6 Clean Water and Sanitation (34)
Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all
A biologist with Conservation Fisheries surveys a stretch of Little River near Walland, Tennessee to determine fish viability and identify rare species for transplantation. Thomas Fraser/Hellbender Press
Human activities have imperiled our waterways — along with a third of freshwater fish and other aquatic species
This story was originally published by The Revelator.
If we needed more motivation to save our ailing rivers, it could come with the findings of a recent study that determined the biodiversity crisis is most acute in freshwater ecosystems, which thread the Southern landscape like crucial veins and arteries.
Rivers, lakes and inland wetlands cover 1 percent of the Earth but provide homes for 10 percent of all its species, including one-third of all vertebrates. And many of those species are imperiled — some 27 percent of the nearly 30,000 freshwater species so far assessed by the IUCN Red List. This includes nearly one-third of all freshwater fish.
How did things get so bad? For some species it’s a single action — like building a dam. But for most, it’s a confluence of factors — an accumulation of harm — that builds for years or decades.
- freshwater science
- threats to rivers
- the conversation
- biodiversity
- freshwater biodiversity
- what are biggest threats to rivers and water
- are dams bad
- climate change in appalachia
- threats to clean water
- tara lohan
- dam obstructions
- grazing impacts on waterways
- river democracy act
- climate change
- dams
- water pollution
- freshwater pollution
- pollution prevention
- conservation fisheries
Hellbent Profile: If you pollute the Tennessee River, Chris Irwin is coming for you
Written by Thomas Fraser
Chris Irwin poses by the Tennessee River as a TVA vessel makes its way downstream. Thomas Fraser/Hellbender Press
From the courthouse to the river, Chris Irwin strives for purity
This is the first installment of an occasional series, Hellbent, profiling citizens who work to preserve and improve the Southern Appalachian environment.
KNOXVILLE — Chris Irwin scarfed some french fries and drank a beer and told me about his plans to save the Tennessee River.
We sat at a riverside restaurant downtown between the bridges. Not even carp came up to eat a stray fry, but a mallard family hit the free starch hard.
I asked him what he saw as we looked out over the river in the still heat of late summer.
“You know what I don’t see?” he said. “People swimming.” It was truth. Nobody was fishing either, in the heart of a metro area pushing a million people. Signs warning against swimming and fishing weren’t readily visible, but he said an instinctive human revulsion likely makes such warnings unnecessary.
“We all know it’s an industrial drainage ditch.”
Come paddle Beaver Creek May 20 and reclaim your water
Written by Thomas FraserKnox County Parks & Recreation has cleared at least 12 miles of a planned 44-mile blueway. Get on the water and enjoy it.
Who wouldn’t want to canoe down the beautiful Knox County Water Trail? Well you don’t have to wait. On May 20, 2023 you can join the Float the Beaver trip.
All event proceeds are dedicated to the continued improvements on Beaver Creek including debris clearing, creek bed cleanup, and installation of public access docks.
The Knox County Water Trail project was officially started in 2020 by Mayor Glenn Jacobs establishing this 44-mile stretch of navigable water which stretches from Clayton Park in Halls to Melton Hill in Harden Valley. The initiative is focused on clearing and caring for the area to ensure navigable waters.
Ancient river, new threats: Water quality officials declare 19 miles of French Broad River in NC impaired by pollutants
Written by Jason Sandford
Recreational uses of the French Broad River in Asheville, including tubing, kayaking and canoeing, have grown dramatically in recent years. Jason Sandford/Ashevegas Hot SheetBooming construction and development, combined with more frequent heavy rains and an aging stormwater system, continue to threaten the age-old Appalachian river
This story was originally published by Jason Sandford of the Ashevegas Hot Sheet.
ASHEVILLE — North Carolina water quality officials declared a 19-mile section of the French Broad River in Buncombe County as officially “impaired” because of fecal coliform levels found during recent testing. It’s a sobering alarm bell (though there have been plenty of warning signs, as you’ll see below.) In Asheville, interest in the river as an economic force and tourist destination has never been higher. (The confluence of the French Broad and Holston rivers forms the Tennessee River above Knoxville.)
The designation will come as no surprise to even casual observers of the wide, northward-flowing river. Often, it runs a chocolate brown color, a clear sign of the sediment and other pollutants running through the waterway.
- french broad river
- ashevegas
- jason sandford
- asheville environment
- is french broad river clean
- tubing in asheville
- fecal coliform french broad
- is french broad part of tennessee river
- what direction does the french broad flow
- kayaking on french broad
- hot springs environment
- french broad sedimentation
- french broad impaired river
- is french broad river polluted?
- what forms the tennessee river
- french broad river asheville
- river health
- threats to french broad river
Clean sweep: Volunteers remove tons of trash from Smokies in largest one-day cleanup
Written by Ben Pounds
Volunteers who helped with the Save our Smokies cleanup on April 23 are shown here among their booty. Anna Lawrence/Hellbender Press
Amid the booze bottles and toilet paper, it’s ‘incredible what we found here’
Cleanup crews cleared garbage Earth Day weekend across Great Smoky Mountains National Park from mountain crests to the shores of Fontana Lake.
Save Our Smokies, which organized the April 23 event, called it the largest single cleanup ever attempted in the park. Volunteers wrangled some 5,000 pounds of garbage.
Save our Smokies Vice President Benny Braden said the organization removed 10,133 pounds of trash in all of 2021.
“Litter is a big problem. We can clean up a location and two months later we have to be back there because it’s worse than when we started,” Braden said in an interview Saturday morning at the Tremont section of the national park. “What gives us hope is our volunteers showing up,” he said, citing their tireless dedication.
A hellbender blends in perfectly against the rocks of a headwater stream. Rob Hunter/Hellbender Press
Hellbenders get help in face of new challenges, increasing threats
Snot otter. Mud devil. Lasagna lizard. Allegheny alligator. For a creature with so many colorful nicknames, the hellbender is unfamiliar to many people, including millions of visitors to Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Julianne Geleynse wants to change that. The resource education ranger is tasked with teaching the public about the natural wonders the park protects within its borders in hopes of mitigating damage to natural resources caused by the millions of visitors, young and old, who enter the park each year.
With a visitor-to-ranger ratio of around 170,000 to 1, communicating with visitors is an ongoing challenge that requires unique solutions. Feeding wildlife and littering are perennial problems, but sometimes new issues emerge. Such was the case in 2017 — and again in 2020.
Heedless craze wreaked havoc
In 2017, researchers in the park were alarmed to find that hellbender numbers in traditionally healthy populations had dropped. An entire generation of subadult hellbenders seemed to be missing. The most glaring sign of the problem was the presence of dead hellbenders where visitors had moved and stacked rocks in park streams. Moving rocks to create pools, dams and artfully stacked cairns may seem harmless enough when one person partakes. But when hundreds of visitors concentrate in a few miles of stream every day for months on end, the destructive impact is significant. Viral photos of especially impressive cairns can spread on social media and inspire an army of imitators.
Why does moving rocks harm hellbenders? These giant salamanders spend most of their lives wedged beneath stones on the stream bottom. They live, hunt and breed beneath these rocks. In late summer, when temperatures still swelter and visitors indulge in their last dips of the season in park waterways, hellbenders are especially vulnerable as they begin to deposit fragile strings of eggs beneath select slabs. Simply lifting such a rock nest can cause the eggs to be swept downstream and the entire brood lost. As the researchers observed in 2017, moving and stacking stones can even directly crush the bodies of adult hellbenders.