only search W.R.W.W.                                                                                                                         News affecting our area creeks:                             Scientists Call for End to Mountaintop Removal Scientists call on regulators to stop permitting mountaintop removal mines in Appalachia A group of scientists called on the federal government Thursday to stop mountaintop removal mining, arguing dozens of existing studies on the practice prove its ecological impacts are "pervasive and irreversible." more     Coal mining permits are in the preliminary stage for issuing for WaldensRidge's Rock Creek and McGill Creek   To find out more click here         We now have Bear on the Southern Side of the Sequatchie Valley Runs : )   To find out more click here         More bad news for the Eastern Hemlock     Monday, Dec. 7, 2009 Daunting threat to save timber: From News-Free Press By: Pam Sohn (Contact)     The hemlock woolly adelgid has spread into Southeast Tennessee and North Georgia and foresters fear the worst: the possible loss of some of the Cumberland Plateau region's most graceful evergreen trees, eastern and Canadian hemlocks. Walden on Signal Mountain already has a large and growing infestation. The parasite also has been found on Lookout Mountain More       It's hard to feel sorry for them....   Saturday, Dec. 5, 2009 Property auction ‘disappoints’ seller-From News-Free Press By: Dave Flessner  (Contact   From News-Free Press By Dave Flessner DUNLAP, Tenn. — The owners of a 1,250-acre wilderness site along the Cumberland Plateau sold only about one fourth of their property here today after a land auction for 341 acres of lakefront sites netted the sellers less than $1 million. During an absolute auction here today, more   Here is more about their failed attempt to develop Walden's Ridge More     State, company reach tentative deal on Cumberland Trail mining dispute Friday, November 27, 2009 9:51 AM   (Source: Chattanooga Times/Free Press)By Andy Sher, Chattanooga Times Free Press, Tenn. Nov. 27--NASHVILLE -- Tennessee officials tentatively have agreed to pay a Florida-based company $500,000 for partial mineral rights to about 4,200 acres along Walden's Ridge near Soddy-Daisy. If accepted by the state and the company, Lahiere-Hill LLC of Florida, the agreement would end a nearly three-year court battle over the company's "harvesting," or commercial digging, of what's known as "mountain stone" in and around Cumberland Trail State Park. Such stone has become very popular for use in home patios, fireplaces and facades  more               Cultured Stone vs. Mountain Stone     Why should you use a Cultured Stone type product instead of Mountain Stone? It’s an easy call. Cultured Stone only comes from manufactured rock. The rocks are taken off casts of real rocks, and then they are cast. Cultured Stone rocks are easier to work with, lighter, with less chance of smashing your fingers and it’s quicker to install, and is very hard to tell real rock from man-made rock. If it’s quicker, then it saves you money by saving costly installation labor.  MORE         The article below is the same plight we are in with the Hemlock Woolly Adelgid   From Reuters.com   Forests fall to beetle outbreak Tue Aug 4, 2009 7:46am EDT   Email | Print | Share | Reprints | Single Page [-] Text [+]   1 of 3Full Size By Ed Stoddard MEDICINE BOW NATIONAL FOREST, Wyoming (Reuters) - From the vantage point of an 80-foot (25 meter) tower rising above the trees, the Wyoming vista seems idyllic: snow-capped peaks in the distance give way to shimmering green spruce. But this is a forest under siege. Among the green foliage of the healthy spruce are the orange-red needles of the sick and the dead, victims of a beetle infestation closely related to one that has already laid waste to millions of acres (hectares) of pine forest in North America  MORE       Coal miners boycotting Tennessee tourist sites 07/20/2009 Associated Press (AP) - Frankfort Bureau Frankfort, KY Alford, Roger   THIS ARTICLE APPEARED IN MEDIA OUTLETS IN THE VALLEY.   ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITERS BRIAN FARKAS AND TIM HUBER IN CHARLESTON, W. WV. AND DUNCAN MANSFIELD IN KNOXVILLE, TENN., CONTRIBUTED TO THIS REPORT.   FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — Angry Appalachian coal miners are refusing to vacation in Tennessee because they say one of that state's political leaders wants to eliminate needed jobs by banning mountaintop removal.   Republican U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander is sponsoring legislation that would bar coal companies from the controversial mining practice that involves blasting away mountaintops to unearth coal and dumping dirt, rock and trees into the valleys beneath. Such a ban would effectively halt the destructive form of mining.   Miners in Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia and Virginia are taking part in the protest, said Roger Horton, director of Citizens for Coal, the pro-coal advocacy group that organized the boycott.   Horton, a miner on a mountaintop-removal operation in West Virginia, said some 5,000 coal miners already have joined the week-old boycott, which he hopes will spread to involve all of the nation's 81,000 coal miners.   The boycott will continue, Horton said, until Alexander relents.   "He needs to mind his own business," Horton said. "Why fool with us? We have good congressmen and senators here who know what's best for West Virginia. We don't need his interference."   But Alexander said Appalachia's mountaintops should be preserved, not destroyed.   "I understand their feelings," Alexander told The Associated Press on Friday. "But I have feelings, too. And my feelings are that millions of people come to Tennessee to see the beauty of the mountaintops and not to see mountains whose tops have been blown off with the waste dumped in our streams — which is all I am trying to stop."   Coal isn't the huge employer in Tennessee that it is in other Appalachian states. Tennessee has just over 500 miners. West Virginia has more than 20,000. And Kentucky has about 17,000.   Horton said he believes if enough people forgo trips to the Great Smoky Mountains and to popular tourist destinations around Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, including Dollywood, that Alexander would feel pressure to abandon the legislation.   Kentucky Coal Association President Bill Caylor said he expects the boycott to grow.   "We're hoping that people will stop giving business to a state that wants to eliminate the coal industry," Caylor said. "That's just common sense. If somebody wants to end your livelihood, then why should you give them business?"   Democratic state Rep. Fitz Steele, a former miner in the eastern Kentucky coalfields, said the boycott is gaining steam beyond the miners themselves. Store clerks, waitresses, even politicians whose livelihoods are affected by mining are taking part.   "I won't be going to Tennessee," Steele said. "Mining has benefited our area. It's given our people jobs."   In Logan County, W.Va., county administrator Rocky Adkins has canceled a planned visit to Pigeon Forge later this month. Adkins serves one of the nation's largest coal-producing counties.   "Because of the stance of the senator has taken to abolish my job, I could not in good conscience spend my money in the great state of Tennessee," he said.   Mining communities along the Kentucky-Tennessee border, where interstate trade is the norm, don't appear as eager to join the boycott.   TECO Coal, with headquarters near the Tennessee border, initially announced that it had joined the boycott, saying the legislation hurts miners and businesses in the region. Days later, however, the company relented, and spokesman Jim J. Shackleford issued a statement of apology.   "We regret our previous action, which was an emotional response that doesn't benefit our 1,200 employees, the eastern Kentucky communities we support, the environment we work to protect or our neighbors in Tennes       Bill on streams falls one vote short 06/04/2009 Knoxville News-Sentinel - Nashville Bureau, The Nashville, TN Humphrey, Tom OPPONENT SAYS IT WAS INTENDED TO HELP COAL COMPANY NASHVILLE - A bill legalizing the release of more selenium into Tennessee streams fell one vote short of passage Wednesday amid claims that approval would mean poisoning the waters to help a coal company win a lawsuit. The 49-41 vote, just shy of the 50 needed for approval, came after more than two hours of debate. Sponsor Rep. Joe McCord, R-Maryville, said afterward that he is uncertain whether to bring the bill back to the floor for another try.  The sharpest attack on the bill came in an impassioned speech by Rep. Mike McDonald, D-Portland. He said the measure is intended to help Knoxville-based National Coal Co., accused in a lawsuit of selenium releases violating the current lower standards on 13 occasions.  The state's current standard is 5 parts per million. The bill calls for the state Water Quality Control Board to set the standard at 7.9 parts per million, the level designated in a 2004 Environmental Protection Agency draft proposal that was never adopted.  McDonald said scientists' research indicates that the 7.9 level is "13 times greater than recommended for protection aquatic life" and projects that 85 percent of fish in a stream with that level of the naturally occurring mineral would die.  "This would legislatively mandate an increase in toxic selenium levels, something we have never done before with any toxic substance, ever," he said. Besides causing confusion in the lawsuit, the bill would also allow National Coal to continue "discharging at dangerous levels" under three current coal mining permits, McDonald said.  "The more they can delay, the more they can poison the water," he said.  But McCord said the bill would have no effect on the lawsuit and that it was "insulting" - both to himself and the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation - to suggest that the bill would kill 85 percent of fish in a stream and damage the environment.  "That is just absolutely ludicrous," he said. "(TDEC) would not allow for something that crazy." TDEC has been neutral on the bill after McCord and coal industry supporters of the bill made some changes from the original. There were several attempts to amend the bill that were defeated after McCord spoke against them. One amendment, proposed by Rep. Joe Towns, D-Memphis, would have doubled the penalty for violating selenium pollution standards to $20,000 per day. At one point, Rep. Dennis Ferguson, D-Harriman, proposed an amendment to require testing for selenium in fish and wildlife every two miles along the Tennessee River downstream from the recent coal ash spill at TVA's Kingston Fossil Plant. Ferguson won a preliminary vote on his amendment, but wound up withdrawing it after a long discussion - including McCord expressing opposition.     ________________________________   Environmental bill could kill wildlife, scientist says 06/04/2009 Tennessean, The Nashville, TN Paine, Anne  Many largemouth bass, bluegill and other sensitive fish species would be dead before a coal-related pollutant even reached the level that state lawmakers are poised to allow in the environment, a scientist told a legislative committee. The Senate sponsor of the bill received campaign financing from the head of the National Coal Co., which has a lawsuit pending about the potentially toxic substance at a mining site. That sponsor, Sen. Ken Yager, R-Harriman, has declined for three weeks to return telephone calls from The Tennessean. At least six messages have been left with his staff. At issue is an element called selenium, a substance in nature that is beneficial in trace amounts but can be toxic when unlocked from coal and released in large amounts at mining and coal ash sites. “The bottom line is – their number's too high,” said Dennis Lemly, a biologist with the U.S. Forest Service and Wake Forest. He had testified earlier in the day to the House Conservation & Environment Committee, which was considering and then voted against re-hearing the bill that it passed earlier this session. The next step is to go to the full House, where the bill is scheduled to be heard at 9 a.m. today.  The proposal (House Bill 1204 and Senate Bill 1331, which already passed the full Senate) would change the state's way of measuring legal limits of selenium from the amount found in water to the amount found in fish tissue. Up to 7.5 parts per million would be allowed in the fish. The numbers come from a draft EPA rule that the federal agency neither recommends states follow nor has proposed to make final at this point. It was based on studies that Lemly did. He says, however, that his research was misinterpreted, and that the agency has yet to properly replicate his work using its own research. Another biologist, Steve Canton, with GEI Consultants in Colorado, who testified earlier this session, had another take. “I don't think the EPA criteria is fatally flawed,” he said in a telephone interview Tuesday. Another more recent study showed that the levels could safely be as high as 9 or 10 parts per million in fish tissue, he said. The numbers that EPA might adopt are still being considered, but testing fish tissue rather than water is a generally accepted advance in determining potential levels of harm, he said.  Also, the bill calls for Tennessee adjusting its rule whenever the EPA changes the federal criteria. “The state would always use the most up-to-date science,” he said. Lemly said that the later research referred to was conducted under conditions in which fish had fewer natural stressors, such as decreased daylight in wintertime. Also, wildlife was never considered in the EPA draft, he said. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service research shows that 85% of sensitive species, including mallard ducks, could die at the levels Tennessee lawmakers want applied. Lemly's own research with bluegill and largemouth bass indicates that 40% of these would die with levels at 5.8 parts per million in their bodies.The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation has, to the annoyance of both those opposed and against the proposal, neither endorsed nor opposed the bill. The Sierra Club, Save Our Cumberland Mountains and Tennessee Clean Water Network filed a lawsuit last fall against National Coal for releasing selenium-tainted water into creeks around its Zeb Mountain coal-mining site.  These East Tennessee creeks flow into tributaries of the Cumberland River that passes through Nashville. Rep. Mike McDonald, D-Portland, said the selenium proposal is all about the lawsuit. “It causes confusion and delays in court and allows mining companies to continue releasing dangerous levels of selenium,” he said. National Coal Co. officials did not return telephone calls or an email on Tuesday, but a spokeswoman said last month that it was not behind the proposed legislation. “We couldn't be,” said Christine Pietryla, for National Coal. “Only senators and legislators are behind legislation. “Whether we're in favor of it is a different story. Without reading the bill, I don't know.”   YAGER TAKES NATIONAL COAL CHIEF'S MONEY Yager received the maximum $1,000 from Daniel A. Roling, president and CEO of National Coal, in January 2009. He also received $1,000 campaign contribution in September 2008, from Jon Nix, a former president and former board member of National Coal. The House sponsor of the bill, Rep. Joe McCord, R-Maryville, received no money from either, according to state information. Chuck Laine, executive director for the Tennessee Mining Association, said the bill is a result of the state starting to check selenium levels at mining operations. He said old EPA criteria from the 1980s are being used and that the draft criteria are the best science available.  “We don't mind standards,” he said. “We want to follow the rules, but the standards are flawed.” He said the EPA will have to approve anything the state does anyway. Brian Paddock, a volunteer representative of the Sierra Club, called it “worrisome” that lawmakers would consider the bill, particularly after TVA's Kingston coal ash spill, where 5.4 million cubic yards of the waste tumbled into the Emory River and onto nearby land. Selenium is one of the pollutants that have been found in the water there.     Senate bill targets mountaintop mining 03/27/2009 Chattanooga Times Free Press Chattanooga, TN Sohn, Pam Sens. Lamar Alexander, RTenn., and Benjamin L. Cardin, D-Md., have introduced legislation that could halt mountaintop mining. The Appalachia Restoration Act would amend the Clean Water Act to prohibit the dumping of mining waste and “fill” into headwater streams and rivers. “Coal is an essential part of our energy future, but it is not necessary to destroy our mountaintops in order to have enough coal,” Sen. Alexander said in a prepared statement. He said the bill does not ban other methods of coal mining, but instead would prevent this particular type. Carol Raulston, spokeswoman for the National Mining Association, disagreed and said the bill, even if limited only to mountaintop mining, would idle 14,000 miners in Appalachia. “As we read his bill, it would make it impossible to get a surface mining permit for any kind of mining,” she said. “The prohibition to dump fill would make it impossible to mine, so we obviously would oppose the bill.” Sen. Alexander is a member of the Water and Wildlife Subcommittee of the Committee on Environment and Public Works, which has jurisdiction over the issue. Introduced just days after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said it plans to take a closer look at pending permit requests for mountaintop mining operations, the bill brought praise from environmental groups. Dr. Matthew Wasson, director of programs at the environmental nonprofit group Appalachian Voices, said protecting streams from what he calls an extreme form of mining will restore the economy, not hurt it. “This is not an either/or choice.” he said. “Mountaintop removal does the same thing to our economy that it does to our mountains. Ending mountaintop removal will allow sustainable, long-term economic growth to flourish in Appalachia.” Sen. Alexander's statement said mountaintop mining produces less than 5 percent of the coal mined in the United States. “Millions of tourists spend tens of millions of dollars in Tennessee every year to enjoy the natural beauty of our mountains — a beauty that, for me, and I believe for most Tennesseans, makes us proud to live here,” the senator said.     Bredesen proposes coal mining limits       Roger Alford/Associated Press   State measure would bar such work near streams By Tom Humphrey (Contact) Wednesday, March 25, 2009 From Knoxnews.com   NASHVILLE - Gov. Phil Bredesen's administration on Tuesday proposed legislation that would ban coal mining within 100 feet of streams and in areas where acid drainage could enter a watershed. The proposal came in the form of an amendment attached to HB2300 in the House Environment Subcommittee, which then approved the measure unanimously. "This is a reasonable and balanced approach," said House Environment and Conservation Committee Chairman Joe McCord of Maryville, a Republican handling the bill for the Democratic governor. McCord said the administration had worked with both coal mining industry representatives and environmentalists in crafting what he sees as a compromise. Representatives for the two sides more         New chestnut trees may reclaim forests Crossbreed resistant to blight that wreaked havoc in early 1900s By Morgan Simmons (Contact) Monday, February 23, 2009 From Knoxnews.com After decades of selective breeding and countless hours of field work, researchers believe they have developed an American chestnut tree that is ready to reclaim the Appalachian forests. The first batch of these blight-resistant chestnut seedlings More     Tennessee: State wants damages for rock mining     From the Chattanooga Times Free Press By: Pam Sohn Tennessee officials want to amend a legal complaint over rock mining to seek additional damages now that mining has continued in the Cumberland Trail State Park for more than 18 months. The request to amend the state’s initial complaint says Hamilton County Chancellor Frank Brown’s ruling MORE     Rock-versus-mineral dispute may go to trial CHATTANOOGA - A judge in a long-running legal fight over mineral rights and the mining of mountain stone in Sequatchie County said he is waiting to see if the attorneys want a trial. Chattanooga Chancery Judge Howell N. Peoples said the next move in the three-year dispute is in the hands of the attorneys. Peoples has ruled that a recent Tennessee Appeals Court case involving rock mining in the Cumberland Trail State Park likely will influence the outcome of the dispute between George Avery Land and the Tracy McDaniel family. Tennessee lawmakers this year delayed a measure to regulate harvesting the mountain stone that has become popular in landscaping and home building. Land's attorney said no decision has been made about a trial. McDaniel told the Chattanooga Times Free Press that the question to be answered is whether owning property means any more than owning "the air above the property."   Adelgid battle can't save every hemlock-From KnoxNews.com The trees in Albright Grove are among the oldest  Two miles up a gently sloping trail, it's one of the most accessible old-growth forests in the park, a place where even in summer, the air feels moist and cool. More   http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2008/sep/09/forests-changing-face/   Rock Creek-       Photo By Bob Fowler     Mountain Top Removal:         Click on the picture to watch a grassroots YouTube video. It is about the Whitwell seam, that affects acid run-off on the mountain. The area discussed in the video is the same area,where a pump storage power plant was proposed 10 years ago by Armstrong Power (non-defunct ). For the last 20 years various industries have tried to get at this vast coal seam even TVA before Raccoon Mountain was built. It would ruin the Rock Creek watershed forever. McGill Creek has already been ruined from the Whitwell Shale. Want to know more about Mountain Top Removal in the area? CLICK HERE     Rare fish found in Soddy, Piney and Sale Creek Two populations occur in the Sale Creek system (Horn Branch of Rock Creek, Cupp Creek), one in the Soddy Creek system, and three in the Piney River system (Bumbee, Mocassin and Young's creeks).                                                          Unless you're a wildlife biologist you've probably never heard of a Laurel Dace. It's a rare member of the minnow family and it's found in only three places in the south, all on Walden's Ridge It may go on the endangered Species list...and WDEF News 12's Bill Mitchell says it will be getting some special attention. Dr. Anna George and her associate, Lee Friedlander have known about the Laurel Dace for some time, and they are happy to hear it will get some help from the government.  MORE   New candidate for endangered species act?    Click here     Not all the BoWater land was saved.     Driving up and hiking at the Stinging Fork trailhead I saw these signs, 6.67 Acre tracts for sale, they were auctioned off this summer. Someone will have the State Park for a neighbor and be on top of each other. So they can live in country to get away from each other. Bizarro logic for sure. Meanwhile the Ridge gets more unneeded development.       I removed the phone numbers I'm not going to help them advertise.