WaterWays recognized three champions who continually make a big splash in the community this past weekend at its biggest fundraiser, Save Water Drink Wine!
This year’s Big Splash Awards recognized a deserving business, community, and volunteer water champion for their efforts to safeguard and steward local water resources. Attendees at the 13th annual Save Water Drink Wine joined WaterWays’ Executive Director Mary Beth Sutton and Assistant Director Brooke Fleeman on the porch of the Greenway Farm Conference Center for the awards presentation, nestled above the banks of the North Chickamauga Creek.
Business Water Champion: Komatsu
Komatsu’s dedication to responsibly managing all chemicals, oils, and other pollutants on its
property, as well as its goal to becoming a zero waste facility (currently, only 7% of waste goes to
landfill, with the rest recycled or composted) made it an easy choice for the 2025 Business Big
Splash Award.Komatsu helps mitigate stormwater runoff by inspecting and maintaining drains.
Additionally, plant officials are currently working on a plan with native plants and bioswales to
reduce the sediments and water coming from the plant. “We work daily to ensure that nothing
gets in the drain except for rain. We work with local entities to do cleanups in local waterways
near our facility with our employees on a volunteer basis. Biodiversity is a large part of our
stewardship here at Komatsu,” said Gerald Street, Safety and Environment manager at Komatsu,
who accepted the award.
Komatsu’s commitment to sustainability doesn’t stop at the plant boundary. Employees helped create outdoor learning areas at Red Bank Elementary School, and helped maintain the Red Bank High School rain garden.
Community Water Champion: Kaye Fiorello of Volkswagen
This year’s Community Water Champion, Kaye Fiorello, Environmental Compliance Specialist at
Volkswagen (VW), got a little help from Mother Nature for her nomination and award.
When dragonflies and beavers started causing harm to the new vehicles and roads around the VW plant and at the Enterprise South Nature Park respectively, Ms. Fiorello sprung into action. First with
the Dragonfly Project as she facilitated a research study for UTC interns and WaterWays to find
why the dragonflies loved the cars. She suggested ways to deter the dragonflies while ensuring
VW preserved the wetland.
The second time she stepped in to give Mother Nature an assist was when over-industrious beavers started flooding VW land and Enterprise South Nature Park (ESNP) roads. Ms. Fiorello saw a learning opportunity for the 8th graders at Ooltewah Middle School with the Beaver Defeater Project. The students and VW engineers designed and installed beaver deceiver devices which don’t harm the beavers but reduced the flooding issue.
She was also instrumental in collaboration with ESNP and WaterWays on the construction of an outdoor classroom with trails for Environmental Education areas at Enterprise South Nature Park as well as the vision for involving Ducks Unlimited in installing wood duck boxes at ESNP’s hidden lake
and VW wetland.
Volunteer Water Champion: Scott Ruth
When the watershed coordinator working on a big grant improving the quality of Signal
Mountain streams left WaterWays for a job at TVA, one very special volunteer came to the
rescue. Scott Ruth’s tireless commitment to the project led to long hours talking to and
negotiating with landowners, working with local plumbers, ensuring leaking septic systems
were fixed, advising grad students and volunteers, painting trees purple, and all other activities
in between.
His dedication to this project and the overall mission of WaterWays made Mr. Ruth an absolute shoo in for this year’s Volunteer Water Champion.The goal of the project was simple: Improve the water quality of Shoal Creek and the tributaries of Middle Creek, but the implementation was not so simple. Under Mr. Ruth’s leadership, WaterWays provided septic system fixes and maintenance, helped people reduce the stormwater runoff from their yards, tested the water looking for appropriate abandoned mines to treat the waste from, met and negotiated with local landowners, several of whom were not happy see WaterWays staff and volunteers since the previous abandoned mine project removed forest land. The finished project led to the installation of several wetlands and wetland vegetation to treat the runoff flowing from abandoned mines.