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• Appalachian trout in trouble as temps rise, storms rage
  in News
  By Dan Chapman

  Michael Bradley, a fly-fishing guide, on Raven Fork in the Oconaluftee area of the Great Smoky Mountains.  U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

  Climate change could steal your fish

  Dan Chapman is a public affairs specialist for the Southeast Region of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

  CHEROKEE — The mountains of the Southern Appalachians were scraped clean a century ago. Headwater ecology changed as the canopy of trees disappeared that was shading the streams from all but the noonday sun. Rainstorms pushed dirt and rocks into the water muddying the feeding and breeding grounds of fish, amphibians and insects. 

  Lower down the mountain, newly cut pastures edged right up to the creeks while cows mucked up the once-pristine waters. Invasive bugs killed hemlocks, ash and other shade-giving trees. Pipes, culverts and dams blockaded streams and kept animals from cooler water. 

  The trout never had a chance.

  Now they face an even more insidious foe — climate change. 

• Green floater mussels are somewhat safe here but not elsewhere
  in News
  By Thomas Fraser

  A green floater mussel (Lasmigona subviridis).  Ryan Hagerty/USFWS

  WASHINGTON, D.C. — The green floater, a freshwater mussel native to the waters of Southern Appalachia, is now formally considered at risk of extinction due to the loss and fragmentation of its aquatic habitat. 

  The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determined the green floater, historically found in 10 eastern U.S. states, is likely to become endangered due to existing and emerging threats. The service is proposing to list the mussel as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. 

  The green floater is still found in its native range in North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. It is considered locally extinct in Alabama and Georgia. 

  While the species has strongholds in places, green floaters are rare in nearly 80 percent of the watersheds where they naturally occur. More than 75 percent of the nation’s native freshwater mussel species are endangered or threatened, considered to be of special conservation concern, or presumed extinct, according to USWFS.

• Hellbent: Little River Watershed Association swims upstream to protect one of Earth’s great rivers
  in News
  By JJ Stambaugh

  Andrew Gunnoe is seen in the rain on Little River in Blount County, Tennessee. He is board director for Little River Watershed Association.  Courtesy LRWA

  Andrew Gunnoe helms spirited efforts to preserve beloved Little River but the current is swift

  MARYVILLE — For 25 years, the handful of men and women involved with the nonprofit Little River Watershed Association (LRWA) have been protecting the crystal clear waters as they plummet from the Great Smoky Mountains before meandering through Blount County and merging with the Tennessee River.
  

  “We see ourselves as the voice of the Little River, speaking for the river and its health,” said Andrew Gunnoe, president of the LRWA Board of Directors.

  From the famous swimming hole at the Wye to the profusion of inner tube rental companies in Townsend, the Little River is one of the region’s most popular spots for water recreation. Further downstream, the waterway becomes an almost perfect spot for fishing, canoeing and kayaking.

  For all the popularity as a recreation stop, the 59-mile stretch of water is also a vital habitat for numerous aquatic species and provides the 120,000-plus residents of Blount County with drinking water. 

• Potentially toxic Oak Ridge landfill won’t be built until cleared by operator’s water research
  in News
  By Ben Pounds

  Potential water runoff issues stall future Oak Ridge landfill construction

  OAK RIDGE — A landfill intended to hold potentially toxic debris from the demolition of legacy Oak Ridge research facilities is moving forward but construction won’t start until it is definitively determined whether the site could pollute ground and surface water.

  As reported previously by Hellbenderpress, environmentalists fear toxins leaking out of the proposed landfill could contaminate waterways and make their way into fish that people might catch downstream. The landfill’s contractor, however, said leaving buildings full of toxic residue standing may be more dangerous for workers and nearby residents and the landfill will help get the buildings quickly demolished. The contractor is doing a mock-up study this year to see how best to handle water issues on the future landfill site.

  This summer, the contractor United Cleanup Oak Ridge LLC will choose a subcontractor and do field work. Ben Williams, the Department of Energy’s public affairs specialist, said roads and utilities will need to move to get the site ready at that time. But UCOR stated it won’t build the landfill until after a water study spanning “two wet seasons,” beginning later this year. 

• Ahead of retiring Bull Run Fossil Plant, TVA faces questions about the site’s toxicity
  in News
  By Ben Pounds

  CLAXTON — Even though TVA is about to retire Bull Run Fossil Plant, water pollution issues related to it are still up for debate.

  A water discharge permit hearing took place Thursday, Jan. 12 at the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation building, 761 Emory Valley Road in Oak Ridge. 

  If you missed the meeting, you can still provide comments by email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. through Thursday, Jan. 26. 

  The permit would, if approved, allow releases of “cooling water, process wastewater and storm water runoff” from Bull Run Fossil Plant into the Clinch River and operation of a cooling water intake system. Environmental groups have concerns. 

  Tennessee Valley Authority plans to retire Bull Run Fossil plant by 2023. Over several years and at meetings, both connected to TVA and organized by activist groups, citizens have voiced concerns about water quality issues due to the continued coal ash waste TVA stores on the site. In advance of this meeting, representatives of the Sierra Club, Southern Environmental Law Center, Appalachian Voices, Statewide Coalition for Community eMpowerment and Center for Biological Diversity all signed a letter asking for TDEC to set standards for water pollution from coal ash based on available technology.

  This story will be updated.

• Lost and found: The long-awaited return of the robust redhorse
  in News
  By Ethan Hatchett
   

  Georgia’s Ocmulgee River is a case study in the decline of Southern river fisheries, and their revival

  Ethan Hatchett is a writer for the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.

  MACON — The Ocmulgee River has changed. The cloudy water once ran clear. The sandy bottom was once rocky. Fish swam upriver to breed from places as distant as the Altamaha River, which the Ocmulgee and Oconee rivers join to form near Lumber City and the Atlantic Ocean.

  European settlement changed the river. Centuries of agriculture and development stripped away much of the land’s vegetation that filtered the flow, causing the Ocmulgee to fill with sediment. The soil particles gradually moved through the waterway, covering gravel that fish spawned in, smothering fishes’ eggs, mucking up the water and even building up on the banks, saturating the ground with sediment.

  It is impossible to know how many freshwater fish the Ocmulgee lost since the first Europeans arrived. Many species disappeared without being discovered. Yet on a clear afternoon in May, DNR aquatics biologist Paula Marcinek led a team on the upper Ocmulgee in search of robust redhorse, a “lost” fish found in 1991.

  Read DNR’s blog post about efforts to restore the robust redhorse, plus news of a new grant that will expand the work and rare video of these fish spawning.

• Hope floats in Third Creek
  in News
  By Maddie Spradley

  Maddie Spradley 

  UT students, professors and staff scrub up for ‘creek kidney transplant’ in Knoxville

  Imagine you’re a kid again. It’s a Saturday afternoon in July and after a morning full of rain the clouds begin to clear and the sun peeks out.

  You run outside in your rubber rain boots to meet your friends down by the creek in your neighborhood, carrying a large bucket, boots squeaking as you go.

  Once there, you and your friends carefully wade down into the water, curious to see what creatures lurk beneath the surface.

• Construction trade groups support Tennessee water-protection rollbacks as TDEC staffers push back against reduced sediment controls
  in News
  By Anita Wadhwani

  Grading along Maryville Pike in Knoxville pumped sediment into a nearby stream and on to the Tennessee River. The owner of the property was cited for violating state water-quality laws. Courtesy Knoxville Stormwater Management

  Tennessee Homebuilders Association and Tennessee Chamber of Commerce support reduced site inspections

  This story was originally published by Tennessee Lookout.

  Cindy Whitt and Judy Alexander, neighbors in the Westhaven subdivision in Williamson County for nearly 15 years, have watched their development grow from a small new-build subdivision of 500 homes to now more than 2,500.

  In that time, on their regular walks together, they’ve also witnessed the results of dwindling green space as construction has surged:

  “Almost everything from the construction runs through our storm sewer,” said Alexander. “Even though the developers put up fences (designed to prevent silt from escaping) all you need is a really steady rain — it doesn’t have to be heavy — and it all flows into our the Harpeth and the West Harpeth.”

  The pair have contacted the Corps of Engineers, the city of Franklin and the state department of environment and conservation, but despite inspections, overflow ponds and new fencing, the problem persists.

  “It blows my mind if we can’t even enforce the rules in wealthy Williamson County,” said Whitt, who worked for the Environmental Protection Agency in the 1970’s.

  The women are now among more than 100 Tennessee residents who have voiced their opposition in public meetings and in written comments to proposed revisions to the permitting process for construction companies that Whitt fears will make the problems worse.

  The proposed change by the state’s environmental regulators would roll back longstanding regulation for construction site runoff — rainwater that sweeps soil or other particles off site and into nearby waterways, often creating deposits of silt that impact water quality and aquatic life.

  In an unusual move, a division within the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation  — the Division of Natural Areas — has weighed in to take issue with the permit change.

   

  “We believe that sites assessments remain a key tool in understanding the character of a site and can provide documentation of ecological resources prior to commencement of construction,”  a staff member in the Division of Water Resources wrote to colleagues at TDEC.
• U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists keep an eye on endangered fine-rayed pigtoe mussels in Little River
  in Feedbag
  By Thomas Fraser

  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.

• Hellbenders falling off Highland Rim of Tennessee
  in Creature Features
  By Ray Zimmerman
  Dr. Brian MIller

   

  MTSU researchers document hellbender’s accelerating decline in Middle Tennessee

  (Author’s note: I was aware of the hellbender before interviewing Brian Miller, but did not know the giant salamanders were present on the Highland Rim of Tennessee. Subsequent reading and interviews with other researchers, including Dr. Bill Sutton at Tennessee State University, Nashville, confirm Miller’s statements that hellbenders are vanishing from large portions of Tennessee, and Missouri. The healthy populations in portions of the Great Smoky Mountains and Cherokee National Forest may be an exception to a general trend toward extirpation and, ultimately, extinction).

  Brian Miller has been researching hellbenders for decades. He serves on the faculty of Middle Tennessee State University where he teaches in the biology department and mentors younger researchers, many of whom publish their research.

  He has even developed a digital “Guide to the Reptiles and Amphibians of Middle Tennessee.” The guide began more than 30 years ago as a dichotomous key for students in his vertebrate zoology class and now includes hundreds of photographs and exceeds 400 pages.

  Dr. Miller researches the hellbenders of the Highland Rim, the upland that surrounds Nashville and the Great Basin. Populations of hellbenders in streams of this region are perhaps Tennessee’s most endangered.

  QUESTION: I noticed that you specialize in herpetofauna. Most of the research listed on your faculty page is focused on amphibians, but with some papers on snakes. Can you comment about your research?

  ANSWER: You are correct that amphibians are my primary research interest, particularly salamanders. However, I also have strong interests in reptiles, and my students and I have conducted research on various species of snakes and turtles.

  When did you become interested in hellbenders?

  Hellbenders have been of interest to me since I first encountered them while enrolled in a course on herpetology at the University of Missouri in 1977. I was fortunate that the professor of that course, Dean Metter, was involved with research on hellbenders and I began to assist with his research in 1978, in collaboration with Robert Wilkinson at Southwest Missouri State University in Springfield, Missouri.

  Chris Petersen was working on his master’s degree with Dr. Wilkinson at that time and he matriculated to the University of Missouri a couple of years later to start on his Ph.D, which was also with hellbenders. Chris and I spent time in the field gathering data for his Ph.D. project until I moved to Washington State to work on my Ph.D.

  I was hired into the biology department at Middle Tennessee State University in 1989 and began working with hellbenders in this state in 1990. At that time, I was able to locate populations in several rivers in Middle Tennessee, including a large population in the Collins River. I decided to concentrate my efforts on this population and one in the Buffalo River.

  Of note, the population I worked with in the Collins River was dominated by large adults, whereas the population in the Buffalo River consisted of many age classes, including young individuals.

  The Collins River situation was like what I was familiar with in Missouri and Arkansas populations. Unfortunately, by the early 2000s the population I was working with in the Collins River was gone; however, populations remain in the Buffalo River. My research with hellbenders during the past decade has been concentrated in streams in the Western Highland Rim.

  Do you work with both subspecies, the Ozark, and the Eastern hellbender?

  I worked with both subspecies while a student at the University of Missouri when assisting with projects in the Metter lab, but since I moved to Tennessee, I have worked only with Tennessee populations.

  What do you perceive as the greatest threats to hellbender populations?

  I am not certain why most populations of hellbenders are in decline rangewide, but suspect that habitat alteration, including sedimentation, and disease are involved in many if not all areas where declines are occurring. Lack of recruitment of young is a common theme of populations that decline.