News (340)
Switch off your lights for Earth Hour
Mar 27 8:30–9:30 p.m. local time
Take part with your family in Earth Hour 2021
It is a symbol of unity. It is a symbol of hope. It is a symbol of power in collective action for nature.
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Take part in the Earth Hour Virtual Spotlight: Coming to a small screen near you
Step 1: Follow
Make sure you're following at least one of the Earth Hour social pages and turn on notifications:
Step 2: Watch
On March 27 - the night of Earth Hour - we'll be posting a must-watch video on all our pages.
We can't tell you what the video will be about just yet...but we can promise that it'll make you see our planet and the issues we face in a new light.
Step 3: Share
Share the video far and wide, it's that simple! Share it to your Stories or to your wall, re-Tweet it, send it via DM or Messenger, @tag/mention friends in the comments - the choice is yours. Whether you share it with one person, ten people, or a hundred - remember, it all adds up!
Use the hashtag #EarthHour when you can!
Smokies biologist: Bear vs. hog video highlights nature taking its course
High-elevation trail plan proposed near Sylva
WLOS: Mountain property owners wary of trail network between Sylva and Cherokee
Proponents of a proposal to build a high-elevation 35-mile multi-use trail system in Jackson County said it could further fuel growth in the area’s outdoor-recreation industry.
Some people who already own homes and property in the area abutting, for instance, Pinnacle Park in Sylva, fear an influx of strangers who would jam roads trying to access public lands owned by Sylva and Cherokee. Shocker.
The Nantahala Area Southern Offroad Bicycle Association is putting together a concept plan. The group says it would be the highest (3,500 feet) such trail network in the eastern United States.
Bradford pears suck, and a South Carolina county is offering a bounty, dead or alive
WBIR: County bounty offered to rein in common nonnative landscaping trees
Confession: Your friendly neighborhood Hellbender Press editor bought a house for his family that featured rows of well-established Bradford pear trees. While they are not my favorite, are distinctly alien and should be made to leave this world, they provide an effective privacy screen. I’m sure many of you are in the same boat: Why eliminate healthy trees and expose your property? Let ’em ultimately die and rot, I guess. And plant natives elsewhere. WBIR also has suggestions for natives to replace Bradford pears.
Maybe we’ll figure it out, but in the meantime here’s a story about a South Carolina county offering a bounty on Bradfords.
Interestingly, WBIR has posted numerous, unflattering stories about Bradford pears over the last couple of years. Seems they have an editorial grudge. Good. Keep rolling with it.
Opponents race to stop proposed motorsports track in Oak Ridge
KNOX NEWS: Does a motorsports park make sense for Oak Ridge?
A Knoxville real estate developer and some officials maintain a motorsports park at the Horizon Center industrial park would create jobs, tax revenues and a destination for private high-performance vehicle enthusiasts in the region. Opponents lament possible noise and light pollution and the loss and fragmentation of healthy, diverse hardwood forest and open space set aside decades ago by DOE as an environmental preserve.
The municipal approval process has moved forward since this video was made, but here is a comprehensive argument from those who oppose the Oak Ridge motorsports park and would rather preserve the popular recreational and natural site on the far west end of Oak Ridge.
A volunteer removes invasive plants from an Oak Ridge cedar barren as part of a Tennessee Citizens for Wilderness Planning effort to keep the barren in its natural prarie state. Anna Lawrence/Hellbender Press
Volunteers play the part of fire to maintain the native grasses and wildflowers at an Oak Ridge cedar barren
OAK RIDGE — It’s called a barren, but it’s not barren at all. It’s actually a natural Tennessee prairie, full of intricate, interlocking natural parts, from rocks and soil to plants and insects and animals.
There’s lots of life in these small remaining unique collections of grasses and conifers that are typically known, semi-colloquially, as cedar barrens.
Many of these “barrens” have been buried beneath illegal dumping or asphalt, but remnants they are still tucked away here and there, including a small barren in Oak Ridge owned by the city and recognized by the state as a small natural area.
The seven-acre cluster of cedars, large hardwoods and small open patches of native grasses such as long stem, blue stem and Indian grass, used to be much larger. A large portion of the original barren now lies beneath medical facilities, commercial development and a community college campus in the area of Fairbanks Road and Briarcliff Avenue.
These unique ecosystems need fire to thrive, and modern firefighting practices, road building and development have stopped this semi-regular natural cleanse of woody plants, shrubs and natural and exotic invasives, which encroach upon and can ultimately overcome the natural plants in these vanishingly rare grasslands.
In many instances, humans have replaced fire to ensure these special places don’t disappear.
That’s why three dozen people showed up on a chilly but sunny Saturday in early March to strip shrubs, saplings and even larger trees from the small but classic barren adjacent to Jefferson Middle School. The goal: Help its small grassland expand and avoid terminal encroachment from incompatible vegetation.
Cedars take well to the shallow, rocky soil that is characteristic of these communities, but the most important features of these vanishing places are native prairie grasses and accompanying rare plants and wildflowers and their associated insect and animal species.
“We are doing what nature used to do with the occasional wildfire,” said Tim Bigelow, a board member of Tennessee Citizens for Wilderness Planning, which organizes the barren weed wrangles several times a year.
Natural and intentional low-intensity ground fires historically nurtured such landscapes, eliminating woody plants and ensuring there was enough open space and sunlight for the associated grasses and flowers to thrive in a prairie environment.
And yes, there are prairies in Tennessee. Historically, most of these barrens were on or near the Cumberland Plateau or along the Kentucky
First Native American named to lead Department of the Interior
NYT: Interior Secretary first Native American to hold vital post
The Senate on March 16 confirmed the first Native American director of the U.S. Department of the Interior, Democratic U.S. Rep. Deb Haaland of New Mexico.
“… her new position is particularly redolent of history because the department she now leads has spent much of its history abusing or neglecting America’s Indigenous people.
“Beyond the Interior Department’s responsibility for the well-being of the nation’s 1.9 million Native people, it oversees about 500 million acres of public land, federal waters off the United States coastline, a huge system of dams and reservoirs across the Western United States and the protection of thousands of endangered species.”
Tennessee journalists wary of amendments to public meeting laws
ETSPJ: Hold up on Covid-era meeting law changes to ensure public accommodation
Hellbender Press takes a fundamentalist attitude when it comes to the First Amendment and unimpeded public access to information from the government and its decision-making processes. The East Tennessee Society of Professional Journalists released a statement March 12 regarding public access problems with an otherwise reasonable amendment to the state open-meetings laws. The amendments were introduced at the request of the Knox County Commission, according to ETSPJ.
Here is the press release from ETSPJ in its entirety:
“The East Tennessee Society of Professional Journalists opposes a bill sponsored by two Knoxville lawmakers, Rep. David Wright and Sen. Richard Briggs, that would create yet another exemption to the state Open Meetings Act.
The bill, apparently introduced at the request of the Knox County Commission, would allow almost half the members of a county legislative body to participate in meetings by telephone or other electronic means. For Knox County, this would mean four of the nine commissioners; for Davidson Metro Council with 40 members, 19 of them could conceivably participate by telephone.
The rationale for the bill is laudable in that so long as a quorum is physically present in a single location, it permits an otherwise absent member to attend and represent constituents. Acceptable reasons for absence are family or medical emergencies, military service or out-of- the-county work.
Its shortcoming, however, is the total lack of public accommodation. As currently drafted, this bill would be an exception to a section of Tennessee law that permits such electronic participation so long as all conversation is audible to the public, each member can simultaneously hear and speak to each other during the meeting and all votes are taken by roll call.”
The requirements in the existing Tennessee law are similar to those in the governor’s emergency executive order for public meetings during the pandemic, but the Briggs-Wright bill would incorporate the convenience of the pandemic order for government officials without any of the public safeguards.
Tennessee school boards received an exemption in 2012 for electronic participation, but whether by happenstance or by local rule, the Knox County School Board has never had more than one member participate electronically at the same time. So, the public has not faced the obstacle of determining who is speaking or how members participating by telephone voted.
The exemption to existing law for school boards may have begun a slippery slope for multiple state governing bodies to carve out a permanent exemption in the state Open Meetings Act.
ETSPJ asks that lawmakers Briggs and Wright withdraw their bill or else amend it so that it incorporates public accommodations similar to those in the existing state law and the governor’s executive order for meetings during the pandemic.
Indigenous people could provide a path to global land and water preservation
NYT: Global effort under way to protect 30 percent of the world’s remaining natural areas
The “30x30” plan, led by Britain, Costa Rica and France, aims to preserve at least 30 percent of the Earth’s remaining natural terrestrial and aquatic habitats. A convention of dozens of nations in China later this year will outline and streamline possible methods to meet this goal. Some countries want to increase the goal to 50 percent.
One good reference point may be the lands controlled by indigenous people, who, research shows, do a remarkably good job of maintaining biodiversity in the native habitats in which they live. Their careful methods of resource extraction provide economic benefits while preserving the natural integrity of their native lands.
The U.S. is the only country aside from the Vatican to not agree to the convention’s goal, though President Joe Biden has floated a similar plan to preserve 30 percent of the country’s remaining natural areas.
NC authorities mulling relaxed regulations on Pigeon River pollutants
Knox News: Sam Venable: Now is not the time to backslide on Pigeon River health
Good piece here on a renewed threat to the Pigeon River, which threads from North Carolina into Tennessee. Your friendly neighborhood Hellbender Press editor was a raft guide there for a while — people loved to be on that river, and it is a true environmental and economic success story.
But after years of environmental improvements to the river and accompanying economic gains, the state of North Carolina is considering relaxing standards for a nearby paper mill’s pollutants.
The state is considering loosening the discharge standards for the paper mill’s current owner. A public hearing on the matter is set for April 14.
More...
Knoxville Urban Wilderness poised for expansion
Compass: Urban Wilderness could expand with city/bike club deal
UPDATE: This resolution was passed March 9 by City Council.
Our friends at Compass report that Knoxville City Council will consider a memorandum of understanding tonight with the Appalachian Mountain Bike Club to expand the William Hastie Natural Area by 28 acres.
The club and city would split the purchase price of the property off Margaret Road, and the club would maintain planned bike trails, according to Compass.
Compass is a subscription-only news site, but you should subscribe anyway, so check it out.
A Resolution authorizing the Mayor to enter into a Memorandum of Understanding with the Appalachian Mountain Bike Club providing that the City pay an amount not to exceed $100,000.00 toward the purchase of 28 acres of property to expand the William Hastie Natural Area in the Urban Wilderness, and expressing appreciation for the donation of property to the City. (Requested by Administration).
Hellbender Press will let you know how the vote went.
Biden appointees may move TVA in more sustainable direction
News Sentinel: Biden poised to name four new TVA board members
Georgiana Vines has a good overview of the changing of the guard at TVA as Biden takes the reins on the giant public utility.
Environmental groups are hopeful that new appointees could steer TVA toward more sustainable energy sources and put a focus on the role of power production in climate change.
Right whale entangled in ropes and debris dies off Myrtle Beach
Post and Courier: Right whale meets sad end off Myrtle Beach
An endangered North Atlantic right whale monitored by researchers died off the northern South Carolina coast.
Right whales got their name from the fact they were the “right” whale to hunt. The species was almost hunted to extinction and its revival is faltering.
“Cottontail” was entangled in “ropes and other gear” and suffered its way from the Florida coast to Myrtle Beach, where it succumbed to its injuries.
Great white sharks reportedly fed on the carcass off the shore of the popular tourist destination.
UT professor pens book on origin of animal rights
DAILY TIMES: UT professor chronicles rise of animal rights movement
A University of Tennessee professor traces the origins of the animal rights movement in the 19th century U.S. in a new book, “A Traitor to His Species: Henry Bergh and the Birth of the Animal Rights Movement.”
Ernest Freeberg, head of the history department, chronicles how the action of one man who stopped the whipping of a trolley horse in New York City ultimately led to the modern animal welfare movement and the advent of laws punishing cruelty to animals.
Henry Bergh, who founded the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in 1866, was derided as an extremist and misanthrope by his contemporaries, but his philosophy and moral approach to animal welfare eventually became prevalent in American society.