The Wolf River
About The Wolf River Conservancy
The spring-fed Wolf River rises in north Mississippi and flows northwest through Fayette and Shelby counties to join the Mississippi River at Memphis. Carving a green passage through roughly 100 miles of forests, fields, and communities, the Wolf's upper reaches are lush wetlands of unmatched natural beauty that help to recharge our drinking water aquifer. Its lower stretches contain refuges of floodplain forest in the heart of Memphis. The Wolf River is vitally important, protecting our drinking water and providing outstanding recreational and educational opportunities. A natural treasure, the Wolf River belongs to all of us.
You may want to take a look at this video where Cathy Justis, our Director of Education, shares an introduction to the Wolf River. To get an in-depth sense of its history, ecology and channelization, see below.
The Wolf River Conservancy was founded in 1985 when a group of volunteers came together to successfully oppose a new gravel mine along the Wolf River near Summer Avenue in Memphis. Afterwards, these volunteers chartered the Wolf River Conservancy as a 501(c)3 non-profit organization dedicated to the protection and enhancement Wolf River lands for sustainable recreation and education. The founding members had a vision of the Wolf River as a future Greenway and wildlife corridor through the city, protected from the kind of degradation suffered by waterways such as Nonconnah Creek in south Memphis.
Since 1985, the Wolf River Conservancy has expanded its mission, its staff, its resources, and its membership. We have helped to protect more than 20,000 acres in the Wolf River corridor, including the beautiful Ghost River State Natural Area, launched the transformational Wolf River Greenway project, and connected thousands of people of all ages to the Wolf River through education and recreation programs. Our vision includes the protection and enhancement of the entire Wolf River floodplain, from its origins at Baker’s Pond in North Mississippi to its confluence with the Mississippi River in Memphis, thereby providing a recreation and wildlife corridor of over 90 miles while protecting critical aquifer recharge areas for public drinking water.
At critical times in the history of the Wolf River Conservancy, its members have provided the grassroots activism and support necessary to get the job done. These dedicated and enthusiastic members, along with numerous partnerships with other non-profits, businesses, local, state and national government agencies, are largely responsible for the success of the Wolf River Conservancy for over 30 years. We invite you to read the stories behind some of the Wolf River Conservancy’s most notable accomplishments through the years by visiting the links below:
The Wolf River Conservancy was founded in 1985 when a group of volunteers came together to successfully oppose a new gravel mine along the Wolf River near Summer Avenue in Memphis. Afterwards, these volunteers chartered the Wolf River Conservancy as a 501(c)3 non-profit organization dedicated to the protection and enhancement Wolf River lands for sustainable recreation and education. The founding members had a vision of the Wolf River as a future Greenway and wildlife corridor through the city, protected from the kind of degradation suffered by waterways such as Nonconnah Creek in south Memphis.
Following the massive deforestation of west Tennessee in the late 1800s and early 1900s, rates of upland soil erosion increased dramatically. This eroded material was deposited in the floodplains and choked the sinuous river channels with sediment and debris. The increased flooding that resulted led to efforts to reduce flooding by deepening and straightening river channels, a practice commonly called channelization or ditching. In the late 1940s, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers created the West Tennessee Tributaries Project to coordinate channelization projects in our region. Substantial losses of wetlands and bottomland hardwood forests resulted from these flood-control measures — especially in the Forked Deer and Obion river systems — which enabled the profitable farming of former wetlands and the expansion of urban development into floodplains. Today, every river system in west Tennessee has been negatively impacted by channelization and wetland drainage. Only the Wolf River and its big sister, the Hatchie River, remain largely unchannelized.
By 1964, the Corps of Engineers had channelized the lower 22 miles of the Wolf River, creating an artificial canal from the river’s mouth upstream to the city of Germantown, Tennessee. In the late 1970s, local authorities cleared and dredged portions of the Wolf’s meanders as far upstream as Moscow, Tennessee. Many of the tributary streams of the Wolf were transformed into ditches in order to drain farmland and urban areas more quickly. Although these projects were intended to reduce flooding in the river system by increasing the “flow efficiency” of the main channel and its tributaries, the results were very different.
After the channelization of the lower Wolf, major floods did occur less often in the upper reaches of the river system. However, the increased flow efficiency and elimination of wetland “storage” areas in the floodplain meant that floodwater began to travel downstream much faster than the lower channel could receive it. As a result, the lower river system now experiences more frequent flooding of greater depth and duration than it did before it was ditched. Thus, the flooding problems that were used to justify river alteration in the first place were actually made worse in many areas by the intended remedy of channelization. The only real solution is to stop farming and building houses in the floodplains of our rivers and streams. Floodplains, as their name indicates, are supposed to flood.
At critical times in the history of the Wolf River Conservancy, its members have provided the grassroots activism and support necessary to get the job done. These dedicated and enthusiastic members, along with numerous partnerships with other non-profits, businesses, local, state and national government agencies, are largely responsible for the success of the Wolf River Conservancy for over 30 years. We invite you to read the stories behind some of the Wolf River Conservancy’s most notable accomplishments through the years by visiting the links below:
