vibrant blend of culturally diverse human communities that share the region with an equally diverse community of plants and animals native to Middle Tennessee. This includes 68 members of Tennessee’s Greatest Conservation Needs List of species. In the 1970s, Mill Creek was considered a candidate for inclusion on the list of Tennessee Scenic Rivers. Unfortunately, for reasons lost to time, this never happened and the unchecked urban and industrial growth within the watershed, along with the earlier impact of agricultural activity at its farthest reaches, contributed to its decline as a healthy stream. The stream’s health continues to decline due to neglect in the already urbanized regions of the watershed and from the impact of unprecedented growth in the Cane Ridge, Antioch, and Nolensville areas of the stream.

There are several specific threats to Mill Creek’s health. The stream is impacted by erosion, leading to damage to the stream banks and beds and increased sedimentation, from urban development and inadequate stormwater management measures. This leads to lower oxygen levels in the water which are inadequate for the organisms that live there. A variety of what is called nonpoint source pollutants also enter the stream from road and highway runoff including oil and gas from cars and trucks. Other pollutants enter from new residential development sites, industrial areas, and airport activities all contributing to toxic wastes that collect in Mill Creek.

The MCWA works to improve the state of Nashville communities through our efforts to help restore the health and vitality of Mill Creek so that it can be a source of clean water for the wildlife that lives in the area, drinking water for the human community and a place for pleasure and recreation for all members of southeast Nashville neighborhoods.

Our endeavors to protect and restore Mill Creek include a variety of community engagements, and educational efforts to help local communities and municipalities understand the threats faced by Mill Creek and its inhabitants.

Focal activities include riparian buffer zone repair, pollution prevention efforts, the creation of rain gardens and pollinator gardens, tree plantings, stream cleanouts, and the removal of invasive plant species through “Weed Wrangles” along our stream banks. The MCWA also participates in a variety of advocacy efforts directed at strengthening awareness of proper land use and development throughout the watershed including; the development of proper mitigation plans to protect springs, small wetlands, and other beautiful areas on Mill Creek.

One of our programs named, “The Monarch Project” links the development of pollinator gardens with Monarch Waystations, placed whenever possible in riparian buffer zones along Mill Creek. This project was inspired by the dramatic decline in the numbers of Monarch Butterflies, a butterfly species that migrate every year from the Northern realms of the United States and Canada to the mountains in central Mexico where they live through the winter. Our goals with these gardens are multifaceted. They will emphasize the interdependence of the organisms and plants that live and thrive on the shores of our creek as well as their importance to humans. The gardens will utilize only native species of plants to provide food for native pollinators, shade trees for aquatic stream inhabitants, and shelter and nesting areas for native birds. To support the migrating Monarch butterflies, the gardens will contain native butterfly milkweed, a plant essential to the breeding portion of the Monarch life cycle. Educational signage will inform human community members of the contribution that our wildlife and native plants make to the nurturing and sustaining of human communities as well.

We hope to continue our efforts to restore the riparian buffer zones in our Mill Creek Communities over the next several years. We are presently reviewing areas along the Whittemore Branch of Mill Creek as well as the main Creek itself in the Antioch area near Blue Hole road. We think there is a real possibility of joining together with other organizations working towards community revitalization in Antioch to restore the natural areas along this tributary and Mill and to reconnect the local community to their beautiful natural areas, we hope to do this through the restoration of the riparian buffers of Mill Creek and the establishment of small community parks that provide recreational areas for both children and adults.

Our efforts to restore the Mill Creek watershed also help to support and protect the only known home of the Nashville crayfish (Faxonius shoupi), a federally endangered species, and the Streamside Salamander (Ambystoma, barabouri), a State Endangered species of salamander. These organisms depend on the stream’s clear waters, ambient temperatures, and limestone bedrock as important aspects of their habitat. They serve important functions in our local ecosystems including helping to keep our stream clean and serving as a food source for other organisms.

MCWA also advocates on behalf of Mill Creek residents by encouraging local leadership members to adopt sustainable land use policies to help preserve and protect the creek. After participating in several local grassroots meetings of concerned community members including the Friends of Southeast Nashville and the Cane Ridge Community Club, the MCWA has been working with local community leaders, city council members, and residents to advocate for sustainable building practices that include state-of-the-art stormwater management and other development practices that will build cities and communities that are resilient to the impact of climate change. This work led to the acquisition of the EPA’s Community Revitalization award for the MCWA and the City of Nolensville, known as Building Blocks for Sustainable Communities. You can visit our website to read about this unique opportunity to help preserve and protect our stream for all Mill Creek Communities by protecting the headwater streams and floodplains at the farthest reaches of our stream. These efforts are helping communities engage with builders and developers to drive more equitable and fair development and revitalization efforts in southeast Nashville.

Our future goals include continued support for community revitalization that brings Mill Creek communities into better alignment with their ecosystems here in the Mill Creek watershed. We hope to revitalize our native grasslands and forests, creating natural urban spaces that reflect the natural history of this area and providing passive and active recreational areas for Mill Creek communities. In turn, we hope to educate Mill Creek residents about the interdependence of human and nonhuman species and encourage the nurturing of native environments to help sustain all of us. We support educating our communities as to the importance of preserving our natural resources, working to clean and revitalize the land and water to provide a sustainable future for our youth, as well as healthy spaces for our wildlife to live side by side with us in our revitalized communities.

It is our contention that sustainable living practices that support good health, care for our wildlife, and protection for our waters can promote and invigorate communities that are more just, equitable, and harmonious. To learn more about us please visit our website at https://www.millcreekwatershedassociation.org/. We hope to restore Mill Creek and revitalize our watershed in harmony with our community to be a vital path forward for Nashville.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
No, not smooth, bumpy but remember when bumpy roads were fun to drive over as a kid? Yes very hard and still very hard and frustrating since we are learning how to do things as we go. But this work has been so satisfying. I feel we have touched many with our efforts AND really educated folks. I can see the results of our hard work in the communities we have had the pleasure of working with. Our biggest challenges are finding funding and members to help carry out our mission. Folks are very busy and still they join our association because they care so much about the environment.

However, when you work with volunteers the most important thing is to understand, they only have so much time to give. They have family, work, and other obligations too. We are always grateful for what folks can do. We just may not be able to do everything we want to do with just volunteer support. Our goal is to grow more and be able to support paid positions in our group. This way we will build a sustainable community and provide jobs for passionate people.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
Being creative has informed both my science work and my environment work. Developing experiments requires imagination and creating novel approaches to answering questions. It also includes delving into the literature and then imagining how the question you are working on may be best answered within the context of the established literature and from the type of science you are doing. I always looked through the literature of many related biological fields as this is what really informs the final understanding of a biological question. Then, I would design the experiments to answer my question and see how the results fit into the big picture. This is one of the best parts of doing scientific studies the weaving together of the bits and pieces one finds.

I’m also a textile artist, so I think of it as creating a fabric art piece, a quilt, or a layered piece that pulls together all the work of many scientists to inform the next set of experiments or the next scientist. When in science you really are contributing to a large body of knowledge. It’s a nice feeling to know bits of what we now understand about some of the things I studied that came from my work. I do the same with my work for the watershed. I am informed by many different facets of environmental activism and science.

We weave together the importance of clean water, mental health, removal of invasive plants and the restoration of native plant communities, the planting of trees, and the development of resilient communities to accomplish a bigger goal, a community that understands and supports and stewards the natural world right within its own backyard. We strive to help people understand the interconnectedness of nature and our place and the NEED for that nature.

What do you think about luck?
Not so much luck as just wandering… I’ve always been a wanderer… wandering and seeking have informed me much of what I have done… many walks in nature and on city streets. And mental wandering, seeking… seeking a way to understand and appreciate the beauty and substance of my life and what more it could be. While I loved bench science and the creative process of that, something was missing.

My children (who are awesome BTW and I enjoyed raising them and nurturing them wholeheartedly) were grown and I had time to do, make or create something that was special, that had a different substance or meaning. The MCWA came along with these gifted special people and I had a talent that could help them grow and shape and influence our watershed and that has been a great experience.

Contact Info:

• Website: lcreekwatershedassociation.org
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/millcreek615/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/millcreeknashville
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/MillCreek615
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@millcreek615

Image Credits
Yvonne Joosten, Barry French, Kathleen Dennis, Caliopi Anderson, and Gretchen Anderson