DATE: Friday, May 2, 1997                   TAG: 9705020664

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B9   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: BY MARY REID BARROW 

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:   70 lines

PUNGO FARMER TAKES CONTROL OF WATER DAMLIKE DEVICES LET HIM MANAGE WATER LEVELS AND LIMIT POLLUTING RUNOFF.

Sometimes a stormy, southerly wind blows water from Back Bay right up into the ditches that are supposed to be draining farm owner Billy Chaplain's fields in Pungo.

On the other hand, in times of drought, Chaplain wishes his ditches were full of water but they are dry. And that means the farmland is even drier.

While Chaplain can't control the weather, he has found a way to control the water. What's more, it benefits farmers as much as the conservationists trying to protect Back Bay from pollutants and other runoff.

Chaplain has added three inexpensive damlike devices that allow him to manage water levels in the ditches on his low-lying Charity Neck Farm.

He even got help from the Back Bay Restoration Foundation, which picked up 75 percent of the cost.

In times of drought, the gated culverts will hold water in Chaplain's farm ditches to help keep the water high around roots of corn and soybeans that grow in nearby fields.

When southerly winds start blowing Back Bay water up into the ditches, the gates can work in reverse to prevent water from filling the ditches and over-saturating crops.

Meanwhile, the structure itself traps eroding soil, excess fertilizer and other chemicals that may run off Chaplain's fields and prevents them from washing into the bay to muddy and pollute the water.

``They are so effective and so cost-effective,'' said Steve Vinson, executive director of the Back Bay Restoration Foundation. ``They not only prevent pollution, but increase production of the land.

``It's a win-win situation for everybody,'' he added. ``There are no losers here.''

Water control structures are basically aluminum culverts held in the ditch by bags of quick-setting concrete. The gate is made of several pine or cypress boards cut so they will mesh together. The number of boards the farmer chooses to stack in a groove in the culvert determines the height of the gate (and the amount of water he wishes to control).

Chaplain installed the structures in a cost-share arrangement with the restoration foundation, whose goal is to preserve and enhance the big, fragile body of water in the southern part of Virginia Beach. The restoration put up $3,750.

Technical assistance and design was provided by Gene Crabtree and his staff with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service.

For years, biologists have known that runoff from low-lying farm ditches was carrying silt and pollutants into Back Bay. In the late 1980s, the foundation shared the costs with nine farmers to install water control structures. At the time, the foundation identified more than 100 ditches in the Back Bay/North Landing River watershed where water control structures would benefit water quality.

Since then, about a dozen farmers have installed the structures with federal and state cost-share funds from Crabtree's office or from the Virginia Dare Soil and Water Conservation District. But this year changes in the federal cost-share program caused funds to be delayed, and most of the state money is going toward Chesapeake Bay watershed preservation.

Crabtree encouraged Chaplain to approach Vinson for help. ``And we voted to do it because we didn't want Mr. Chaplain to pass this by,'' Vinson said.

``We feel strongly enough about water control structures,'' he added, ``that we would be willing to consider, on a case-by-case basis, sharing the cost of others.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo by CHARLIE MEADS/The Virginian-Pilot

Stephen Vinson, left, of the Back Bay Restoration Foundation, and

farmer Billy Chaplain, center, watch as Gene Crabtree of the U.S.

Agriculture Department demonstrates how the water-control devices

work.

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