May 22, 2025

Clearing a Path for Biodiversity: How a Utility Corridor Became a Gopher Tortoise Refuge

In the southeastern United States, the gopher tortoise has long been a symbol of vanishing biodiversity. Listed as a threatened species in Mississippi since 1987, the gopher tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus) has seen its numbers decline due to habitat loss, fragmentation, and the gradual disappearance of longleaf pine ecosystems that once dominated the region.

But in an unexpected corner of Mississippi — along 1,900 miles of utility rights-of-way managed by Cooperative Energy — the gopher tortoise is making a comeback.

Thanks to a long-term integrated vegetation management (IVM) program utilizing products and expert advice from Envu, what were once dense, overgrown corridors have been transformed into thriving herbaceous ecosystems. The results are attracting national attention and, more importantly, they’re attracting tortoises.

A Strategic Shift, Rooted in the Landscape

Cooperative Energy’s right-of-way manager and field biologist Wes Graham began this journey nearly 20 years ago. When he joined the utility in 2006, vegetation management was minimal and outdated. Rights-of-way (ROWs) were overgrown and difficult to navigate. The lack of proactive management posed serious challenges for line crews and created zero benefit for native ecosystems, which were being overrun by woody invasive species.

By 2008, Graham initiated the utility’s first herbicide applications, followed by a methodical, data-driven effort to restore operational efficiency and ecological function across nearly 30,000 acres of ROWs.

“We knew we needed to rid this 100-foot swath of undesirable vegetation and transform it into a more grassy, herbaceous ecosystem,” Graham says. “Being an agronomist, I knew the soil was just waiting to burst forth with native grasses and low-growing forbs. We just had to create the right habitat for that, and herbicides were the only way to do it.”

The Role of Envu: From Products to Partnership

To build a solution that could succeed across Mississippi’s diverse terrain, Cooperative Energy called upon numerous resources, including Envu to tailor a program that went beyond traditional product use.

Together with Envu IVM expert Gueth Braddock, Graham and his team:

Developed rotational herbicide strategies to reduce resistance
Adjusted tank mixes based on regional vegetation differences
Tested and trialed products such as Method® 240SL herbicide, Escort® XP herbicide and Esplanade® 200 SC herbicide to fine-tune application rates
Instead of traditional high-volume spraying chose to use a more precision-based, low-volume application, eventually reducing usage to just 2-3 gallons per acre

“Gueth has been instrumental in helping us get this program established,” Graham says. “It’s not just the products — he’s been like a mentor to me. I call him all the time to bounce ideas off him, and he always provides valuable feedback.”

Additionally, the Envu team provided field training, applicator guides, and responsive support, assisting Cooperative Energy in its quest to build a flexible and resilient vegetation management system.

The Return of a Keystone Species

What Graham didn’t anticipate was how quickly the land would respond, not just with plants but with wildlife. Within a few years of implementing herbicide-driven IVM, gopher tortoises began appearing along the ROWs. As the brush cleared and sunlight returned to the ground layer, the tortoises found the open, sandy terrain they needed to thrive.

The utility began mapping active burrows with GPS and tracking population movement. Over 12 years of data shows a 36% increase in tortoise presence alongside a 75% decrease in centerline burrowing — a sign that the species now had more space and safer zones to spread out.

“It’s like Kevin Costner’s ‘Field of Dreams,’” Graham says. “If you build it, they will come. We inadvertently created habitat on our rights-of-way, and the gopher tortoise is now thriving there. Working with our geographic information system department, an app was developed to capture waypoints of every active burrow, and you can see little green dots everywhere on my map. It’s a true success story.”

Changing Perceptions, One Habitat at a Time

Graham uses the gopher tortoise as a powerful example to challenge myths about herbicide use.

“The gopher tortoise is a testament to how herbicide application can inadvertently create habitat for an endangered species,” he explains. “Our landowners love it because we’ve given them their land back in a usable form, whether it’s for grazing cattle or hunting ground.”

In fact, Graham says that some landowners who were initially opposed to herbicide use have since embraced it. After seeing the transformation firsthand, one even moved his fence to incorporate the restored corridor into his pasture.

The Bigger Picture: Reliability, Resilience and Recognition

While the biodiversity benefits are compelling, Cooperative Energy’s IVM program has delivered broad operational advantages:

Fewer outages caused by vegetation interference
Faster restoration times, from 19 days post-Hurricane Katrina in 2005 to five days after a massive 2020 tornado
Improved crew safety with better visibility and access
25,000+ acres of newly viable pollinator habitat
Multiple state and national awards for innovation in vegetation management

Graham now shares the story at industry conferences nationwide, and other utilities, such as Tennessee Valley Authority and Duke Energy, are seeking to replicate the model.

A Living Laboratory for the Future

Today, Cooperative Energy’s ROWs serve a dual purpose: keeping power flowing and biodiversity growing. With the Envu customer-first approach and science-backed innovation, the utility has shown what’s possible when operations and ecosystems are treated as interconnected, not conflicting, priorities.

“We weren’t doing anything special, just our job,” Graham says. “But we believed in it. And it worked.”

As utilities face increasing pressure to balance environmental, operational and regulatory demands, stories like this offer more than inspiration — they offer a model. Through long-term collaboration, targeted innovation and a deep understanding of local ecosystems, Cooperative Energy has demonstrated that the path to resilience can also be a path to restoration.