Water Conservationist of the Year

Steve Turley

I get the feeling that Steve Turley doesn’t look around very often. Now, I don’t mean that Turley isn’t aware of his surroundings, or doesn’t look both ways before crossing the street. But when something needs to get done in the name of wildlife conservation, Turley’s not the kind to look around and see who has their hand raised. He’s too busy stepping up to the plate himself. Turley has been a pillar of support for conservation in the Lake Norman area for years. Back when the Wildlife Federation first floated the idea of an Island Habitat adoption program, Turley and his sons signed on to adopt a large island in the middle of Lake Norman. Ever since, Turley has answered, again and again, the question so many of us ask ourselves: What can I do? He has boated off bushels of litter from his island, and worked on pilot projects to plant water willow and black willow on the island’s shorelines to stem erosion and provide fish habitat. He led the effort to turn a nearby unused channel marker post into a nesting platform for ospreys, and worked with local dock builder Mark Lancaster to build a galvanized metal platform that will last for decades. Since then, he’s led volunteer efforts to build six more platforms, and redrawn designs so they will accommodate bald eagles.

Turley is a staunch supporter of the Lake Norman Wildlife Conservationists, a Wildlife Federation chapter that is proving to be a model of the organization’s expanding statewide chapter network. And like so many enthusiastic volunteers, Turley has learned that his love of the outdoors now requires him to spend plenty of time indoors, in planning meetings and fund raisers and community functions.

One kind of island mentality leads a person to wall themselves off from the world. Steve Turley has shown a different kind of island mentality, staking a personal claim of responsibility for a little piece of the natural world that he could improve. And in so doing, he inspires all of us to look for the places that we hold dear, and look as well for the kind of personal commitment shown by Steve Turley. He is the 2007 Governor’s Water Conservationist of the Year.