During winter migration, visitors to Hiwassee Wildlife Refuge can view thousands of greater sandhill cranes. This year’s celebration is Jan. 18-19 in Birchwood. Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency

Beat the winter blues with food, music and celebration of a natural spectacle

BIRCHWOOD — The Sandhill Crane Festival is underway through Sunday in Birchwood, Tennessee. This is the 34th year of the festival. Come celebrate the return of this migrant bird. Breathe in the fresh air. Hear its call. See its dance. 

With up to 20,000 sandhill cranes returning to the area each year, you’re bound to be caught up in the spectacular display of the sandhill cranes, eagles, waterfowl, and more on the Hiwassee Wildlife Refuge. Volunteers will be on hand with spotting scopes, but you’re welcome to bring your own binoculars. Dress for the weather, rain or shine. A potent cold front enters the area Sunday.

Free buses shuttle attendees from the Birchwood School on Highway 60 to each of the locations. No parking is permitted at the refuge unless attendee is in possession of a handicap placard.

The American Eagle Foundation will once again be at the Birchwood School for two live performances each day, along with Nashville recording artist, Second Nature. Vendors will be set up in the gym and home-cooked meals prepared in the kitchen, including Ms. Linda’s homemade breakfast biscuits and vegetable soup. 

The limestone cliffs and bluffs of Ijams Nature Center are home to the Berry Cave salamander. The cave is very hard to find, is gated, and entry is forbidden to protect both the salamander and bat populations.  Thomas Fraser/Hellbender Press

Lawsuit prompts federal agency to reconsider protections for rare East Tennessee salamander

KNOXVILLE — The Southern Environmental Law Center, which championed the conservation of a salamander found only in a series of caves within the Knoxville Metropolitan Area, announced Jan. 16 that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agreed to reconsider inclusion of the Berry Cave salamander on the Endangered Species List.

The release from SELC follows; the original story published in July 2024 continues below.

“The Southern Environmental Law Center, on behalf of the Center for Biological Diversity, reached an agreement with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that requires the agency to reconsider listing the Berry Cave salamander—a rare salamander that is only found in a handful of East Tennessee caves—as an endangered species.

The already rare salamanders are under immense pressure from sprawling development in the region, and even the largest observed populations of the Berry Cave salamander are quickly declining. Survey results indicate that a population found in Knoxville’s Meads Quarry Cave—historically one of the salamander’s relative strongholds—fell by 65 percent between 2004 and 2019.

Thursday’s agreement comes eight months after the conservation groups sued the Service, arguing that the agency violated federal law when it denied Endangered Species Act protections for the Berry Cave salamander in 2019. The surprising denial came at a time when the agency’s regional leadership had directed staff to implement a quota system that set annual targets for denying species protections—a system that may have inappropriately influenced the Berry Cave salamander decision. 

The agreement requires the agency to reevaluate the Berry Cave salamander’s status and determine by August 2029 whether it should be listed for protection under the Endangered Species Act.

“This agreement is an important step toward securing long-overdue protections for the Berry Cave salamander and correcting a harmful mistake from the Fish and Wildlife Service,” said Liz Rasheed, a staff attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center. “We hope the agency will follow the science — as required by law — and give these one-of-a-kind salamanders the protections they need to have a shot at survival.” 

Circa 1798 ‘plan of the city of Washington in the territory of Columbia; ceded by the states of Virginia and Maryland to the United States of America, and by them established as the seat of their government, after the year 1800.’ Ellicott/Thornton/Library of Congress

Groups to carry on air quality work, defend U.S. investments and ensure voices are heard from all communities

This story is from North Carolina News Service.

RALEIGH — President-elect Donald J. Trump retakes office in less than a week amid promises to roll back efforts to combat climate change. A friendly Congress could follow suit. But state-level efforts to address the crisis will continue in North Carolina, at least.

Trump has promised to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act passed under President Joe Biden, which earmarked billions for climate-resilience and alternative energy projects. Brittany Griffin with the nonprofit CleanAIRE NC says tinkering with the law would hurt the state, including its ability to prepare for more severe weather as climate change worsens. But she says there are still glimmers of hope on the state level.

"We still have a lot of state-led policies, and then our makeup now of the General Assembly looks different. We have a governor who also is pretty well-informed and, I believe, dedicated to addressing environmental issues in our state," he said.

Griffin added that her organization will be working with community and legal partners to resist potentially harmful changes under the Trump administration, and ensuring that all citizens have a voice in their environment. CleanAIRE NC's community science manager Daisha Walls is on the Environmental Justice Advisory Council for the Governor's Office.

Griffin noted that there are a number of ways CleanAIRE NC is helping people feel more empowered, such as through its air monitoring networks in communities across the state and clean energy transportation efforts in rural areas, and said community member involvement is important to the state's response to climate change.

"When they amplify their voice, it allows them to feel like they are participating in the process of shaping environmental policies as it relates to their communities," she said.

North Carolina lawmakers have passed climate goals under the state's Carbon Plan that aim to reduce Duke Energy's carbon emissions by 70 percent by 2030 and reach carbon neutrality by 2050. But Griffin said the current plan falls short for the state's underserved and impacted communities. However, it is renewed every two years and she hopes they have a larger say in the next iteration.

"We at CleanAIRE NC would like to make sure there's more inclusion for all communities in the planning process so they can actually more directly benefit from it," she said.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory collaborated with commercial utility EPB and the University of Tennessee Chattanooga to develop and test the first transmission of an entangled quantum signal using multiple wavelength channels and automatic polarization stabilization over a commercial network with no downtime. Morgan Manning/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

OAK RIDGE — Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory joined forces with EPB of Chattanooga and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga to demonstrate the first transmission of an entangled quantum signal using multiple wavelength channels and automatic polarization stabilization over a commercial network with no downtime.

The successful trial of this innovation marks another step toward the eventual creation of a quantum internet that could prove to be more capable and secure than existing networks.

Quantum computing relies on quantum bits, or qubits, to store information. Qubits, unlike the binary bits used in classical computing, can exist in more than one state simultaneously via quantum superposition, which allows combinations of physical values to be encoded on a single object.

The demonstration used automatic polarization compensation, or APC, to stabilize the polarization, or direction of the electric field oscillation in a light wave, of a signal sent over the EPB’s fiber-optic commercial quantum network. The approach used reference signals generated by lasers to continuously check the transmitted polarization, detected with an ultrasensitive method known as heterodyne detection.

APCs reduce data interference caused by outside forces like wind and temperature changes that can affect the fiber optic cables used to transmit quantum signals.

“One of our goals all along has been to develop quantum communications systems that operate seamlessly for users,” said Joseph Chapman, an ORNL quantum research scientist who led the study. “This is the first demonstration of this method, which enabled relatively fast stabilization while preserving the quantum signals, all with 100 percent uptime – meaning the people at either end of this transmission won’t notice any interruption in the signal and don’t need to coordinate scheduled downtime.”

The method enabled continuous transmission of the signals with no interruptions for more than 30 hours between the node on the University of Tennessee Chattanooga campus and two other EPB quantum network nodes, each about half a mile away. The UTC node held an entangled-photon source developed by Muneer Alshowkan, an ORNL quantum research scientist.

The quantum network technology using automatic polarization compensation developed by ORNL was demonstrated in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The test utilized EPB’s fiber-optic commercial quantum network and involved the University of Tennessee Chattanooga and industry partner Qubitekk. Joe Chapman, Morgan Manning/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy