Daily Times: Biologists keep a close eye on imperiled mussel populations in Little River and beyond

The Little River in Blount County just west of Great Smoky Mountains National Park hosted just one of five known fine-rayed pigtoed mussel populations when federal officials placed the mussel on the Endangered Species List in 1976. 

The Daily Times in Maryville reports that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is now conducting a regular five-year review of the mussel's status. It is one of at least 12 mussel species in the river, which has its headwaters in the Great Smoky Mountains and flows through Townsend on its way to its ultimate destination: the Tennessee River. Little River is the main source of water for an expanding Blount County population.

Native mussel populations face the same threats as many non-game fish in the Southern Appalachians. Oxygen is depleted by sediment plumes, which also smother fish eggs, and many mussels rely on small fish to reproduce.

“Reproduction depends on host fish. During the larval stage the young are stuck together in a packet that resembles the prey of shiners and minnows, which is how they become attached to the fish gills or fins to grow for a few weeks,” the Daily Times reports.

Citizen-Times: Festival-like atmosphere on famed bald led to massive litter, waste and wildlife problems

They trampled warbler habitat restoration areas. They left behind tons of cheap camping equipment. They failed to properly bury or transport human waste. They left their vehicles parked willy-nilly on an access road, impeding the ability of emergency vehicles serving the surrounding areas. They ruined it for the rest of us.

Now Max Patch is closed to camping and other restricted uses for two years, Pisgah National Forest authorities announced on July 1.

Over the past decade, the bald in Madison County, North Carolina with 360-degree views of the surrounding Appalachians experienced stunning overcrowding and misuse, with some areas resembling jam-band festivals at times.

The Appalachian Trail traverses the bald, which was home to vital projects to restore wildlife and vegetative habitat. Now visitors are subject to numerous and pointed restrictions, and failure to abide by the new rules could bring tickets and fines.

The restoration could be a long process.

A Knoxville man tries his hand at fly fishing in Abrams Creek during a family camping trip on the southwestern side of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Thomas Fraser/Hellbender Press

Green begets green in Smokies region; Big South Fork and Cumberland Gap also economic players

Recent federal analysis of spending by national park visitors is a testament to the economic benefits of environmental protection, scientific study and outdoor recreation.

The 12.1 million visitors to Great Smoky Mountains National Park in 2020 spent $1.024 billion in neighboring communities in both Tennessee and North Carolina, according to a study released this week by the National Park Service. Similar, localized releases were distributed into national park communities across the country.

Closer to home, that number represents the estimated visitor money spent in areas that include traditional “gateway” communities, such as Townsend and Gatlinburg, and Cherokee and Bryson City in North Carolina. Regionally, it’s at least a $5 million increase since 2012. Travel problems, housing and employee shortages, overdevelopment and environmental destruction are of course persistent in some of those areas.

Hard Knox Wire: Racist leader’s death in Knoxville was by suicide

The Knox County Sheriff’s Office concluded that Craig Spaulding, 33, took his own life on April 8 on Belt Road in South Knox County.

The death, originally reported by Hellbender Press via Hard Knox Wire, was initially attributed to an accidental gunshot wound.

“Spaulding was a self-described white nationalist, which means he was a member of a group of militant white men and women who espouse white supremacy and advocate enforced racial segregation,” Hard Knox Wire reported.

He regularly organized groups to spew hate at people participating in LGBTQ or Black Lives Matter demonstrations.

“White supremacists under Spaulding’s leadership have been operating in the area and traveling to events outside of East Tennessee for several years, such as the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in August 2017.”

Hard Knox Wire reported that Spaulding was showing a son of a friend how to shoot when he abruptly and purposefully shot himself in the head with a .25 caliber Ruger. His blood-alcohol content at the time was approaching three times the legal limit, according to autopsy reports.

Washington Post: Water scarcity persists in poor communities

The digital divide is a serious issue between rural and urban America, but some 2 million people in rural America even lack access to piped, clean water and plumbing, according to a study from the U.S. Water Alliance.

Some of those communities are in Southern Appalachia. This Washington Post article describes a man in McDowell County, West Virginia, not far from the VIrginia Blue Ridge, who fills two 200-gallon tanks each week from a creek down the mountain from his house to provide wash water for his family. He uses a pump, and hose on loan from a local fire department.

Politicians and local utilities have promised for years to extend water utilities to such underserved, largely poor, areas. Much like the promises of broadband elsewhere, they have not delivered.

Washington Post: Sea level rise will be investigated as one possible factor in Florida condo collapse

There is no direct evidence yet that increased subsidence on a Florida barrier island caused by rising sea levels and saltwater intrusion contributed to the devastating collapse of an ocean-front condo complex near Miami, but the possibility will be examined in coming weeks and months.

Rising sea levels threaten seaside properties on an increasing scale, undermining the unstable land on which they sit and further contributing to erosion of steel and concrete.

In the case of Champlain Towers South, developers used fill from denuded mangrove stands to support the 12-story building, which was built in 1981.

“Land subsidence is a gradual settling or sudden sinking of the surface when material that supports it is displaced or removed, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Erosion and the disappearance of groundwater are two of several factors that cause it,” the Washington Post reported.

A least one engineer has said the collapse could be related to a structural problem, not subsidence. The investigation continues, as does the search for bodies.

KnoxNews: Sustainable Future Center in Vestal is growing and growing

David Bolt started the Sustainable Future Center horticulture and environmental education center six years ago on a half-acre with a tiny house, organic garden, horticultural demonstrations and a little fish farm.

Now he and his allies are expanding the center’s mission with makers markets, camps and other educational programs. The site on Ogle Avenue, a busy urban street in South Knoxville, now is now home to automated organic chicken coops, a chainlink fence transformed into a living trellis, summer camps and educational programs.

Members of a Covid-era outdoor education class at Ijams Nature Center net insects. The South Knoxville nature center weathered the Covid-19 pandemic with donations, federal loan guarantees and common-sense maneuvering, like moving all educational programming outside.  Photos courtesy Ijams Nature Center.

Ijams posted record visitation during pandemic even as resources were challenged

(This is the second in an occasional Hellbender Press series about the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the natural world. Here's the first installment about air quality improvements in the Smokies.)

Individuals and organizations can learn a lot from a pandemic.

You up your technology game. You innovate and run harder and get leaner. You realize the importance of face time (the real face time). 

You learn the power of allies and those who really love you.

And in the case of Ijams Nature Center in South Knoxville, you learn just how much people need and value the natural world and the outdoors, especially in times of acute stress and uncertainty.

Ijams played host to a record number of visitors in 2020; there was no usual winter slowdown. Parking lots were full virtually every day during the height of the pandemic that claimed the lives of at least 600,000 people in the U.S. That visitation trend has continued at Ijams, with the coronavirus somewhat comfortably in the rear-view mirror.

An estimated 160,000 people visit the popular nature center annually, but there’s no exact count. Officials said the 2020 visitation substantially surpassed that number, and they plan a visitation study because a very “porous border” prevents an accurate count.

“The one great thing that has come out of Covid, is that people have recognized the importance of nature in their lives; they’ve recognized it as a place for solace, a place to get out and be safe and feel comfortable,” said Ijams Nature Center Executive Director Amber Parker. 

“The sheer mass number of people coming were new to Ijams, or maybe come once or twice coming multiple times a week,” said Ijams Development Director Cindy Hassil.

“We were so excited to be this refuge for everyone,” Parker added.

The two women spoke on a sunny spring afternoon on the fetching expanse of stone terrace behind the visitors center in the shade of tulip poplars, red buds and dogwoods. Cardinals chirped and early 17-year cicadas throbbed behind a natural green curtain.

Girl in stable condition following attack; family followed all bear-safety protocols.

A bear attacked and injured a teenage girl as she slept in a hammock in a backcountry campground in the Cosby area of Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

The 16-year-old Middle Tennessee girl is in stable condition with multiple injuries following the attack at 12:30 a.m. Friday at backcountry site No. 29, according to a National Park Service release. 

Her family was able to drive off the bear after the attack and contacted park emergency services; the girl was evacuated from the park by a Tennessee Army National Guard UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter to UT Medical Center at about 9 a.m. Friday. Hellbender Press has not pursued identification of the girl because she is a minor.

As responding rangers were at the campsite providing medical care in the wee hours of the morning, two bears approached and persisted in efforts to enter the campsite despite attempts to scare the bears away. Family members identified a particularly aggressive large, male bear as the one who attacked the girl, and rangers shot and killed the animal.

Forensic tests detected human blood on the dead bear.

Park officials said the campsite, along the Maddron Bald Trail on Otter Creek, will remain closed indefinitely.

The party of five was on a two-day camping trip, and the hammock was hanging near the rest of the family.

The group stored their food and packs on cables, per strict national park bear rules, according to the park service.

“While serious incidents with bears are rare, we remind visitors to remain vigilant while in the backcountry and to follow all precautions while hiking in bear country,” said Great Smoky Mountains Superintendent Cassius Cash in a press release. “The safety of visitors is our No. 1 priority.”

Here are some guidelines for bear safety in the Southern Appalachians and information on bears in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

In a refreshing sign the worst of the Covid-19 crisis is behind us, the city of Knoxville on Monday announced the popular weekend Market Square farmers market will return July 10.

The Nourish Knoxville Market Square Farmers Market will run from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays and feature local produce, organic foods, crafts, and other homespun products through November.

The Market Square farmers market resumed its Wednesday schedule in May with a smaller footprint and social-distancing measures. Markets on both days had been moved to another location in 2020 to limit the spread of the coronavirus.

The city recommends, per Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, that people who have not been vaccinated continue to wear masks, according to a press release. Nourish Knoxville, which runs the farmers market, may require additional protocols for vendors and customers.

The Market Square splash fountains will be turned back on July 1. Fenced outdoor dining areas will also be removed.

Here's more information on the full return of the downtown Knoxville farmers market and other Market Square events.