Water – Page 4 – Stone Fig

Grand Canyon – Sweet

So I asked my question.

“I was here 50 years ago. How much has the Canyon eroded since I was here last?”

I was standing at the edge of the South Rim of the Grand Canyon in Arizona. I was talking to a park ranger who looked like she would appreciate my curiosity – and also looked like she would know the answer.

She answered, “The Canyon erodes about the thickness of a piece of paper each year.”

“So,” I said, “that’s 50 sheets of paper, a tenth of a ream, about three-quarters of an inch. I thought I saw the difference.”

And yes, I did see a difference. Not when I peer over the edge and look outwards towards where I can see the Colorado River, but when I look around. There are more people at the Canyon then there had been in November of 1973. The Park is more modern. The trails look better than they had 50 years ago. But the trail down into the Canyon looked just as challenging.

In both my visits to the South Rim, 50 years ago and now, there was snow on the ground. The snow adds to the beauty of the Canyon, as the rocks and trees and shadow are accentuated by the stark white of the snow. But caution is necessary as the trails can be icy and slippery. But with snow or sun caution is always necessary as with the added erosion of the past 50 years its a long way down – plus a bit.

During this visit I would not hike the South Kaibab trail; I would do my hiking on the rim trail. But in 1973 I wanted to see how far down I could get before I had to come back up at day’s end. I started early in the morning with a light pack that I bought the day before in which I had an extra pair of gloves, some sardines and crackers, and something to drink. I don’t think they sold water in bottles back then. I was layered against the cold and had on my sea-duty rain jacket with a hood. It was heavy over my denim jacket, but it would certainly keep me dry. I also had on my woolen watch cap.

I had my copper bound walking stick and was ready to begin my descent. It was cold and clear, and I was the only person on the trail. It was great. The views of the Canyon opening to me were exhilarating. I could look back millions of years as I passed the rock face of the trail wall. I took time to think of all the history that had passed in the first few yards, and then I was well down into the prehistory of the Earth.

It was the uplift of the Colorado Plateau that allowed the marvel of the Grand Canyon to become. About 70 million years ago tectonic forces lifted an area that is now within Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona. As mountains formed and snows and rains fell the nascent Colorado River began its journey off the Colorado Plateau down to the Gulf of California. The River began to cut its way through the uplifted plateau as it sought to reach sea level. As it picked up sediments from its sources it flowed across the uplifted plateau like liquid sandpaper. The rushing River gouged and polished its way down to its present level. As the River grew so did the feeder streams that flowed into it; each cutting its own side canyon. The Canyon sides collapsed as the River cut deeper. This collapse created the width of the current Canyon. Rain and freezing water and trees and wind worked their own patterns of erosion on the Canyon walls, dislodging rocks that would tumble down towards the River below.

And here was another difference. As I hiked down in 1973 I kept an eye on the weather at the Canyon rim. I could l see clouds gathering and knew that it was snowing at the top. After reaching Skeleton Point and eating my sardines and crackers, I knew it was time to turn back in order to get out of the Canyon before the weather worsened. I was trudging up the last half mile in snow, leaving my footprints behind me. The wind was blowing the snow, and I had my hood up. Then I heard something. It sounded like the thumping of distant thunder. I put my hood back so I could hear better. There was a rumble and rattle of above me. I looked up and saw a good size rock rolling down the Canyon side in my direction. I took several steps backwards and watched as the rock landed on the trail where I had been standing and bounded further down and out of sight in the direction of the River.

I had witnessed the process of the Canyon. Things change. That rock is now in a different place and the level of the Canyon floor is now lower. And I can tell the difference.

to speak of many things – of Streams and the Chesapeake

Have you ever seen the Chesapeake Bay? If not, you need to. It is the largest of the several major salt water estuaries on the east coast of the United States. Others include Narraganset Bay in Rhode Island, and the Pamlico Sound in North Carolina. If you take out a map of the United Sates and look at the east coast, these estuaries look like large lakes attached to the Atlantic Ocean. This is of course what makes an estuary an estuary. There is a continual water exchange between the ocean and the bay or sound. The lower reaches of the bay or sound are tidal as is the ocean. And the upper reaches of these bodies of water may show some tidal rise and fall, but the rise and fall of water on the shoreline is just as often due to wind. However, looking at these waters on such a large-scale map is not the best to way to view them. You need to get up close.

When you look at the Pamlico sound closely you can see that it is fed by rivers that flow from the inland areas of North Carolina and Virginia. The Trent River, the Neuse River, the Tar River, the Pamlico River originate far up-state and pass through towns and farms as the deliver water to the Sound. This is an important aspect of all estuaries. Even though they are salty and brackish from their exchange of water with the Atlantic Ocean, and even though they support fishes that travel back and forth from the ocean in their life-cycle, their sources of water are the streams, and creeks, and rivers that flow down from areas deep inland. The streams that flow into each of these rivers, together with the land they drain, are the river’s watershed. The Chesapeake Bay is fed by several major rivers. They include the Potomac flowing through Virginia and Maryland, the Susquehanna whose watershed is in Pennsylvania and New York and Maryland, the Patuxent in Maryland, the Choptank through Delaware and Maryland, and the Rappahannock River and the James River in Virginia. Again, these rivers flow through towns and farms and in the case of the Chesapeake though major urban and industrial areas.

These watersheds not only carry water to their estuary from the land, but they also carry pollutants. The land that is drained by the streams and rivers of the watershed is the source of the pollution. The pollution, whether debris from erosion or chemical pollutants, degrade the productivity of the estuary. The estuaries have a major role in the success of the fishing industries that depend on their waters for the fish and crabs they harvest. The estuaries provide a habitat for the life-cycle of some of our favorite sea-foods. But don’t look at the center of the bay or sound for this, look at the edges. Get up close to the seagrass beds and the marshes that line the banks of the estuaries – or use to line the banks of the estuaries. In these shallow waters that you can wade into, tiny crabs and fish hide and grow until they are ready to move out into deeper waters of the estuary.

It’s the clarity of the water that is important. The clarity allows for the development and success of seagrass beds. These seagrasses which use to thrive in vast meadows in the Chesapeake Bay collapsed in the 1950s through the 1970s. These fields of underwater grasses which grew near the shore were the home to many of the creatures on the lower end of the food chain and the nursery for the important recreational and cash fisheries that the Bay supported at one time. The much loved Chesapeake Blue Crab and the famed striped bass (rock fish) started their lives here. Without these beds of seagrass the fisheries were disappearing. What caused the grasses to disappear? Uncontrolled development. Development on the share of the Chesapeake but also and more importantly development throughout the watersheds that fed the Chesapeake. From the lawns and farms that were fertilized and on which weed killer was sprayed came the pollutants that were leading to the failure of the seagrass. Weed killers worked against the seagrass, and so did the fertilizers that washed off the lawns which encouraged the growth of algae in the water. The algae blocked the light that the seagrass needed to grow, causing the seagrass meadows to disappear.

Individuals and communities, as well as the states that border the Chesapeake Bay, began to take actions to clean up the problem. One of the actions that was taken was the imposition by the State of Maryland of a stormwater fee, also called the “rain tax”. This was in response to an action by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) through the Clean Water Act to develop methods and funding to clean up the Chesapeake Bay and to protect the Bay from further damage. The law required the states that have watersheds that drain into the Bay to develop local measures to protect the Bay. This included Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York, Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia. Only Maryland established a stormwater fee program. Under the program land owners were assessed a fee based on the impervious, i.e., paved, hard surfaces, that did not allow water to seep into the ground. Rather the rain ran off the hard surfaces and into the streams of watersheds that fed the Bay.

The basic question is does the Bay still need protection. The basic answer is yes.

The Bay showed improvements based on an annual rating. The water quality had improved. Clarity improved and seagrass beds were improving. Other important factors had also been showing improvement over the last decade. However, in 2018 the Bay fell to a grade of D-plus. This was the first decline in quality in the last several years. The decline was blamed on the amounts of heavy rain that had fallen on the east coast watersheds that year. More pollutants including particulates (soil and debris) had been washed from the watersheds into the Bay. There the pollutants will again effect the clarity and productivity of the Bay.

So – again – does the Bay still need protection? Yes!

For more information on the Chesapeake Bay and the Stormwater fee please visit the Chesapeake Bay Foundation at http://www.cbf.org/about-cbf/locations/maryland/issues/stormwater-fees.html#taxes

The 2018 State of the Bay report may be found at http://www.cbf.org/about-the-bay/state-of-the-bay-report/

The picture of the Blue Crab is derived from a photograph taken from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation website. Credit for the photograph is Jay Fleming/iLCP.

Reef Protector

I had to decide if I wanted to title this post “KILLER ROBOT” or “Reef Protector”. The two different titles convey very different images, one quite provocative as a hunter/killer, and bringing to mind an endless stream of science fiction movies. I chose “Reef Protector”. It brings to mind a quest, and a hero who takes on the challenge. I had already designed the art of a killer robot but added a shield to make it less so – an assassin and a protector.

The Great Barrier Reef Foundation (GBRF) in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, https://www.barrierreef.org/the-foundation, launched a protective program to defend the Great Barrier Reef against a voracious predator,the Crown of Thorns starfish. This predator is one of the greatest challenges facing the survival of the Great Barrier Reef. Other threats to the Great Barrier Reef include climate change, disease, changes in ocean chemistry, rising ocean waters, pollution, and physical destruction of portions of the reef by fishing gear and boat propellers. These economically valuable and beautiful reefs are threatened wherever they are.

I have not seen any part of the Great Barrier Reef, but I have dived on smaller reefs in the Philippines and in Florida where corals have created habitats for a myriad of other species. I plan on visiting the Great Barrier Reef, but this creates a challenge as well. When I get there I have to ensure that my presence and my activity does not further damage or destroy any part of this magnificent natural wonder. I say that not just as an individual wanderer, but as one of many people who visit the area. We all must ensure that tours and dives we take and services that are provided to us allow for sustainable use and protection of the Great Barrier Reef.

If the Great Barrier Reef were a single organism, it would be the largest living organism on the planet. It is of course a massive natural wonder that is made of countless individuals from a myriad of species,including many fragile and beautiful corals. However, in lore and in stories a coral reef is considered a danger which can crush the hulls of massive ships and tear small boats apart. How can a fragile thing be so dangerous and tear apart the strongest steel? The coral in the coral reef is a tiny animal. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) website, https://coralreef.noaa.gov/, describes the coral animals, called polyps, as being between one and three millimeters across. That means that in the space of an inch, depending on the type of coral, between eight polyps and 25 polyps could exist. A five-inch line of type could span more than 100 polyps. The coral polyps create hard shells out of minerals in the sea water and live in closely packed colonies. When the polyps die their tiny skeletons remain behind along with those of its generation. These skeletons form the base for the following generations of corals to grow on. Over thousands of years these tiny polyps build up into massive reefs of incredible bulk and mass. It is this stony calcium carbonate base that has the mass to tear ships apart.

The Great Barrier Reef is made up of not just the uncountable individual coral polyps but of a huge number of intertwining coral reefs that have built up over the millennia. These reefs provide shelter for undersea communities that form the basis of the vast food webs of the warm tropical waters in which the majority of reefs are found. The reefs provide protection for the land on their inward side as they break the force of the ocean storms as the waves cross over the reef. In adddition, they are a living ecological community of incredible beauty.

The GBRF is working to protect the Great Barrier Reef. As part of their effort the RangerBot program was launched in 2015. Initially and provocatively described in the press, these robots were programmed to find and kill the Crown of Thorns starfish. The Crown of Thorns eats away at the corals and destroys much of the coral community. Without the living corals the other members of the undersea environment living on the reef were deprived of its benefits and either died or migrated to find other living coral reefs that could provide them with a habitat. And of course, the Crown of Thorns would be there too.

Because of nutrient runoff from farms and homes into streams that feed rivers whose waters flow out to and over the Great Barrier Reef, the population of the Crown of Thorns starfish has grown significantly. With this population growth, their capacity to destroy large portions of the Great Barrier Reef has also escalated. To fight this increasing threat the RangerBot program was launched to seek out, optically identify, and kill the Crown of Thorns starfish with a killing agent. But this is not the only capability of the RangerBot. It is described on the GBRF website as a “Swiss-Army knife” for reef protection. The RangerBot was developed by the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) as an autonomous, underwater vehicle which can provide a “ranger-like” presence in the coral reef, day and night. It is a new set of eyes and hands for reef managers. It not only can help control the Crown of Thorns, but it can also be used to monitor the health of the reef. A planned modification of the RangerBot will assist in the spread of new coral polyps. The RangerBot will collect millions of spawn from the corals. After the spawn has been raised to a larval stage in large tanks, the RangerBot will return them to the reefs and spread them in an effort to rejuvenate the damaged reefs.

Hooray for the good guys!

Scientific American has an excellent article on the RangerBot’s fight against the Crown of Thorns, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-starfish-killing-artificially-intelligent-robot-is-set-to-patrol-the-great-barrier-reef/.

New Atlas has an article on the planned version of RangerBot, https://newatlas.com/larvalbot-larvae-robot-great-barrier-reef/56966/.

Hurricane

I was six years old. As I stood looking out the big, plate window of my room I saw what I thought was a branch that had fallen to the ground in the wind. Then as the branch seemed to grow in size I realized that the earth was splitting open. I stepped back from the window unsure of what was happening. What might rise from beneath the surface of the earth? Then the huge, ancient beech tree toppled, sliding through the rain as its roots clung desperately to the earth even as its leaves betrayed it to the wind. The storm had been blowing since dawn. I could hear the wind blowing across the chimney top as a nightmarish groaning rolled out of the fireplace and into the room. This was my first hurricane.

Hurricane Carol barn-stormed into Connecticut and Rhode Island in late August 1954. Like so many nameless storms that had proceeded Carol, she had strengthened over the warm waters of the Gulf Stream before speeding up and racing up the east coast to her destination.

The warm waters of the Gulf Stream arise out of the Gulf of Mexico. These warmer waters flow around the tip of Florida and up the southeast coast of the United States remaining close to the shore until the current passes North Carolina at Cape Hatteras. There the currents change direction to flow northeasterly towards northern Europe. The Gulf Stream remains significantly warmer than the waters of the central Atlantic or the coastal waters of the southeast United States. It is a band of swiftly moving warm currents between the shore and the deep ocean. Hurricanes that enter the Gulf Stream gather energy and moisture from the Gulf Stream due to the warmer water temperatures. The storms pick up moisture due to the higher rates of surface water evaporation. The storms intensify as the energy from the warmer surface waters rises through the storm causing the storm to rotate faster.

A NOAA article on tropical cyclones states “As long as the base of this weather system remains over warm water and its top is not sheared apart by high-altitude winds, it will strengthen and grow. More and more heat and water will be pumped into the air. The pressure at its core will drop further and further, sucking in wind at ever increasing speeds. Over several hours to days, the storm will intensify, finally reaching hurricane status … .”¹

From the interaction of the warm water and pressures waves that originate off the west coast of Africa, storms develop that may end up hammering islands in the Caribbean, states on the eastern seaboard of the United States, or the states on the Gulf of Mexico. These storms are terrifying, and they are deadly. They destroy homes, businesses, and lives. Hurricane Carol which I witnessed as a young boy wreaked havoc on communities along the coast as it flooded businesses and homes, and tore apart fishing boats. However, it was by no means the greatest of these storms, nor the most costly. More people now live on the coast than 50 years ago. What were pristine beaches and wild salt-marshes in the 1950s are now crowded communities of condominiums and homes. Storms that caused inconvenience in years before now cause millions and millions of dollars in damage.

After Hurricane Carol passed we went outside. We stared at the huge beech that had shaken the foundations of the earth when it crashed to the ground. In coming days, we would play in its branches until it was eventually cut up and hauled away. When we ventured out onto the board avenue next to our apartment house, the street was crisscrossed with other fallen trees. There was a fallen tree about every 20 feet. It was like a ladder with the fallen trees as rungs. It was all fascinating and yet surreal that such great trees that only days before had shaded us from the summer sun now lay prostrate before the wind. I would see it again in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia.

Today I hope the 300-year-old sycamores on our old North Carolina property still stand after Florence. A massive pine that had ruled the yard since my earliest memories had crashed to the ground in a storm five years earlier leaving a hole in the earth twenty feet across and eight feet deep. The same could have happened to these other great trees.

I know these trees; they are part of my life. My memories are of times spent in their shade. But I also I remember the terror of the wind. And I remember the family cleaning up the yard after the storm. I remember my mother cooking in the fire place for several weeks before power was restored, and I remember the final picnic under the ancient beech fallen now. The storms pass.

NOAA Ocean Explorer site; https://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/facts/hurricanes.html

8 BILLION !! What are YOU doing?

By the time we reach the next quarter century World Population will reach 8 BILLION people.

This is a troubling number as each one of us will need food and shelter and health care and should have the opportunity to lead a productive and happy life.

But will we all have that opportunity?

It’s up to YOU!

What are you doing to prepare the world for 8 BILLION? What are you doing to help each man, woman, and child to be fed and sheltered and cared for? What are you doing to help each individual have a life in which they have the opportunity to help their community and to feel the joy of knowing they are contributing to the benefit of others.

During the Renaissance, during the Age of Discovery, during the Reformation, when the French Revolution was taking place, there were less than 1 Billion people on Earth.

But with the industrial revolution and the concurrent increases in the knowledge of science and healthy living conditions more people were being born – and living to be older than in the generations before them. 200 years ago the world population was only 1 Billion. The world passed the 2 Billion mark only about 100 years ago. But by the turn of the century in the year 2000 we nearly TRIPLED that number and we soon passed the 6 Billion mark. Population growth has slowed. But we are still increasing, and by the year 2025 we will reach a world population of 8 BILLION people! And the population will continue to grow from there. Projections of population growth are that by mid-century, in the year 2050, world population will increase by another Billion and we will surpass 9 Billion people on our world.

The increase from 1 Billion to 2 Billion, a doubling, took 100 years. To get from 2 Billion to 9 Billion, more than four times the number, will take less than 200 years. The projections for population increase over the 25 years between 2025 and 2050 are that we will add more than 1 Billion people by mid-century. The 1 Billion increase that took over 100 years to achieve after 1800 will take less than 25 years.

Ask the internet. Ask your neighbors. Ask people where you work. Ask your Government. Ask your church. What can we do – what can I do – so we will be ready?

This is a question for all of us – for you and for me. How am I preparing to help the world at 8 BILLION? And then 9 Billion!

Each of us should rejoice in the Earth. Each of us should go out and experience the world, nature, wild life, birds, crawling things, all of it, including our fellow human-beings.

When we stand in a park or in the woods or next to a flowing stream or pause beside a field of wheat or a bed of sun flowers, we should marvel at it and we should also ask ourselves, “What can I do to preserve and prepare the Earth for all my new neighbors?”

And then act!

The picture of the child is based on a photograph at wallpaperbetter.com.