Mike King shovels limestone sand into buckets destined for a hands-on, quarter-mile trip to the headwaters of the Middle Fork of Williams River.
Thanks to 110 volunteers who operated a quarter-mile-long bucket brigade that moved more than nine tons of pulverized limestone, a stream left virtually lifeless by acid rain is coming closer to recovery.
MILL POINT, W.Va. -- Thanks to 110 volunteers who operated a quarter-mile-long bucket brigade that moved more than nine tons of pulverized limestone, a stream left virtually lifeless by acid rain is coming closer to recovery.
The Middle Fork of Williams River, once a productive brook trout stream, began experiencing plunging pH levels and a paucity of fish in the mid-1950s. The stream, which flows through the Cranberry Wilderness Area, lies in a watershed that lacks enough calcium-bearing rocks, such as limestone, to buffer acid precipitation.
At about the same time that the Middle Fork began slipping into decline, coal-burning power plants to the west began increasing in number, and switching to taller smokestacks to curtail local pollution fallout. Acid-producing sulfur and nitrogen emissions from the plants traveled on prevailing westerly winds came in contact with water vapor in rain clouds, and fell on the watershed as sulfuric and nitric acids.
While the main stem of the Williams River remained one of West Virginia's most popular trout streams, acid rain gradually leached away what little calcium-bearing rock strata the Middle Fork had, producing in-stream acid levels lethal to trout.
"We did a chemical study of the Middle Fork back in 1972, when we learned that acid precipitation was the reason for the demise of the native brook trout," said Ernie Nester of the Kanawha Valley Chapter of Trout Unlimited. "Then we began talking about what we could do to restore it."
In the years that followed, the state Division of Natural Resources discovered it could treat acid-plagued streams effectively and relatively inexpensively by placing piles of limestone sand in their headwaters. TU members and DNR biologists began looking at ways such a passive treatment system could be used on Middle Fork.
The fact that nearly all of the Middle Fork lies in a wilderness area, where vehicle use is prohibited, added a wrinkle to the puzzle, since trucks are used to supply most of the state's limestone sand treatment sites.
"For a couple of years, we talked about using a helicopter to carry the limestone sand in," Nester said. "But in 2005, John Rebinski [the head of the DNR's limestone treatment program] figured out that a ditch along the Highland Scenic Highway fed into one of the Middle Fork's headwater streams."
In September of that year, the first load of limestone sand was placed in that ditch.
While that treatment helps ease acidity in the Middle Fork, it's not enough to neutralize acidity the length of stream. Rebinski believed that another small tributary stream a few hundred yards away, reached by a quarter-mile hike along the North-South Trail, could put enough additional limestone sand into the stream to solve the problem.
In fact, he believed in its possibilities so much, he began personally backpacking sand to the site via backpack and 5-gallon buckets. In the past five years, he has lugged an astounding 13 tons of pulverized limestone -- 100 pounds per trip -- to the treatment site, where high water events carry the acid-neutralizing material into the Middle Fork's main stem.
In June 2008, 28 volunteers from TU and the DNR carried 6 tons of limestone to the treatment site in 5-gallon buckets. The following June, 52 volunteers from seven TU chapters in three states manned the bucket brigade. Last Saturday, 110 volunteers -- 60 of them Wal-Mart employees from stores across the state -- lugged 9.5 tons of limestone sand to the site.
MILL POINT, W.Va. -- Thanks to 110 volunteers who operated a quarter-mile-long bucket brigade that moved more than nine tons of pulverized limestone, a stream left virtually lifeless by acid rain is coming closer to recovery.
The Middle Fork of Williams River, once a productive brook trout stream, began experiencing plunging pH levels and a paucity of fish in the mid-1950s. The stream, which flows through the Cranberry Wilderness Area, lies in a watershed that lacks enough calcium-bearing rocks, such as limestone, to buffer acid precipitation.
At about the same time that the Middle Fork began slipping into decline, coal-burning power plants to the west began increasing in number, and switching to taller smokestacks to curtail local pollution fallout. Acid-producing sulfur and nitrogen emissions from the plants traveled on prevailing westerly winds came in contact with water vapor in rain clouds, and fell on the watershed as sulfuric and nitric acids.
While the main stem of the Williams River remained one of West Virginia's most popular trout streams, acid rain gradually leached away what little calcium-bearing rock strata the Middle Fork had, producing in-stream acid levels lethal to trout.
"We did a chemical study of the Middle Fork back in 1972, when we learned that acid precipitation was the reason for the demise of the native brook trout," said Ernie Nester of the Kanawha Valley Chapter of Trout Unlimited. "Then we began talking about what we could do to restore it."
In the years that followed, the state Division of Natural Resources discovered it could treat acid-plagued streams effectively and relatively inexpensively by placing piles of limestone sand in their headwaters. TU members and DNR biologists began looking at ways such a passive treatment system could be used on Middle Fork.
The fact that nearly all of the Middle Fork lies in a wilderness area, where vehicle use is prohibited, added a wrinkle to the puzzle, since trucks are used to supply most of the state's limestone sand treatment sites.
"For a couple of years, we talked about using a helicopter to carry the limestone sand in," Nester said. "But in 2005, John Rebinski [the head of the DNR's limestone treatment program] figured out that a ditch along the Highland Scenic Highway fed into one of the Middle Fork's headwater streams."
In September of that year, the first load of limestone sand was placed in that ditch.
While that treatment helps ease acidity in the Middle Fork, it's not enough to neutralize acidity the length of stream. Rebinski believed that another small tributary stream a few hundred yards away, reached by a quarter-mile hike along the North-South Trail, could put enough additional limestone sand into the stream to solve the problem.
In fact, he believed in its possibilities so much, he began personally backpacking sand to the site via backpack and 5-gallon buckets. In the past five years, he has lugged an astounding 13 tons of pulverized limestone -- 100 pounds per trip -- to the treatment site, where high water events carry the acid-neutralizing material into the Middle Fork's main stem.
In June 2008, 28 volunteers from TU and the DNR carried 6 tons of limestone to the treatment site in 5-gallon buckets. The following June, 52 volunteers from seven TU chapters in three states manned the bucket brigade. Last Saturday, 110 volunteers -- 60 of them Wal-Mart employees from stores across the state -- lugged 9.5 tons of limestone sand to the site.
"This is part of Wal-Mart's Volunteer Action Program," said Dan White of Parkersburg, a district human resources official for the discount chain. "A lot of our associates like fishing and the outdoors, and they wanted to help TU and the DNR with this project. We also help fund TU's Trout in the Classroom program."
Wal-Mart volunteer Scott Waldo of Morgantown was among those working the bucket brigade line.
"Growing up, I fished all around this area," Waldo said. "I thought this would be a good way to get involved and make sure fishing will be good here in the future."
Enough volunteers were on hand last Saturday that they had to travel no more than a few feet to hand buckets to the person on the line.
In addition to TU members from six chapters and Wal-Mart volunteers from Morgantown to Galax, Va., the event drew DNR employees and members of their families; members of the Morris Creek Watershed Association; Appalachian Power employees; and four students at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire and their faculty adviser, Jerome Whitington.
"I'm impressed with the ongoing impact of acid rain, but I'm also impressed to see so many volunteers out here helping restore this stream," Whitington said. "It's clear that the people of West Virginia care about their environment."
During their stay in West Virginia, the Dartmouth students also worked with the Morris Creek Watershed Association in Montgomery, where they mulched trails and built a small fish habitat improvement dam for a stream once rendered sterile by acid mine drainage.
So far, the labor-intensive volunteer effort seems to be working.
"The pH level in the upper end of the stream is ideal for trout, and trout are starting to move into the lower end from the Williams River and one small nearby feeder stream," said Rebinski, who directed Saturday's bucket brigade activity. "We're getting there."
Rebinski said the Middle Fork would not be stocked when water quality eventually produces conditions favorable to trout. Instead, the stream will be repopulated naturally as trout gradually move up the stream, as acidity is neutralized. The goal is to restore the Middle Fork as a stream that supports a naturally reproducing population of brook trout.
Since 2005, the Kanawha Valley Chapter of Trout Unlimited has given $2,500 a year to the DNR to help pay for the liming project on the Middle Fork of the Williams. This year, the chapter received a $5,000 grant from the American Electric Power Foundation and a $1,000 grant from the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation to support the acid neutralization effort on the Pocahontas County stream.
Reach Rick Steelhammer at rsteelham...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-5169.
