Go Green

By John Sutter

One could argue that “going green” not only involves protecting the environment, but getting outside to enjoy it every once in a while, too.

That’s why this National Geographic story on hiking in the Ozark Mountains caught my eye, because you can tell the volunteers interviewed for the story take a real pride and appreciation in the land they maintain and protect. I also found it quite interesting that there could soon be a hiking trail that extends all the way from St. Louis to eastern Oklahoma.

If the Ozark National Recreation Trail is extended northward from Arkansas, it could connect with Ozark Highlands National Recreation Trail (one of them could stand to get a new name at this point, for confusion’s sake), which would create the longest hiking trail in the national trails network, and would bring that web to the Sooner State.

Every state is home to a piece of the national trails system, and the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail loops through the eastern part of the state, making its way through Tahlequah, Okla., which is the capitol of the Cherokee Nation, before heading back to Fort Smith.

A quick confession: The National Geographic article talks about how the locals in northwest Arkansas say “holler” instead of “small valley.” I’ve been in northeast Oklahoma before, nearby, and have heard people say “holler” and had no clue what they were talking about. I knew they were talking about geography of some kind, not just giving a shout-out, but, still, it was really confusing …

Here’s some more on the trials system and the proposed connection, from the NG article:

Almost from the beginning there have been plans to extend the trail northward to the Missouri state line. There it would meet the Ozark National Recreation Trail, a similarly named trail now under construction, making possible a hike from St. Louis nearly to Oklahoma. To do so, though, would require running the trail 14 miles through a wilderness area along the Buffalo National River. Though it originally supported the plan, the National Park Service later vetoed trail construction, backed by local conservation groups who want to minimize human presence in the wilderness. Ernst says he values the wild in wilderness as much as anyone, but thinks the goal of a 700-mile hiking trail across mid-America merits a 14-mile exception to the rules.

… A trail, at its most basic, simply connects two places. But Congress had something grander in mind in 1968 when it created the National Trails System, officially recognizing that trails can be more than routes to destinations. Ancient and new, they’re living reminders of how our land was discovered and our culture built. Native Americans and, later, settlers wore the first trails into the landscape with moccasins, boots, and bare feet, hiking along rivers and coasts, through forests and over mountains, learning the flora and fauna as they went. Increasing numbers of Americans are following in their footsteps, finding pleasure and enlightenment along the way. Trail advocates—many of them volunteers who build and maintain trails—believe such experiences are worthy of national investment. Forty years ago, Congress agreed.

Obviously, there are many trails in the country that are outside the national system. Know of any good ones in Oklahoma? How about volunteers who work to keep the trails up in this state? Do you say “holler” instead of “small valley?” Ideas could turn into a story for The Oklahoman. Please feel free to comment or e-mail me: jsutter [at] opubco.com.

By John Sutter

The Tallgrass Prairie Preserve, in Osage County, along the Kansas border, got a visit this month from a group of Colombian activists, according to this story.

The Tulsa World writes:

The Tallgrass Prairie Preserve, near Pawhuska, is the world’s largest remaining tract of tallgrass prairie. Since 1989, the Oklahoma chapter of the Nature Conservancy, one of the world’s leading conservation organizations, has maintained the 39,000-acre protected area, encouraging a return to its natural state. The Conservancy hopes to similarly protect an area known as the Orinoco River Valley in Colombia.

I was talking a couple of weeks ago with a coworker about how I’ve never been to the preserve, and would like to visit. She said the best time of year to go is the spring. That’s when the wildflowers are out, when you’ll get to see the most buffalo and when you can catch the prairie chickens in their strange mating rituals. That section of land is among the only pieces of prairie in the world that’s never been plowed up for farming, which is rather amazing when you think about it. On a recent reporting trip, I drove across Osage County from west to east, late at night. The county is enormous and the drive seemed to take forever, but it had a certain magic to it. A big moon sat on the horizon, and there are almost no lights around on the side of the highway — none of the billboards and things you see everywhere else. That drive left a big impression on me, and I definitely want to go back to explore in the daylight.

For some more info, check on the Nature Conservancy’s page on its preserve here.

Have any of you visited Pawhuska or Osage County? I’d love to hear your stories, tips or recommendations. Feel free to comment.

By John Sutter

Reuters reports that chicken manure is being used increasingly as a fertilizer in this region of the country — as conventional fertilizer prices shoot up. It’s becoming relatively less expensive to truck chicken waste around. The waste from farms in northeast Oklahoma is being used as far away as Lawton, in the southwest part of the state.

The story points out that the fact that chicken poop is high in nitrogen and phosphorus is both a blessing and a potential curse. Oklahoma is suing poultry companies for allegedly polluting the state’s waters and choking out aquatic life.

The news agency reports from Kansas City:

… with commercial fertilizer prices so high — over $100 an acre in some cases — farmers far from poultry operations see the economic benefits of buying bird waste, even in light of transportation costs.

“It’s a fantastic alternative to fertilizer,” said Kansas State University soil specialist Doug Shoup. “Of all manure, it has the highest concentration of nitrogen, good calcium, good sulphur, and a bit of a liming effect. It is a little bit like Miracle Grow.”

By John Sutter

Dawn Marks, of The Oklahoman, has an important story about the world water crisis, and how some students from Oklahoma Christian tried to help by traveling to Rwanda and filming a documentary.

The students said the amount of time people spend trying — and failing — to find clean water shocked them.

The students met a 14-year-old boy named Jean Bosco who made two to three trips a day, about a mile and a half each way, to gather water. He would haul containers, weighing half what he did, back to his home, where he cared for his four younger brothers while both of his parents worked ..

“It changes your perspective. You understand that (for) a lot of these problems there’s not an easy fix,” one student said.

Every day, 6,000 people — mostly children under 5 — die from diarrheal illnesses associated with poor water quality, according to the UN. A billion people on Earth don’t have access to safe drinking water. Four out of 10 people in the world don’t have access to simple latrines. Those statistics sound grim, but solutions are often as simple as helping communities install and pay for toilet systems. Local people have to have a stake in these projects, though. I’ve read stories about communities in Nepal, for instance, that are the recipients of toilets and water systems that break after several years — and local people don’t have the literal tools or engineering skills needed to fix them. There’s also a lot of research going on concerning water filters and simple devices that sanitize drinking water using the power of the sun. You can find some info on one example, a straw that filters water, here.

By John Sutter

The Tulsa World has an interesting story this morning about an environmental group that is essentially paying people who have land along waters in the Spavinaw watershed not to do things that could pollute the water.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the city of Tulsa are in on the deal, since those waters provide drinking water for Tulsa and its suburbs.

The environmental group, a Tulsa non-profit called Land Legacy, is calling the project the Spavinaw Watershed Protection Initiative. The World reports that the first conservation easement — or payment that stops a landowner from using land in a way that pollutes — was recently paid to a cattle rancher named Ray Thompson in Jay, which is in far northeast Oklahoma, pretty close to the Missouri/Arkansas border. The story doesn’t indicate how much the rancher is being paid.

These types of payments aren’t really new, but they’re being turned to more as a way to encourage landowners to use their land in a way that is healthy for the environment. The rancher in this story, for example, is being paid not to graze cattle by a creek, so that their feces don’t end up in the water. The Nature Conservancy is exploring similar payments for ranchers in northwest Oklahoma. That environmental group wants to ensure birds like the near-endangered lesser prairie chicken have a place to live. Oklahoma is made up nearly entirely of private land, so environmental groups make a top priority of ensuring land use promotes their causes. Sometimes landowners volunteer to go along with practices that help the environment, other times payments like these are used to encourage them.

As the World reports:

Thompson is allowing some 65 acres near the creek to go back to nature, and nature has certainly gone to work with waist-high grasses, shrubs and saplings that will be a forest in no time.

Somewhere in the woodsy wilderness are deer, wild turkeys and hogs.

“In the winter and early spring, I’ve seen as many as 100 bald eagles. They’re absolutely gorgeous,” Thompson said.

And, throughout his rugged property are several natural springs, which create surprising rock formations and trickling, ice-cold water.

“It’s nice to know there are still places like this out there,” Thompson said. 

BY JOHN DAVID SUTTER

Published: October 3, 2008

COMMERCE — A University of Oklahoma researcher is shifting Mother Nature into overdrive in an effort to clean up toxic mining waste in the northeast corner of Oklahoma. Bob Nairn, an associate professor of civil engineering and environmental science, has developed a system to filter metal-contaminated stream water from abandoned mines at the Tar Creek Superfund site through a series of natural treatment ponds and wetlands. The water comes into the system looking neon orange — contaminated with lead, iron, zinc and cadmium from underground mines in the area — but leaves clear, he said. And no chemicals or fossil fuels are used in the process.

“Natural chemistry and biology does the work for us if we harness it correctly,” said Thomas Landers, dean of OU’s college of engineering. Bacteria, oxygen and cattail reeds help suck dangerous metals out of the water.

The $1 million project, which is under construction and should be running in a month, was funded through 2004 federal appropriations. But even if it’s successful, it won’t be included in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s plan to clean up the former mining district, which is among the nation’s largest and most polluted.

The EPA’s latest cleanup plan, which totals $167 million, won’t include the research unless major changes or amendments are made, said Dave Bary, an EPA spokesman in Dallas. Bary declined to elaborate as to why the idea wasn’t included.

Nairn said the EPA in the 1980s did some work to prevent water pollution in the area, but that pollution still is occurring. This technology wasn’t available then, but should be used now because it’s available, he said. At the very least, he said, the research will help improve cleanup at other polluted mines.