CLEAR May 2019

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WV MetroNews Maryland man killed by falling tree while kayaking in Preston County - WV MetroNews
by Duane Nichols via CLEAR 22 May '19

22 May '19

http://wvmetronews.com/2019/05/21/maryland-man-killed-by-falling-tree-while… Maryland man killed by falling tree while kayaking in Preston County KINGWOOD, W.Va. — The name of a kayaker killed Sunday at the Cheat River by a falling tree has been released by the State Division of Natural Resources. Andy Malinoski, Press Secretary – Media Relations, for the Office of Marketing & Communications, identified the victim Tuesday as David Treadaway, of Dundalk, Md. Preston Sheriff Dan Loughrie shared information from Preston 911, which received the emergency call. The call reported the incident occurred near Seven Islands, south of the Macomber area. The initial report to 911 was that there was one fatality, one head injury and one with unknown injuries, “however not as severe as the other two.” “There were some storms that went through the county near that time frame, however unsure if that was the cause of the fall,” according to 911. Preston County Fire/EMS, the Preston County Swift Water Rescue Team, Tucker County Boat Team and HealthNet aeromedical responded. According to Malinoski, the three men were on a float trip in kayaks from Parsons to Macomber, during a storm. “After seeking shelter from the storm, a tree fell on two of the kayakers, resulting in severe injuries which resulted in the death of one of the boaters,” Malinoski said in an email. “The other sustained a broken arm, broken clavicle, and sustained a back injury from being hit by the tree.” He did not say why the tree fell or if the men were in or out of the water, when they were hit. Division of Natural Resources Police are investigating the incident. Story by Kathy Plum, Dominion Post

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1 dead, 2 injured in kayaking accident on Cheat River
by Duane Nichols via CLEAR 20 May '19

20 May '19

Tragically, 1 dead, 2 injured in kayaking accident on Cheat River, WDTV, May 20, 2019 https://www.wdtv.com/content/news/1-dead-2-injured-in-kayaking-accident-on-…

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Mon River Valley Coalition and P2P Corridor meeting follow-up
by Duane Nichols via CLEAR 10 May '19

10 May '19

> Subject: Fwd: FW: Mon River Valley Coalition and P2P Corridor meeting follow-up > > Industrial Heartland Trails Coalition info > > > > > Hello Parkersburg to Pittsburgh (P2P) Corridor friends, > > We trust you’re enjoying the spring trail season and hope some of you were able to participate in Opening Day for Trails on that beautiful Saturday last month. We had a great time with Harrison Rail Trails and the North Bend Rail Trail Foundation in Salem, WV, and the Mon River Trails Conservancy hosted another booming arts market in Morgantown. In fact, MRTC tracked nearly 2,000 trail users that day - a new trail record! Thank you to everyone who participated and helped make these trail events so successful. > Here’s a quick roundup of other P2P and IHTC news and events... > > P2P Corridor Meeting Notes - March 15, 2019 > > The P2P Corridor Working Group joined forces with the Mon River Valley Coalition for a combined meeting to discuss trail and river town promotion, marketing and communications. A contact list, PowerPoint slides and discussion notes are available here. We look forward to working with you throughout the year to achieve some of our short-term goals. > IHTC Quarterly Meeting - May 15, 2019 [REGISTER] > > The next quarterly IHTC meeting will be hosted via webinar on May 15 from 11am - 1pm and will focus on community building and events. Amy Camp of Cycle Forward will present on different ways that events can bring a community together in support of your trail and Chris Corban of PEC will moderate a discussion from many IHTC trail partners. Please register here to join. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar. > Corridor and Trail Updates - Summer 2019 > > We will host the next P2P Corridor meeting in June or July and plan to capture project updates in a short report. For WV trails and gaps, we will revisit the Action Plan in the Feasibility Study to note successes and next steps. Stay tuned for more info! > Transportation Alternatives Program and Rec Trail Program Grant Applications (WV) > > WVDOT announced that they will be accepting TAP and RTP applications for 2019. The deadline to submit an Intent to Apply was in April. Those applicants that are approved by WVDOT to submit an application will need to meet the May 31 deadline. Please let us know if you would like RTC to submit a letter of support for any application that involves trail projects in the P2P Corridor. > P2P Corridor - Open Trails on TrailLink.com > > As discussed in the March meeting, all of the open trails in the P2P Corridor are on RTC’s trail finder website, www.traillink.com. Each of the trail pages includes photos, a map, detailed description and reviews. Check them out, add a review/photos, and let me know if there are any necessary changes! > > > Sheepskin Rail-Trail > Mon River Trail North > Caperton Trail > Mon River Trail South > Marion County Trail (MCTrail) > West Fork River Trail > Harrison North Rail Trail > North Bend Rail-Trail > IHTC and the Great American Rail-Trail > > Yesterday RTC hosted a Facebook Live event to reveal the route of the Great American Rail-Trail, a cross-country rail-trail that will span 3,700 miles and connect 12 states and the District of Columbia. The route will follow existing trails like the Great Allegheny Passage and will utilize much of the planned Cleveland to Pittsburgh corridor route of the IHTC’s network vision, including a segment in Weirton, WV. We’re excited that all three IHTC states (PA, OH, WV) are included in this effort to connect our country by rail-trail. > Get out on the trails and stay in touch! We look forward to seeing you this summer. > > All the best, > > Kelly Pack and Kent Spellman > > Kelly Pack, Senior Director of Trail Development > > > Rails-to-Trails Conservancy > > 2121 Ward Court, NW, 5th Floor > > Washington, DC 20037 > > 202.974.5148 > Railstotrails.org | TrailLink.com > > > > > > > >

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Listen to the Soundscape - The New York Times
by Duane Nichols via CLEAR 10 May '19

10 May '19

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/29/opinion/sunday/listen-to-the-soundscape.… The Sound of a Damaged Habitat By BERNIE KRAUSEJULY 28, 2012 George Butler Glen Ellen, Calif. YEARS ago, when selective logging was first introduced, a community near an old-growth forest in the Sierra Nevada was assured that the removal of a few trees here and there would have no impact on the area’s wildlife. Based on the logging company’s guarantees, the local residents agreed to the operation. I was skeptical, however, and requested permission to record the sounds of the habitat before and after the logging. On June 21, 1988, I recorded a rich dawn chorus in California’s pristine Lincoln Meadow. It was a biome replete with the voices of Lincoln’s sparrows, MacGillivray’s warblers, Williamson’s sapsuckers, pileated woodpeckers, golden-crowned kinglets, robins and grosbeaks, as well as squirrels, spring peepers and numerous insects. I captured them all. When I returned a year later, nothing appeared to have changed at first glance. No stumps or debris — just conifers and lush understory. But to the ear — and to the recorder — the difference was shocking. I’ve returned 15 times since then, and even years later, the density and diversity of voices are still lost. There is a muted hush, broken only by the sound of an occasional sparrow, raptor, raven or sapsucker. The numinous richness of the original biophony is gone. Lesson: While a picture may be worth a thousand words, a soundscape is worth a thousand pictures. A soundscape contains three basic sources: the geophony, which includes all nonbiological natural sounds like wind or ocean waves; the biophony, which embraces the biological, wild, nonhuman sounds that emanate from environments; and the anthrophony — man-made sounds, commonly referred to as noise. Soundscapes reveal many stories about the world’s habitats, illuminating the vital signs of life at one end of the spectrum and the effects of human noise at the other. In fit habitats, the biophony shows cohesion between all of its acoustic sources. In other words, the mating and territorial calls essential to each species’ survival don’t get masked or drowned out by competing sounds. Insects, reptiles, amphibians, birds and mammals establish their own “bandwidth niches,” which can be expressed as frequency (from the lowest to the highest sounds) and temporally (as when one creature vocalizes, followed by another, like exchanges between the chestnut-winged babbler and the Malaysian eared nightjar calling for mates in Borneo). Graphic displays called spectrograms are used to illustrate the organization of those sounds, with each creature’s voice showing a distinctive place in the chorus — an arrangement so precise that it often resembles a musical score. To the trained ear, those expressions are experienced much like instruments in an orchestra. What happens when this orchestra is disrupted by the anthrophony: chain saws, leaf blowers or highway traffic? If an indiscriminate sound like a loud motorcycle competes with the stridulation of an insect, the croak of a frog or the song of a bird, the affected animal may no longer be able to send its signal to mates or competitors. The voices of creatures in the choir may be drowned out. And mates and competitors will no longer be able to hear them. The integrity of the biophony is compromised. (Some of those effects you can’t hear. A 2001 study of elk and wolves in national parks found that snowmobile noise raised the levels of stress hormones in their feces and that the levels returned to normal concentrations when the intrusive din was absent.) Anything that destroys habitat — mining, pollution, deforestation and global warming — disrupts the biosphere. Mining reminds me of Aldo Leopold’s sage warning that if you’re going to tinker with nature, you’d better keep all the parts. In Northern California, where my wife and I live, spring occurs — according to my records — nearly two weeks earlier than it did 20 years ago. As the climate has warmed, we hear fewer Pacific tree frogs croaking in late winter and fewer birds in spring — likely because of shifts in food sources. Too little research has been done in the field of biophonics, and my personal recordings are neither comprehensive nor the results of controlled experiments. But the differences between healthy and damaged soundscapes are clear to anyone who pays attention. If you listen to a damaged soundscape — an expression of infirmity or extinction — the sense of desolation extends far beyond mere silence. The community has been altered, and organisms have been destroyed, lost their habitat or been left to re-establish their places in the spectrum. As a result, some voices are gone entirely, while others aggressively compete to establish a new place in the increasingly disjointed chorus. In the damaged forests of Washington State and California in the summer, I have heard white-crowned sparrows learning new syntax, adjusting their voices to accommodate for the acoustic shifts in the biophony. Still, it is from the intact creature choruses that the story of our relationship to the natural world is revealed. We dismiss the loss of those narratives at our peril. Listen. The ear never lies. The poet Robert Hass cautioned in his poem “After Goethe”: “The birds are silent in the woods./Just wait: Soon enough/You will be quiet too.” Sent from my iPad

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WVDEP to hold ribbon cutting for Muddy Creek Watershed Restoration Project
by Duane Nichols via CLEAR 02 May '19

02 May '19

WVDEP to hold ribbon cutting for Muddy Creek Watershed Restoration Project The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (WVDEP) will host a ribbon cutting celebration for its Muddy Creek Watershed Restoration Project on Friday, May 3 at 1 p.m. at the T&T Treatment Facility in Albright (directions below). The event is open to the public. https://www.mybuckhannon.com/wvdep-to-hold-ribbon-cutting-for-muddy-creek-w…

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CLEAR May 2019