Grasslands Archives - Wildlife Habitat Council

Summit Materials | From Abandoned Sand Mine to Monarch Haven

An integral element of a strong corporate conservation program is the ability to learn from and adapt to nature. By recognizing what is working, and by utilizing already-existing features to further conservation goals, corporate conservationists can bring to fruition a program that supports biodiversity.

Construction materials company Summit Materials’ Cornejo Wildlife Project, located at Cornejo & Sons North Wichita Sand and Asphalt Plant 3 in Wichita, Kansas, is a prime example of a program achieving success by learning from nature. Originally an abandoned airport that was turned into a sand mine, the Cornejo Wildlife Project encompasses wetlands, landscaped gardens and a grassland, with efforts focused on supporting birds and pollinators and providing educational opportunities for employees and their families.

As the Cornejo Wildlife Project is located near the Arkansas River Corridor Habitat, it is an ideal stopover location for migratory birds. Five bluebird nesting boxes were installed across two locations on-site, situated away from roads and site operations to reduce potential human interference. In addition to the nesting boxes, Cornejo & Sons also installed several brush piles to provide shelter as well as foraging areas for target bird species.

One of the key conservation goals of the Cornejo Wildlife Project is the protection of pollinators, particularly migratory monarch butterflies, since the garden is located within the I-35 Monarch Highway. The site’s several gardens help support this goal, including a 200-square-foot pollinator garden containing milkweed, garden phlox and black-eyed Susan to provide resources for monarchs.

“One major issue we ran into was getting water to our pollinator garden,” said Randy Roths, Community Outreach Director at Cornejo & Sons. “We tried many different methods to resolve this: rain collection barrels with a hose line, a water line from the lake that got filled with pond scum, soaker hose that kept getting stopped up, etc.” After learning from this trial-and-error period, the team found their winning option in an innovative solar-powered pump that transports water from the nearby pond into a sprinkler system to irrigate the garden. Beginning in early 2021, Cornejo & Sons also employed a no-pesticide policy in the pollinator garden, and in 2022, approximately 42 butterflies, bees, moths and wasps were observed throughout the garden.

Additional gardens at the plant entrance were in place for many years when Cornejo & Sons recognized that this area represented another opportunity to provide wildlife habitat on-site. Beginning in April 2021, the team removed overgrown plants and added milkweed and catmint based on these plants’ previous success with attracting pollinators in other locations on-site. These choices proved successful in this garden as well, with catmint and blazing stars attracting both bees and butterflies.

When the site was first purchased, a large berm along the southern end of the property separated the on-site quarry from a housing development. It was originally seeded with turfgrass, and Cornejo & Sons soon realized it could provide greater ecosystem services if it were seeded with pollinator-friendly plants instead. After over-seeding with several different wildflower mixes, the berm now hosts a variety of plants benefiting butterflies and bees, including purple prairie clover and yellow sweet clover. A no-mow policy ensures that these plants and the pollinators that depend on them can thrive. Just through visual observations alone, Cornejo & Sons could see the success of this garden, as the blooming flowers were buzzing with an estimated 5,000 individual bees.

But it’s not only the wildlife that gets to enjoy the Cornejo Wildlife Project — summer interns, employees and their families can tour the site. Through these tours, they learn about how the pollinator garden provides resources for bee populations, how the bluebird nests create shelter and how the site’s wetlands and riverside grasslands supply a water source for wildlife. This project also creates opportunities for learners to get involved in the maintenance of the habitat, either through planting native wildflowers or collecting samples to test the water quality. Making these hands-on projects accessible and family-friendly was a critical element. “We implemented weekend workdays that incorporated people’s families,” said Roths. “That way, they wouldn’t sacrifice their time away from their families in order to help out the project.”

When it comes to developing a successful conservation program, Roths emphasized the importance of looking to colleagues for support. “Ask for help,” he said. “You will be surprised in the interest and knowledge of other employees.”

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Fidelity Investments | Large Scale Conservation through Employee Empowerment

With a 525–acre campus featuring vast expanses of forest and grassland, the Fidelity Investments Corporate Office in Smithfield, RI lends itself to a multitude of conservation efforts — the site’s Certified Gold program features ten qualifying projects. Maintaining this many projects across such a vast property requires careful coordination and an active, empowered base of volunteers. The Fidelity team has accomplished this feat through proactive monitoring and robust employee outreach, efforts that helped them earn the WHC Gold Program of the Year Award in 2020.

The property features 400 acres of contiguous forest, 20 acres of grasslands and an acre of pollinator garden habitat, which is maintained through comprehensive invasive species control. This land is home to animals like the eastern wild turkey, monarch butterfly, eastern bluebirds and tree swallows, and serves as a backdrop to three education projects centered on these species.

Due to their scope, some of the projects require contractor maintenance and monitoring. Over 3,500 on-site trees (including red maple, eastern red cedar, common sassafras, scarlet oak and eastern white pine) have been tagged and logged into ArborScope software. Bartlett Tree Experts performs most of the tree maintenance (pruning, pest treatments, root invigoration, and removal of dead or damaged trees) and monitoring is performed by Brightview Landscaping Services.

Because the large pollinator garden, which includes native plants like butterfly weed, swamp milkweed, goldenrod and purple coneflower alongside basking areas and water sources, receives daily maintenance, contractors likewise perform much of this work. The Fidelity team, however, has still found creative ways to keep employees engaged with this habitat. Food scraps from three campus kitchens are collected and composted for use in the garden, providing all staff with a low-effort way of contributing to soil health. During the summer, volunteer days are held one to three times a month, in which employees assist with plantings, transplants and the removal of invasive species like mugwort, multiflora rose, oriental bittersweet and burning bush. Engaging volunteers in the hand-pulling of these species allows for greater staff participation, while also eliminating the use of chemical herbicides. Fidelity also obtained a monitoring protocol from WHC in 2017, and since then, employees have collected butterfly data every few weeks throughout the spring, summer and early fall. Business units will frequently sign up for monitoring duties together, creating opportunities for teambuilding. Since 2017, employees have observed 107 butterflies representing 11 different species including monarchs, whose numbers have doubled.

Central to Fidelity’s employee engagement practices is a dedication to proactively recruiting volunteers at tabling events and through internal communication outlets. Measures are taken to ensure that new volunteers are equipped with the resources they need to make meaningful contributions. Monitoring of the site’s 12 nest boxes was originally organized by one employee who was able to lead the task without a set protocol. When a new set of volunteers took charge of monitoring 2018, to make the process more accessible, the team developed monitoring logs that clearly delineated the type of data needed. By the following year, staff had access to a comprehensive monitoring log that aligned with NestWatch protocols, so that the data could be submitted to the citizen science group.

Employees also have the chance to attend educational events throughout the year, like guided walks between the nest boxes, lessons on the local history of wild turkeys, and information sessions about the garden and how to get involved. Event attendees are quizzed on their ability to perform tasks like identifying the sex of a turkey, to ensure that volunteers will be able to capture useful brood data, which is submitted to the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management for use in statewide analyses of the turkey population. The quality of submitted monitoring data is also reviewed throughout the year to determine how well employees are applying lessons to fieldwork.

The Fidelity Smithfield team continually looks for ways to improve their employee engagement, as well as the youth-oriented pollinator events they host each year. Plans for the near future include logging more of the site’s trees into ArborScope and developing best practices for deterring house wrens, which are native but known to destroy bluebird nests, from the nest boxes. With their commitment to recruiting volunteers and setting them up for success, the team is well-positioned to keep the already-sizable program growing.

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Crestwood Midstream | Expediting Reclamation through Innovation, Corporate Support and Community Ties

Reclamation is a complex task, requiring intensive planning that begins before a company even starts work in an area. Restoring land in a narrow timeframe, while meeting the expectations of the surrounding community, is even more challenging, but the team at Crestwood Midstream has readily risen to the occasion.

Crestwood’s grassland reclamation project is located on 16 acres along multiple pipeline rights-of-way (ROWs) in western North Dakota. The ROWs run through the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation (FBIR), inhabited by the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara (MHA) Nation, also known as the Three Affiliated Tribes, and the reclamation work included in the project is representative of practices Crestwood has adopted for pipeline construction throughout the reservation. The area features mixed prairie grasslands that wildlife, along with residents’ livestock, use for grazing. Permitting for ROWs through the reservation is handled by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), who estimates that successful reclamation is typically completed 3-5 years after construction disturbance. The Crestwood team, however, has been determined to shorten this window, often reducing the timeline for successful habitat reclamation to approximately two years.

Matt Comeaux, Crestwood’s Director of Environmental Services, oversees all aspects of pipeline construction: permitting, construction and post-construction compliance, and ultimately reclamation. He cites a multitude of benefits to completing reclamation at a quicker rate, from overall project lifecycle cost and labor reductions, to less risk of erosion, noxious weed infestations and greater biodiversity.

To expedite the process, the team has adopted a suite of best management practices. Before construction, topsoil depth surveys are performed. Noxious weed control is conducted prior to soil grading. During construction, the team actively manages topsoil and subsoil storage to minimize mixing, and uses robust erosion control devices to minimize soil loss and erosion. Once construction is complete, weed-free straw is incorporated into the topsoil for erosion control, water retention and soil nutrition.

Instead of the standard seed mix typically used for reservation reclamation projects, the team worked with consultants to create their own. Matt explains, “We look at coming up with the best seed mixes we can, consulting with experts from the NRCS, to incorporate species better adapted to disturbed soil scenarios.” In selecting plant species, the team takes care to include native forbs to increase the area’s biodiversity, wildflowers for pollinators and plants with cultural significance to the MHA Nation. Stiff goldenrod, for instance, is used in antiseptic lotions and teas and provides forage for carpenter bees and livestock.

Many of the easements granted to the Crestwood team are not exclusive, meaning that grazing activities and travel across reclamation sites are common. While Matt notes that “it’s much more challenging to achieve successful reclamation” with the high activity, the team has found unique ways to attempt to minimize the impact. In one case, a landowner requested that the team build an access road through his property. Matt recalls, “The terrain was challenging, but we were able to incorporate the road into the reclamation design to make it as minimally impactful as possible.” The access road was constructed using local stone that forms at coal seams, and its design limited permanent disturbance within the construction ROW, allowing for better plant establishment on the rest of the property.

Crestwood’s connection with the community was further solidified by the contributions of one of their field employees, Christopher McLaughlin, a Senior Environmental Specialist and member of the MHA Nation. Before joining Crestwood, Christopher worked for the BIA as an Environmental Specialist, making him well versed in what regulators evaluate when siting and permitting oil and gas projects on FBIR. He now oversees much of the pipeline construction and reclamation in the area, capturing spatial data through Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and sending it back to Matt and the rest of the team at Crestwood’s Houston, TX headquarters. Matt notes that Christopher approaches reclamation with a “very high level of pride” and a sense of ownership in the work. The team’s level of investment and attention to data collection provided a streamlined path to WHC Conservation Certification®, and they are already planning for the next certification cycle.

This proactive mindset, and motivation to exceed minimum regulations, can be found at all levels of Crestwood leadership. Crestwood’s CEO seeks to be an ESG leader in the industry and has welcomed Matt and his team into board meetings to present site-level conservation work. Joanne Howard, Vice President of ESG, Sustainability and Corporate Communications, has worked to develop Crestwood’s ESG program from the ground-up. Aided by WHC’s unique expertise in corporate conservation strategies, she made biodiversity and land use a key focus of the company’s ESG approach. Recalling how Crestwood’s corporate culture smoothly facilitated collaboration, WHC Chief Operating Officer Josiane Bonneau says, “We learned so much and were impressed by the team’s commitment to the MHA Nation and the community at large. We left uplifted and excited to see more of their impact in the future.”

Crestwood has ambitious plans for the coming years. Joanne’s team is in the final year of a three-year strategy, and moving forward, they will complete a materiality assessment to develop a new set of goals. At the site level, the team looks forward to expanding on their already-thriving reclamation work. They plan to continue developing seed mix, sowing test plots under different conditions and are constantly working to perfect the timings of plantings, given North Dakota’s short growing season. They also want to evaluate potential Certification opportunities on their assets located in eastern Wyoming.

Matt’s advice to other teams with reclamation projects is to approach them with a sense of openness. “Don’t be scared to think outside the box,” he advises. “There are a lot of challenges in the field and you’re continually trying to improve upon your plans.” With dedication at all levels of operation, flexibility and a mindfulness for the unique landscape and community in which they operate, the Crestwood team is well on their way to becoming the industry leaders they aspire to be.

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Bacardi Bottling Corporation Jacksonville | Creativity, Flexibility and Resiliency in Conservation

Bacardi’s operations have coexisted with wildlife since the company’s inception — the brand’s distinctive bat logo was inspired by the bats that lived in the rafters of the Santiago de Cuba distillery in which the Bacardi family first made, stored and aged their rum in the 1860s.  

Today, at the Bacardi Bottling Corporation site in Jacksonville, FL, spirits are produced and bottled on a 90-acre property that provides ample space for local wildlife. An on-site habitat is managed by a group of dedicated employees known as the Green Team, which since 2016 has been led by co-chairs Kara Bogden, Senior Beverage Scientist, R&D, and Eric Hearn, Environmental Health & Safety Site Coordinator. The team has always approached conservation with a sense of adaptability. This mindset proved invaluable in 2020 — when the COVID-19 pandemic led to canceled events and logistical challenges, the team found creative ways to continue with their work.   

At stake was a long-standing conservation program that has provided wildlife with quality habitat and has allowed the team to build a rapport with other employees and partners throughout North Florida. The program, which first achieved WHC Certification in 2013, contains 22 acres of native warm season grasses and wildflowers, a pollinator garden, and structures to attract bats and birds. This land once contained high-maintenance turf grass, but now supports local wildlife while also reducing on-site landscaping costs in a subtropical region where plants grow quickly for most of the year.  The Green Team partners with the Lubee Bat Conservancy in Gainesville, FL to construct the site’s bat houses. (The conservancy was founded by Luis F. Bacardi, who was the great-grandson of the company’s founder and passionate about bat conservation.) They also work with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the Jacksonville Zoo on a long-term bat study that utilizes acoustic monitoring techniques. The avian project has likewise allowed the team to connect with the greater Jacksonville community, including local scouts who constructed boxes for eastern bluebirds. Monitoring has demonstrated an increase in bluebird fledglings over time, and on his walks throughout campus, Eric has been pleased to see more bluebirds year-round.

The pollinator garden was originally in the back of the campus, but in response to employee enthusiasm, the team moved it to the front, and it’s now one of the first things employees and visitors see when they arrive on-site. The team leveraged the popularity of this pollinator work to creatively engage with employees throughout the pandemic.  

When the team had to cancel their large-scale annual Earth Day event, they instead distributed pollinator plant seeds to employees for them to plant at home. Bacardi employees live all around the Jacksonville area, as far as 40 miles away from the facility, so this activity has allowed the team to transform yards across the region into pollinator habitats and outdoor classrooms. “It was great,” Kara recalls, “People would stop us and talk about how their milkweed was growing and how excited their kids were to find chrysalises in their yard.”  

In November, the team invited employees to a socially distanced on-site planting event, resulting in a record turnout. The team attributes this to a desire to return to campus on the part of currently remote employees, and a newfound appreciation of nature overall.  

The pandemic not only shaped large-scale events, but also routine monitoring and maintenance. While plant operations kept going, many employees went at least partially remote, reducing the personnel free to assist on-site. Moreover, tasks are usually done in pairs, but became solo efforts per distancing regulations. The team was, however, determined to stay consistent with their work. For instance, they still performed nest monitoring on the same dates that this information has been collected in previous years, identifying an employee who was scheduled to be on-site on each date, and assigning the duty to them. While, as Eric notes, these tasks lost their social aspect this year, they instead offered employees a unique way to “break from work and get out in nature,” providing stress relief in a difficult time.  

Although they’ve had a trying year, the Green Team shows no signs of slowing down. They are in the process of installing satellite wildflower gardens along the pathway that leads from the parking lot to the site’s main building. The team was able to get these gardens funded through a wellness initiative, as they will benefit not only wildlife, but also employee morale. The team has also worked with the Duval Audubon Society, discussing ways to engage adult learners via on-site community events, which they hope to start hosting once the pandemic has subsided. As employees return to campus, Kara and Eric expect to see an influx of Green Team participants. As Kara notes, the pandemic has made people realize that “we are just a small part of this world,” and many have taken more time to stop and appreciate nature. The team looks forward to keeping this momentum going into 2021, and beyond. 

Atlantic Richfield | From Superfund to Super Habitat

Engaging in conservation activities on corporate lands sometimes requires managing ongoing impacts of historical uses. For the Atlantic Richfield Dutchman site, located on 3,447 acres in the Upper Clark Fork River Basin of southwestern Montana, a legacy of past mining, smelting and overgrazing resulted in significant impacts to habitats and wildlife.

The Dutchman property is part of the Anaconda Smelter NPL Site, an area of 300 square miles impacted by nearly 100 years of historical copper smelting by the Anaconda Copper Mining Company. High arsenic levels in the soil caused by smelting required remedial action. Additionally, previous use of the property for grazing and breeding livestock had a detrimental impact on the site’s habitat and vegetative cover. Fortunately, Atlantic Richfield (a subsidiary of BP) has overcome the challenges posed by these impacts to transform the Dutchman site into a haven of grassland and wetland habitat used by wildlife and humans alike.

Ecological restoration began at the Dutchman site more than 30 years ago with the creation of a Functionally Effective Wetland Area, now 517 acres and the largest contiguous wetland habitat in the watershed. Through the years, further efforts have been made to address the site’s legacy of impacts, including native seeding, livestock and vehicle exclusion, invasive species management, erosion control and wildlife monitoring.

When describing the efforts Atlantic Richfield has made to exceed both wetland mitigation and remediation requirements on-site, team member Shannon Dunlap, Operations Project Manager, noted that, “What sets the Dutchman site apart is the rigorous monitoring Atlantic Richfield conducts year-round to monitor not only wetlands, but avian and mammal populations, invasive species, grassland vegetation and erosion.”

Field crews work with Go Bird Montana every year to inventory bird populations on-site and have so far observed over 120 species of birds from 35 different taxonomic families. These surveys have found evidence that several rare species and species of concern are breeding on-site. Atlantic Richfield is also investigating ways to implement more comprehensive monitoring that can better guide management efforts, such as the use of remote sensing technology or aerial spectral analysis by drones, or satellites to evaluate vegetative cover.

Not only are bird species thriving, but mammals are as well. Starting in 2008, Atlantic Richfield began restricting vehicle access and installing wildlife-friendly fencing, which restricts cattle access to the site while allowing wildlife to cross safely. These measures have permitted the grassland and wetland vegetation to flourish, benefitting numerous bird and mammal species, including deer and other big game, swallows, sparrows, chickadees, hawks, and waterfowl.

Atlantic Richfield makes a special effort to maintain the property as a public recreation area, offering features such as trails, educational kiosks and bird watching checklists to encourage the visitors to enjoy the site’s natural beauty. Atlantic Richfield also works closely with Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks to offer sustainable hunting opportunities to the community, which helps ensure that herds of elk, white-tailed deer, mule deer and moose continue to remain healthy and do not over-browse the habitat. Dunlap articulated that despite the difficulties in allowing public access, “it is a rewarding challenge to balance habitat preservation and public access at the site.”

The Dutchman site demonstrates how with time and commitment, a previously impacted landscape can become a thriving asset to both wildlife and the community.

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Summit Materials | From Abandoned Sand Mine to Monarch Haven

Fidelity Investments | Large Scale Conservation through Employee Empowerment

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Crestwood Midstream | Expediting Reclamation through Innovation, Corporate Support and Community Ties

Bacardi Bottling Corporation Jacksonville | Creativity, Flexibility and Resiliency in Conservation

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Atlantic Richfield | From Superfund to Super Habitat

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About

Work With WHC

Learn More

Member

UN Global Compact Business for Nature

Official ally

World Benchmarking Alliance

UN Global Compact
Business for Nature