VOLUME 35, NUMBER 2 OCTOBER 2003

BOARD MEETING: In the Sundquist Building biology conference room, D126 at 7:00 p.m..

FIELD TRIP: Fall Foliage Foray to Montgomery Bell State Park, Sunday, Oct. 26; meet in APSU McCord lot at 1:00 p.m. Suva will lead the moderate hike and Barbara will lead the easy hike.

October is Solar Energy Month. I think it is important to stay informed of the rapidly advancing technologies of alternative energy (solar, wind, etc.). It was not much more than a century ago that petroleum was an "alternative energy" source. For those like me, technology has a way of catching me by surprise. Don't be surprised by alternative energies. Although Clarksville is often slow to embrace the changing world, in many places (California) wind and solar technologies are mainstream. Learn more about solar energy at the web site of the American Solar Energy Society (www.ases.org).

We would like to send the Warioto Audubon newsletter to you electronically (in format yet to be determined). If you would allow us to send you the newsletter (produced 10 times/year) electronically please respond by sending me, Deborah Hamilton, e-mail at ammonite@charter.net

In the subject line type "Warioto Newsletter" and in the message tell me your name and address so I may associate your newsletter mailing address with your e-mail address. If we get enough people to sign up to receive the newsletter this way, then it will save our chapter money (printing and postage) and time (folding, labeling, sorting, etc.) and we will contribute to resource conservation by not using paper.

If you would prefer to not get the newsletter at all, please let me know that fact. You can send me a note (if you do not use e-mail) to: D. Hamilton, 290 Ardmoor Drive, Clarksville, TN 37043. Make sure you tell me your name and address as well as your statement about not receiving the newsletter.

However, because of bulk mail rates, if we do not substantially reduce our postal mailing list, we may have to stick to the conventional method of sending out the newsletter on paper – that, hopefully, gets recycled after it has or hasn’t been read.

The September program was "The Birds and the Bees: All You Wanted to Know About Pollination But Were Afraid to Ask". A brief factual presentation was followed by a beautifully filmed documentary about the fascinating intricacies between plants and their pollinators. I highly recommend this documentary series with David Attenborough which is in our library.

To recognize Solar Energy Month, Dr. Joe Schiller will present our October program on "Alternative Energy: An alternative to our current energy policy."

Sunday, October 26 will be the Fall Foliage Foray to Montgomery Bell State Park near Dickson, TN. We will meet in the McCord parking lot and depart at 1:00 p.m. (note this is the fall-back time change day). Suva Bastin will lead the "hearty" group on a moderate 2-3 mile hike while Barbara Wilbur will lead the remainder of the group on a leisurely stroll/drive to several picturesque sites within the park. Both groups will be checking for late, late migrants as well as arriving winter residents, so bring your binoculars as well as your walking shoes. Additionally don’t forget to have your "bug spray" handy, just in case. At the conclusion of our foray those who care to, will dine together at the lodge. Mark your calendars now and plan to join in the fun!!

Here’s your chance to become personally acquainted with our native prairie and the birds that call it home. On Sunday, October 19, Dr. Wayne Chester and Daniel Moss will lead the group as we visit the native prairie or barrens at Fort Campbell. This area has recently received considerable publicity as the subject of several journal articles. Additionally the Fort Campbell prairie has been designated a Global IBA (internationally Important Bird Area) by Audubon. We will meet in the APSU McCord parking lot and depart at 1:00 p.m. Be sure to bring your binoculars, spotting scopes, insect repellant, and wear hiking shoes and appropriate clothing (for those who do not plan to walk out into the prairie there will still be plenty to see and hear). Please note that since we will be entering federal property there are certain criteria we much observe; be sure to have a picture ID and do not bring cameras. Also be aware that this field trip will be canceled should the military schedule maneuvers for the area (another reason why I need the phone numbers and/or email addresses of all those who want to be on the Field Trip Call List).

On Saturday, Sept. 6, eight Warioto Audubon members joined Mike Todd of McKenzie and Don Manning of Henry, TN at Cross Creeks NWR for a day in the field. The probable highlight of the day was the initial avian greeting upon our arrival at the refuge. Two trees, a wild cherry and a cedar, just beyond the headquarters building were filled with Summer Tanagers; Palm, Pine, Prairie and Magnolia Warblers; plus a YELLOW-BELLIED FLYCATCHER; along with such traditional birds as Carolina Chickadees, Tufted Titmice, Cardinals and Goldfinches. What a beginning!! After a trip through the "front" section of the refuge where we saw Mallards, Wood Ducks, a Northern Pintail, a juvenile Northern Harrier (in gorgeous cinnamon plumage), plus various herons and egrets, the group moved on to Paris Landing and a pleasant picnic lunch. From there the group birded along the way to Pace Point where the water level was especially high due to recent heavy rains. Several roadside stops en route provided great views of numerous species including mature Bald Eagles, Blue Grosbeaks, Indigo Buntings, and a perched pair of Red-shouldered Hawks (a super opportunity for size comparison). Spotted and Semipalmated Sandpipers, Ring-billed Gulls, and Caspian and Forster’s Terns were the "shorebirds" of the day. The species count for the day was 63 species. Many, many thanks to Mike and Don for a great day!!!

On Monday, Sept. 8 at 7:30 p.m. several Audubon members gathered in the parking lot of The Lighthouse (the old waterworks building) on Riverside Drive to watch hundreds of Chimney Swifts darting, turning and funneling into the building’s tall chimney. What a synchronized phenomenon!! Thanks to Daniel Moss for alerting us to the annual event.

Warioto members, if you are the least bit interested in being called or emailed for short-notice field trips (especially to see unusual birds) please call Barbara at 647-4956 and leave your name and phone number or email me at bwilbur@charter.net. There will also be a sign up sheet at the next chapter meeting. As news of rare sightings (such as the recent Roseate Spoonbill at Mount Pleasant, TN) is received this information will be passed on to you.

A reminder, October is Solar Energy Month, and the National Tour of Solar Homes is Saturday Oct 4, 2003. There are tours planned in the Chattanooga, Knoxville, Memphis/Jackson, Summertown, and Nashville areas. Contact me at schillerjoseph@netscape.net or Sam DeLay at sjdelay@cs.com for more info.

It seems as though the program chair had some trouble lining up a program for this month and asked if I would be willing to give a program on solar energy in honor October being solar energy month. My wife, Sally, said he must have been really desperate. I am glad to do it but will expand the subject a little to provide an update on the state of the sustainable energy industry and explore the alternatives to solar (and other sustainable energy sources such as wind). The following article by Ted Williams, a frequent contributor to Audubon Magazine, is reprinted here to provide a little preview and set the stage.

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Blue Ridge Press

America may be a nation of laws, but "mountaintop removal," an increasingly common method of coal extraction blighting Appalachia, proves that laws, like mountains, can be pushed aside when they get in the way of the " rich and powerful."

Last February, after a 10-year hiatus, I returned to West Virginia to inspect the mountains South of Charleston. This time they weren't' there. The coal industry had removed them. What my companions and I saw from a small plane could more aptly be described as mountain range removal, a process that can blast away 600 to 700 feet of elevation.

On dozer-carved plateaus, white- rimmed drill holes were being stuffed with high explosives. At lower elevations, 20-story-high draglines, with maws 100 yards wide, bit into piles of broken mountain. Strewn around the landscape were sprawling ulcers black with slate waste or gray with toxic slurry. It all reminded me of the old ads in which Mr. Tooth Decay and his henchmen run around with drills and dynamite converting ivory peaks to brown rubble.

At the base of mountain stumps" spoil had been dumped onto streams. The steep slopes of these "valley fills," as the industry likes to call them, were terraced, lightly greened with grasses native to other continents, and slashed with rock-lined gutters - the new "streams." On the mountain stumps themselves, vast fields of debris, a more bilious green, had replaced the most diverse and productive temperate forest on earth.

Most of what I saw was the work of A. T. Massey and Arch Coal, both of which allege that all the greened-over stuff, has been "reclaimed" and that these reclamations are a net improvement, "200 percent better," according to A. T. Massey.

The companies say it's unfair to judge "mountain mining," as they call it, from the air. So I checked it out from the ground. But the sites I visited looked no better. They were dry, heavily eroded and stuck here and there with cultivated black locusts, none healthy and some as dead as month-old Christmas trees. In the words Frank Gilliam, professor of biological sciences at Marshall University in Huntington, W.Va., purporting to reclaim a wild forest in this fashion is like fixing someone's clock by taking it apart and stuffing some of the parts into a box ... The arrogance is astonishing."

What's even more astonishing is that the public, tolerates mountain- range removal. As currently practiced, it is unlawful. The federal Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA) requires that miners disturb only a small area at one time. But when mountains cover coal seams, that's not possible; so the U.S. Office of Surface Mining and state regulatory agencies look the other way. Under SMCRA there can be no surface mining activity within 100 feet of a stream, but in the mountains there's no place to dump spoil except on streams, so the agencies look the other way. SMCRA requires restoration to "approximate original contour"; but you can't put mountain ranges back together, so the agencies look the other way. If a site is not restored to approximate original contour, SMCRA requires that it be converted to a "higher and better" use with, say, a shopping mall; but such developments don't pay in Appalachia. So the agencies look the other way.

The fruits of such dereliction were seen in early July, when flooding from heavy rains devastated private and public property in West Virginia's coalfields. Exuding empathy and concern, Governor Bob Wise called for a study to determine if the damage had been exacerbated by mountain-range removal. But according to an existing study by the 0ffice of surface Mining (a report that Wise had tried to suppress), a large valley fill can increase runoff by as much as 42 percent. On July 11, the West Virginia Department of environmental Protection finally assumed a stern countenance, citing 10 coal operations for contributing to the damage, two of them on Kayford Mountain.

Having seen what the coal industry does to the earth in Appalachia and elsewhere, I drove to Kayford Mountain, where I glimpsed what it does to people. A decade ago the mountains towered above the Stanley Heirs' Cemetery. Now, blasted apart, these "summits " lie 500 feet below. Near the cemetery's eroding northeastern edge I found the grave of Earl Williams and stooped to read the inscription: "Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal." If the erosion continues, it won't be long before his casket follows the sod clumps down the man-made talus.

A mine cave-in killed Earl in 1909, when he was 14. Like the mountains that shaded and cooled him during his brief childhood, like the mixed hard-wood forest and the wildlife it sustained, like the valleys and the rich streams that carved them, he was a waste product of Big Coal. Now, apparently, his remains are, too.

Ted Williams has written about, mountain-range removal for Audubon Magazine. He also serves as conservation, editor for Fly Rod & Reel Magazine.

WARIOTO AUDUBON SOCIETY

C/O STEVE HAMILTON, EDITOR

290 ARDMOOR DR.

CLARKSVILLE, TN 37043