Protecting Water Resources for Future Generations
Bill Zeedyk and Craig Sponholtz

Excerpt from Program:
"The need for more effective soil and water conservation practices becomes increasingly urgent as the population of the Southwest swells while the supply of water dwindles. Soil and water conservation practices must deal not only with the lingering effects of past abuses, but also with new threats arising out of changing patterns of land use and emerging environmental trends.

"These presentations will address some newly evolving restoration practices while questioning the limitations inherent in some of the older, more commonly accepted ones. These techniques have been successfully applied across a variety of landscapes throughout the Southwest. They are simple to understand, easy to apply, and use native materials such as rock, wood and debris.

"Based on new interpretations of scientific principles from the fields of hydrology, soil science, plant ecology and geomorphology, the goal of these restoration practices is not to merely stop soil erosion and trap sediments, but to promote the orderly accumulation of deposited sediments along floodplains and across erosion-scarred alluvial fans. They also provide new substrates for plant growth while enhancing surface water entry into the soil and water table. The variety and versatility of treatment types continues to expand as more and more practitioners use and apply the method.

"Bill Zeedyk, and his wife, Mary Maulsby, own and operate a small consulting business, Zeedyk Ecological Consulting, LLC, which specializes in the restoration of wetland and riparian habitats using 'low tech,' hands-on methods and native materials.

"Following retirement from the U.S. Forest Service in 1990, Bill began a second career focusing on simple techniques for stabilizing and restoring incised stream channels and gullied wetlands on public and private lands in the Southwest and Mexico. Bill likes to share what he knows with others and has conducted numerous hands-on training workshops featuring his own low-tech measures utilizing readily available native materials. Bill has prepared several field manuals including Managing Roads for Wet Meadow Ecosystem Recovery, and A Good Road Lies Easy on the Land...Water Harvesting from Low-Standard Rural Roads.

"Craig Sponholtz, founder and president of Dryland Solutions Inc., is a watershed restoration specialist and agro-ecologist currently residing in Santa Fe, NM. He spent a decade with the U.S. Forest Service in New Mexico and Arizona working mostly in Wildland Fire Management. Craig studied Permaculture in Australia at Bill Mollison's Tagari Farm. In 2005 he received a Master of Arts degree in Agro-Ecological Restoration from Prescott College.

"Craig was the staff Agro-Ecologist for Earth Works Institute and managed their demonstration site and native plants nursery near Cerrillos, NM. He frequently leads volunteer work crews at Quivira's stream restoration workshops with Bill Zeedyk. He also teaches workshops at Ecoversity in Santa Fe and for The Quivira Coalition in erosion control, passive water harvesting, and agroecology. Craig is currently starting a nursery for dryland adapted trees and shrubs and implements watershed restoration and agroecology projects for landowners throughout New Mexico."