News (340)
Good enviro reporting from Knox News: Smokies air quality and more salamanders!
News Sentinel: State takes path of least resistance with air-quality plans; and researchers are gauging how Southern Appalachian salamanders will respond to climate change.
KNOXVILLE — Local journalists delivered a double tap of critical conservation coverage this week:
The state air quality board is outlining its 10-year haze-reduction plan for Tennessee, and some enviros are arguing the state is not going much beyond the bare minimum required by the feds. That was the crux of a detailed report from News Sentinel reporter Anila Yoganathan that also examined lingering air quality and deposition issues in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. While air quality in some aspects has improved in recent decades, there are still some insidious issues that affect the park’s viewshed, and on occasion, the health of park visitors, too. Acid and nitrate deposition continue to take a toll on park streams.
The report is extensive. A digital subscription is required to view the stories at Knox News, but hopefully they’ll open it up as an introductory freebie.
Speaking of streams and the threat they face:
Science reporter Vincent Gabrielle waded into a story about research at the Tennessee Aquarium delving into the effects of global and regional climate change on Southern Appalachian freshwater denizens such as the black-bellied salamander.
“Their teeming millions make up a substantial proportion of the animal life of a forest. In the headwaters of the Appalachian Mountains, salamanders frequently outnumber fish, birds and other small animals,” Gabrielle reported.
“Lungless salamanders, like the black-bellied salamander, breathe only through their skin. They will notice water pollution, including sediment, agricultural runoff or acidic seepage from old mines, and relocate to cleaner water.” — If they can, we might add. Too often, that is impossible for them.
A public demonstration in September 2021 in Market Square in Knoxville demanding TVA resume public meetings with reasonable pandemic safeguards. Courtesy Southern Alliance for Clean Energy
After pandemic starts and stutters, TVA finally allows personal public input at meetings
KNOXVILLE
For the first time in nearly two years, the publicly owned Tennessee Valley Authority will host a public listening session on the day prior to its next board of directors meeting.
Since shifting to virtual board meetings in 2020, TVA diverged from other utilities across the country by not holding a single virtual public listening session. In addition, written comments submitted by ratepayers prior to board meetings have not been shared with the media or the public.
Knoxville to citizens: ’Post up!
Written by Thomas FraserCity announces plan to encourage composting by residents and businesses
KNOXVILLE What do you do with your meatless leftover food scraps?
Sometimes here at Hellbender Press global headquarters in South Knox we throw them in the yard for winter critters; occasionally sneak some to the dogs; bury them in the vegetable garden; or sometimes slip them into the relatively unused backyard composter by the cat graves way in the back.
It seems such a waste to throw it away or even produce it in the first place, and centralized landfill food scraps spew methane and linger for years. It’s a big gnarly stewpot.
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Imagine a
Sign up for cleaner electricity in the Tennessee Valley!
There’s a huge opportunity to fight for clean energy jobs in the Cumberland Fossil plant area! The Tennessee Valley Authority is planning to retire the Cumberland Fossil Plant in the coming years, but if local residents don’t take action, TVA will replace the coal fire with expensive, dangerous, and polluting natural gas –– a fossil fuel that harms the environment and would require a massive gas pipeline that would run through several nearby counties.
Stand with local residents and tell the TVA you want cleaner and safer electricity! Sign on to this public comment for the TVA Board Meeting on February 10!
Vulnerable and venerable Appalachian lily is a beautiful sign of the times
Written by Natalie Foreman
Gray’s lily Courtesy Appalachian Voice/Ben Brewer
Rare plants flourish on Tater Hill
This story was originally published by Appalachian Voice.
BOONE For Gray’s lily, 2021 was both the best of times and the worst of times.
The vulnerable lily, which grows only in North Carolina, Virginia and Tennessee, is a species of particular interest at the Tater Hill Plant Preserve in Watauga County, North Carolina. Here nearly 1,600 acres of land, including a rare mountain bog, are devoted to the study and protection of rare and endangered plants.
As global forests fall to blades, tree species go unknown
NASA
BBC: There are 14 percent more tree species than supposed
Nearly 9,000 global tree species haven’t been identified, based on a database that analyzed millions of trees within 100,000 forest segments around the Earth.
Of the 73,300 estimated tree species, the researchers predict there are 9,200 yet to be discovered. Most of the undiscovered and rare species are believed to be in beleaguered tropical rainforests, such as those in the Amazon or Central Africa.
“The researchers used statistical techniques to predict the likely number of tree species, correcting for gaps in existing data,” the BBC reported.
“The findings suggest more must be done to protect the incredible life forms needed for food, timber and medicine and to fight climate change by sucking carbon dioxide from the air.”
Food for deep thought
KNOXVILLE On a Saturday afternoon, cheers (rare until recently) echo through Neyland Stadium. Guests in skyboxes watch the football game.
Platters line the buffet: Piled high with chicken wings. Packed with hotdogs. Brimming with bowtie pasta. Flush with alfredo.
It is nearing the end of the fourth quarter, and more than half of the food hasn’t been eaten. The Office of Sustainability will be by soon to transport these covered platters to the Culinary Institute to be recovered.
E.O. Wilson left energy in Knoxville
Tennessee Lookout: TWRA delays clearcut in Cumberlands as tourism official files suit
Written by Anita Wadhwani
Marvin Bullock, president of the Sparta-White County Chamber of Commerce, opposes deforestation efforts in the Bridgestone-Firestone Centennial Wilderness Area to create quail habitat. John Partipillo/Courtesy of Tennessee Lookout
Oak Ridge Rep. John Ragan joins bipartisan pushback against state plans to raze forest for quail habitat
This story was originally published by Tennessee Lookout.
SPARTA For decades, the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency has kept the profits from the sale of timber and other natural resources on publicly owned lands, folding the payments from logging companies into the agency’s annual operating budget.
A bipartisan bill introduced in the Tennessee Legislature this week seeks to bring that practice to an end. The measure, introduced by Rep. John Ragan, R-Oak Ridge, and Sen. Heidi Campbell, D-Nashville, would require TWRA officials to transfer all proceeds from the sale of the state’s natural resources into Tennessee’s general fund — the process typically followed by other Tennessee agencies that generate income.
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Shut up and get on the bus
KNOXVILLE Everyone needs to be everywhere at once: School, work, the grocery story, the mall and back home.
Locked into a society run by time, we tend to prefer methods of transportation that make for the quickest journey from place to place.
The modern car, usually powered by gasoline, provides individuals with quick transportation, which saves time. Private transportation embodies convenience.
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Knox County commish subdivides Hardin Valley despite opposition. Again.
WATE: Knox County Commission greenlights more Hardin Vally development
Knox County Commission approved yet another expansive subdivision in the rapidly developing Hardin Valley area despite pleas from area residents to pause and take a deep breath as residential and commercial development outstrips and overwhelms first responders, streets, roads and schools and other infrastructure — and any pretense of responsible suburban planning and zoning.
The decision comes on the heels of similar land-use fights (such as those reported by Hellbender Press) originated by citizens as housing shortages mean such disputes aren’t likely to go away anytime soon.
“Look at all the development projects instead of each one individually. Look at all the projects in the pipeline, not just the few hundred that are on the books right now,” said Knox County Planning Alliance consulting engineer Lee Muller, according to WATE reporting. “There’s like 4,500 in the pipeline in some stage of approval or construction in the county right now. They need to look at all that and what that requires in terms of schools, sewer, police, fire stations,” Muller told WATE.
(Correction 26 Jan. 2022: During the meeting Muller said 2021 ended with 4,499 homes under construction in the county, not the country. After reported by Hellbender Press, this transcription error was corrected on the WATE site too.)
Library of Congress
Sevier County raptor center will be largest in North America
Project Eagle has landed.
The American Eagle Foundation broke ground Sept. 21 near Kodak, Tennessee on the largest raptor education and rehabilitation facility in North America.
Scheduled to open fall 2022, Project Eagle will be the new home of Challenger, the famous bald eagle seen swooping across football fields as the proud national symbol of the United States of America.
Outgoing Smokies forester Kristine Johnson leaves behind a legacy of science and communication
Appalachian Voices
Citizen Times: Smokies forester bids adieu to her arboreal home
Good read here from the Asheville newspaper about the retirement of Great Smoky Mountains National Park Supervisory Forester Kristine Johnson.
In her three decades at the Smokies, she has tackled issues ranging from exotic and invasive plants to the slow and disastrous demise of the park’s hemlocks due to the hemlock wooly adelgid.
“‘The work we do includes forest health in all aspects,’ said Johnson, who is retiring this month after more than 30 years in the Smokies,” Frances Ligart reported. “Her career has been devoted to reducing the introduction into the park of exotic plants, insects, and diseases.”
UPDATED Jan. 24: Knox County Commission postpones consideration of massive residential rezoning in South Sector
Written by Thomas Fraser
Virtual oblique view of Dry Hollow. In the foreground Chapman Highway just past Highland South Cemetery, where the new East Simpson Road junction becomes Valgro Road after crossing Sevierville Pike, which also received a new junction last spring. The boundary of Thunder Mountain Properties is marked in yellow. At right, its full length coincides with the county border between Knox and Sevier. Illustration by Hellbender Press.
Controversial South Knox County rezoning heads to County Commission after approval of rezoning and sector plan amendments
Knox County Commission was set to decide Jan. 24 about a controversial South Knox County rezoning that would allow for the construction of 255 homes on previously agricultural land. But because of illness of the developer’s representative, the decision on both Thunder Mountain Properties, LLC requests have been deferred to a later meeting.
To decide on zoning issues the commission meets at 7 p.m. in the City-County Building in downtown Knoxville. Still on the agenda are three other cases concerning properties in Hardin Valley that are highly contested by many area residents and concerned Knox Countians. They need all the support you can give to them. Hellbender Press will continue updating this article.