The Daily R-r-r-ibbit

Big rain runoff rearranges a stream in the holler

Very exciting trip home from Oak Ridge yesterday. SOCM staffer Ann League was near my place in Campbell County and heading back to Knoxville a little bit before I left my meeting and started home. Here's a photo she took a little before 6pm:

TN 297, near the beginning of the narrow winding part [Photo credit: Ann League]

By the time I got to this spot around 7:30 pm, the flow had lessened quite a bit, but there were stretches with a lot of debris and significant streams of water still running across the road. A little further down I had to stop for about ten minutes while TDOT finished clearing a small landslide.

As I turned up Terry Creek I noted that it was out of its banks in places. There was a lot of standing water in the usual soggy places at the lower end of the lane. As I drove further the debris was mostly leaves, twigs and small branches that had been pushed onto the road from the ditches. The lane to my house had fresh deep ruts but I encountered no problem getting up the last hill on the driveway.

This morning I discovered more evidence that this had been a very significant storm event, and got some photos.

For comparison, this is a photo I took a few days ago (March 27th) of a short extension of the lane toward a crossing on Hudson branch:

[Photo credit: Cathie Bird]

And this is how it looked this morning:

[Photo credit: Cathie Bird]

Now for two of the most amazing changes at this end of the holler: The first photo is from May 2010 after another significant rain. The second is a view in November of 2011 -- note the presence of another tree across the creek bed, just above the moss covered one. This one came down the creek after a beaver dam breach a couple of years ago, and had shifted a little bit further across the channel in subsequent high flows. The third photo is one I took today:

Hudson Branch, May 3, 2010 [Photo credit:Cathie Bird]

Hudson Branch, November 5, 2011 [Photo credit: Cathie Bird]

The creek flipped the upper log, exposing its double trunk, and moved it completely across the channel. [Photo credit: Cathie Bird]

The storm flow also scoured the dirt from roots of a standing tree. If you look closely you can see water flowing on the other side of the roots:

[Photo credit: Cathie Bird]

Here's the one that really blew me away. The first photo taken October 18, 2009,  shows two huge tree trunks that fell across the creek and have been there at least eight years, one of them longer than that. The second photo is what this intersection of Hudson Branch and its side channel looked like this morning:

[Photo credit: Cathie Bird]

Just a little bit of bark left on the near bank. Both tree trunks stretched down the side channel to the far bank of Hudson Branch [Photo credit: Cathie Bird]

I found most of this (former) large woody dam 50 to 70 yards downstream:

Difficult lighting, so I added an arrow. [Photo credit: Cathie Bird]

Here's at least part of the other log...used my telephoto so it's a little grainy:

[Photo credit: Cathie Bird]

These little headwater streams are very dynamic! It will be interesting to watch what happens now. One of the things I'll be watching is how pools got shifted. The section of Hudson Branch where the logs used to be often dries up over the late summer and fall except for pools here and there. TWRA has found blackside dace (listed as "threatened" on the federal Endangered Species list) in this stretch. Such pools are important habitat for many aquatic species. I made a predictions this morning about where pools might be after this streambed reshuffling...I'll keep an eye out to see what actually happens.

I didn't get around to peek up the Frog Pond Hollow drainage -- will try to do that tomorrow.

 

t r u t h o u t | Climate Change: The Day After Tomorrow Might Have Been Yesterday

As Washingtonians finally dug themselves out Friday to brave clogged metro trains and icy roads on the way to the office, one of the lasting impacts of the past week is the discussions it has provoked about how climate change has impacted the current weather - and how this weather might impact the ongoing debate here over how the U.S. government should address the threat of climate change.

Dubbed the "snowpocalypse" – or sometimes "snowpocalypse II" in deference to the previous storm that blanketed Washington in December – the scenes on the streets this past week have actually seemed eerily post-apocalyptic. Silent, monochrome and empty, they have, for some, forebode a world in which no action is taken to stem the effects of climate change.

Others, though, see the wintry landscape as undermining the direness – or even the reality – of the threat posed by climate change, which they prefer to refer to as global warming, thus underscoring what they see as the incongruences between the phenomenon and the snowy spell.

via www.truthout.org

Cathie's notes: I thought this article was a fun review of "snowpocalypse" with a dash of scientific rebuttal thrown in. Whatever your position on climate change, I still think it's good to stay in touch with what the "other" is saying. Making space for polar opposites in one's own mind is an act of love that clears the way for healing conditions on Earth. Without that space there's less room for new ideas, new ways of doing things, to emerge.

USGS Release: Disappearing Ducks? North America’s Prairie Potholes Vulnerable to Warming Climates (2/1/2010 10:30:00 AM)

The loss of wetlands in the prairie pothole region of central North America due to a warmer and drier climate will negatively affect millions of waterfowl that depend on the region for food, shelter and raising young, according to research published today in the journal BioScience.

The new research shows that the region appears to be much more sensitive to climate warming and drying than previously thought.

“The impact to the millions of wetlands that attract countless ducks to these breeding grounds in spring makes it difficult to imagine how to maintain today’s level of waterfowl populations in altered climate conditions,” said Dr. Glenn Guntenspergen, a U.S. Geological Survey researcher and one of the report authors. “Parents may not have time to raise their young to where they can fly because of wetlands drying up too quickly in the warming climate of the future,” he added.

via www.usgs.gov

See the full release at the link under the excerpt.

Kingston Coal Ash Disaster Is Top Story Pick at 'Facing South'

When a dam broke at a holding pond at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston coal-fired power plant in eastern Tennessee, dumping more than a billion gallons of toxic coal ash onto a neighboring community, Facing South was well-prepared to cover the disaster.

via www.southernstudies.org

The staff at the Institute for Southern Studies looked at more than 700 stories they published in their online journal, Facing South, in 2009 and ranked coverage of TVA's coal ash eco-disaster in Tennessee at the top of the list.

I've become a huge fan of Facing South over the past few years, and have plenty of articles by Editorial Director Sue Sturgis in my electronic library archives. According to Chris Kromm, Sturgis grew up in a Pennsylvania mining town where coal ash dumping had created environmental concerns. Thus she'd cultivated an interest in coal ash hazards even before the pond blew out at Kingston last December.

Sturgis has also written about problems at other points in the coal cycle, such as mountaintop removal mining, aging coal plants and energy policy.

Here's a few links to stories by Sue Sturgis:

Broken promises follow Tennessee coal ash disaster

Fight against mountaintop removal making headway

End TVA's special treatment under the law, enviros urge Obama

Aging coal plants take a heavy environmental toll

Top climate scientist calls Obama's Copenhagen climate proposal a 'disaster track'

Environmental Leader: Apple Drops Bombshell, Immediately Withdraws from US Chamber

Becoming the first major consumer brand to make a big statement against the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s position on climate change, Apple has decided to leave the organization.

In contrast to PG&E, PMN and Exelon, the utilities that in recent weeks announced their intention not to renew their chamber memberships, Apple is making its exit from the chamber effective immediately, reports the Washington Post.

In a letter to the chamber, Apple Vice President Catherine Novelli wrote, “Apple supports regulating greenhouse gas emissions, and it is frustrating to find the Chamber at odds with us in this effort,” the Post reported.

Apple’s move comes as companies increasingly are leaning on the chamber to quit fighting the general concept of climate change, as well as efforts to make emissions a more central part of the political dialogue.

via www.environmentalleader.com

Hawk's Notes: On September 29th I posted a link to news that Exelon and other utilities would not renew their membership with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. At the time I had the feeling something big was happening.

Now, seven days later, a "bombshell." Environmental Leader markets itself as "The Executive's Daily Green Briefing" so I'm very interested in their choice of words and how this speaks to the strength of the signal we may be getting about shifting attitudes in the business world.

The article goes on to talk about earlier criticism of Apple by Greenpeace, and signs that Apple may be taking the criticism to heart -- or may be feeling a shift in consumer heart.

Utility Leaves U.S. Chamber Over Climate Dispute - NYTimes.com

One of the nation's largest electric utilities, Chicago-based Exelon Corp., won't renew its U.S. Chamber of Commerce membership in a dispute over the business group's position on global warming, a company spokeswoman said today.

via www.nytimes.com

For those of us who are environmental justice activists, this is a really interesting piece of news. Here in Tennessee we have become aware of of the stands on environmental issues by the U.S. Chamber, and how state or local Chambers of Commerce may align or diverge from the USCOC on such things as climate, land use and water quality.

Because I have a particular interest in aquatic sciences, as well as water law, management and policy I have been collecting articles on these subjects for the past few years from various sources. There is no doubt in my mind that much of the opposition to the Clean Water Restoration Act being proposed in Congress as well as a bucket load of bad water bills introduced into the Tennessee Legislature last session are often in alignment with the post-Rapanos sentiments of the USCOC, an organization that, as I recall, was among those submitting amicus briefs in the Rapanos/Carabell case when it went before the Supreme Court. (I'll try to snag a link to this in an update.)

At some point I want to tackle a longer post on the issue of human stewardship of planetary resources and the concepts of social-uplift environmentalism in contrast to beliefs of folks who say "it's my property and I can do anything I damned well please on it."

For now I'll leave you with this NYT story...please go to their pages to read the whole thing. Something important is happening here.