EarthSolidarity!™ Initiatives are endeavors to which anyone can contribute in deed as well as in spirit, that
KNOXVILLE — Volunteer and make your community a cleaner, healthier place to live, work, and play during the 37th annual Ijams River Rescue from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, March 21. A severe weather date is set for Saturday, March 28.
Ijams Nature Center’s annual cleanup event brings together hundreds of individuals, families, Scout troops, businesses, and church groups to remove tons of trash and tires from sites along the Tennessee River, creeks, and streams.
“Ijams’ goal is to fill about 500 volunteer slots at 36 sites in Knox, Anderson, and Blount counties,” Volunteer Manager Brandy Cox said. “If you’re looking for a fun way to get outdoors and make a positive difference in your community, grab some friends and join us!”
Last year’s 518 volunteers removed an estimated 17.2 tons of trash, 100 tires, large household appliances, and car parts from 34 sites along area waterways.
Potential volunteers can sign up for a cleanup site or learn where they can help.
Site captains will be stationed at each site. Bags, gloves, and other supplies will be provided.
Volunteers will receive a free T-shirt featuring a frog that is passionate about clean water. It was designed by Hellbender Press contributor Stephen Lyn Bales.
Dutchman’s breeches (Dicentra cucullaria) is among the wildflowers you may encounter each spring at Whiteoak Sink and other areas of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The sink is such a draw for wildflower lovers the park service limits the number of people who can enter the sink at any one time in a bid to protect the flowers. Wikipedia Commons
GATLINBURG — In what has become an annual plea, rangers at Great Smoky Mountains National Park again reminds visitors to limit group sizes at Whiteoak Sink, a wildflower mecca in the most-visited park in the U.S.
Here’s the release from the National Park Service:
“As spring approaches, Great Smoky Mountains National Park reminds visitors of group size limits during the popular wildflower season at Whiteoak Sink. Individuals and small groups of eight or fewer people may access the Whiteoak Sink area throughout the wildflower season from April 1 through May 3.
“Whiteoak Sink is a sensitive area that hosts many rare plants. Park managers limit group size to protect sensitive wildflower species from trampling. Overuse of the area causes impacts like damage to plants and soil compaction when large groups crowd around plants off trail to take photos or closely view flowers. Parking is limited, so visitors should plan ahead and come prepared with alternative destinations in case they do not find parking available at Whiteoak Sink. Parking is not permitted on road shoulders.”
OAK RIDGE — Acclaimed writer David Haskell’s latest book offers a literary and scientific look at the vitality of plants (and most importantly, their flowers) and their impact on civilization.
“I hope that after reading the “How Flowers Made our World,” readers will experience flowers with more delight, curiosity, and reverence,” Haskell said in a release from Penguin Books. Haskell is the author of five books, two of which were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction.
“As in my other books, I interweave rich sensory observation with the latest scientific discoveries, aiming to enrich readers’ own experiences of flowers and the living world.
“This book is a culmination of what I’ve learned as a biologist and writer over the last thirty years: that even though we often dismiss flowers as mere ornaments, flowers run our world, from building ecosystems, to spurring the diversity and vitality of animals, to being the foundations of human agriculture.
He will speak to a Knoxville online Knoxville audience at 7 p.m. March 30.
The program is free, and registration for the Zoom presentation is available on the Arboretum Society website UTArboretumSociety.org. Tennessee Citizens for Wilderness Planning is a cosponsor.
A father and his daughter pose with a bagged Georgia bird. GDNR
ATLANTA — Youth and mobility-impaired hunters get an early start to turkey season on March 21-22. This special opportunity gives youth and mobility-impaired hunters a chance to harvest a gobbler on private lands before the statewide turkey season opens, according to the Georgia Department of Natural Resources’ Wildlife Resources Division.
This early weekend hunt opportunity is available on private lands and is only for youth 16 years of age and younger, or hunters that are mobility impaired (i.e. confined to a wheelchair, hemiplegia, monoplegia, paraplegia, or single-leg amputation above the knee). Youth hunters must be accompanied by an adult (18 years or older) who may call for turkey but may not take or attempt to take a turkey.
The season bag limit for turkeys is one gobbler (male turkey) per hunter per day, and a season total of two gobblers.
All turkey hunters, including those under 16 years of age, landowners, honorary, lifetime, and sportsman license holders, must obtain a free harvest record each season. Before moving a harvested turkey, hunters are required to immediately enter the date and county on the harvest record, and within 24 hours, must complete the reporting process through Georgia Game Check. More information at GeorgiaWildlife.com/HarvestRecordGeorgiaGameCheck.
-GDNR
The Walker Sisters Cabin is among the dozens of historic buildings in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Friends of the Smokies
This story was originally published by Compass.
GATLINBURG — It takes a lot of work to keep things looking the way they used to look.
A small army of uniquely skilled artisans labors through the seasons and decades to maintain, preserve and conserve the dozens of historical structures in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Restoration projects have included Cable Mill flume and Elijah Oliver cabin in Cades Cove, and the Walker Sisters Cabin in Little Greenbrier.
It takes talent and an old-fashioned eye for detail in cabins, barns, millraces, schoolhouses and churches. It also takes a lot of money.
The Boyd Foundation in February announced a $750,000 donation to Friends of the Smokies that will push a key historic-preservation endowment to $9 million.
Geoscientist Sean Bemis, undergraduate student Madeleine Kronebusch, and Dhari Alharbi '22, who was a student at the time, review data collected by their ground-penetrating radar system. Photo courtesy of Sean Bemis
Lon Wagner is senior director of communications and marketing in the Virginia Tech College of Science.
BLACKSBURG — In the forests of the southeastern United States, dense tree cover dominates most landscapes. That’s why the Appalachian Trail is sometimes nicknamed “The Green Tunnel.”
But avid hikers know that often in the Southeast, they’ll emerge from the green tunnel.
“When you walk out of the forest onto the rock, the contrast is immediate,” said Sean Bemis, a geoscientist and lead author of a study that uses these unique outcroppings as a natural laboratory to examine fundamental connections between rock weathering and vegetation. “You are standing on solid rock and you wonder where did all the trees go?”
Because of the lack of vegetation, these outcroppings are known as “balds.” But on geologic time scales, these balds have not always been devoid of vegetation. When bedrock is stripped of soil, it presents an extreme environment — hard, dry, and nutrient-poor — yet plants eventually take root. The study, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research-Earth Surface, reveals how this process unfolds during the earliest stages of what scientists call the critical zone: the life-supporting system of the Earth’s surface extending from bedrock to the tops of trees.
NASHVILLE —The 19th annual Tennessee Tree Day continues to branch toward March 21. This is the first time there will be events in each of the state’s 95 counties. The Tennessee Environmental Council (TEC) is the primary organizer. Tree reservations are open now and close on March 8.
Tennessee Tree Day is an opportunity for residents across the state to purchase native saplings of trees and woody shrubs to foster nature in their yards and neighborhoods. Woody plants provide habitat for wildlife, increase shade cover, help store carbon, and improve air quality.
Participants can pick up their trees on March 20 or 21 at any of the pick-up sites, which are run by various volunteer groups and businesses. Over a million trees have been planted thanks to Tennessee Tree Day since 2007.
There are 11 species to choose from this year, including sweet pecan, black elderberry and American persimmon — iconic Appalachian fruiting plants. Some other species are white pine, river birch, smooth sumac and eastern redbud.
Each sapling can be purchased for either $3.99 or $4.99, depending on species. For those who are unable to afford to participate, TEC offers tree scholarships. These scholarships are funded by corporate sponsorships, agency sponsorships and personal donations.
-Emelia Delaporte
The invasive spotted lanternfly can cause damage to many plants and has been detected in a few Tennessee counties, including Knox, Hamilton and Sullivan. Rebekka Horn/Courtesy UTIA
Patricia McDaniels is the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture news and information manager.
KNOXVILLE — The invasive spotted lanternfly (L. delicatula), which can damage many native trees and plants, has arrived in a few Tennessee counties, but all residents can help stop the spread by looking for and destroying egg masses before they hatch in the spring.
The adult female spotted lanternfly lays egg masses in September through November on host plants and other smooth surfaces, such as railroad ties, rocks, lumber, downed limbs and logs. Egg masses survive cold winter temperatures, and the first instar nymphs begin emerging in the spring. The nymphs mature through the spring and early summer before becoming adults in the beginning of June. The first, second and third instars feed on a variety of host plants. The fourth instars and adults prefer tree of heaven, grapes, black walnut, silver maple, red maple and willow.
“The best way to control spotted lanternfly outbreaks is to prevent them,” says Midhula Gireesh, assistant professor and University of Tennessee Extension specialist in the Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology. “Careful inspection for egg masses should be made on many types of products stored outdoors, such as firewood and lumber, before they are moved and shipped or before shipments are accepted. Since eggs start hatching at the end of March, now is a good time to scout for egg masses and destroy them.”
Maintaining safe temperatures and moisture levels within compost piles often requires labor-intensive manual testing processes. An AI-powered monitoring network under development at the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture will improve safety oversight. Photo courtesy UTIA.
Tate Cronin is a UTIA marketing and communications specialist.
KNOXVILLE — Composting turns organic waste into nutrient-rich material, but improper temperature and moisture control can allow pathogens to survive and increase safety risks. Researchers at the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture (UTIA) and UT Knoxville received a $362,000 grant from the Center for Produce Safety to develop an automated sensor network to improve monitoring of compost piles.
Sensors will be developed for placement directly within piles, eliminating the need for labor-intensive manual testing processes. Aerial drones equipped with radio-frequency identification (RFID) and light detection and ranging (LiDAR) technologies will collect data from the new sensors, mapping precise locations of temperature and moisture variations. Machine learning algorithms will then analyze the data, displaying information on a digital dashboard to help compost operators improve turning schedules and ensure uniform heating.
Chetan Badgujar, project lead and agricultural engineer in the Department of Biosystems Engineering and Soil Science, says the new system will support data-driven decision making. “Cold spots within a compost pile allow harmful pathogens to survive, while hot spots increase combustion risks. Our battery-free sensors will cost approximately $4 each, almost 90% cheaper than existing automated solutions. We want to save composters time and money in their day-to-day operations while still meeting FDA standards for safety.”
KNOXVILLE — The East Tennessee chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists (ETSPJ) once again will partner with the League of Women Voters Knoxville/Knox County (LWVKKC) to hold the annual legislative forum of the Knox County delegation. The forecast for Knoxville is warm and sunny, unlike the original date on Jan. 31.
When: Saturday, Feb. 28, 9-10:30 a.m.
Where: YWCA Phyllis Wheatley Center
What: Discussion with Knox County legislative delegation
Why: Hear from state senators and representatives about the 2026 session
It will be livestreamed on Facebook by the League of Women Voters HERE for those who can't attend in person.
The date is Saturday, Feb. 28, from 9-10:30 a.m. at the YWCA Phyllis Wheatley Center, located at 124 S. Cruze St., in East Knoxville near downtown. A parking lot next to the building and street parking are available. Parking is free.
Jesse Mayshark, a co-founder of Compass Knox, will serve as moderator. Access for one-on-one, in-person media interviews with the legislators in attendance also will be available at 10 a.m. after the hour-long forum.
Coffee and breakfast bagels and pastries will be available at 8:30 a.m. and are free while they last. The event is open to the public.
-ETSPJ
A standing-room-only crowd implored the Oak Ridge Planning Commission on Jan. 15 to preserve a forested tract on the west end of the city for its recreational and cultural values. At it’s next meeting, the commission backpedaled on its comprehensive plan. Ben Pounds/Hellbender Press
OAK RIDGE — After intense public pressure, the Oak Ridge Municipal Planning Commission backtracked on tentative planning proposals and recommended preserving two land parcels currently owned by the Department of Energy as parks or natural areas.
The votes, on Feb. 19, concerned a comprehensive plan the Planning Commission is developing as a general blueprint for the future of the entire city.
The Oak Ridge City Council will vote on it next. The plan does not establish formal zoning but rather a long-range guide for the type of development the city would like to occur in different areas. City planning staff had suggested residential development in two DOE-owned areas currently used for outdoor recreation. Those two areas were the Three Bends area on the city’s East Side, which is 3,000 acres along Melton Hill Lake including Clark Center Park. he ED-6 parcel on the city’s west side, which includes 336 acres adjacent to the Westwood subdivision. The latter proposal especially engendered public protest, with citizens packing a meeting room in January to voice their opposition.
The draft comprehensive plan originally suggested keeping most of the Three Bends area a park alongside some clustered development, including the possibility of 10-story apartment buildings. City Manager Randall Heman had discussed a school and residential developments in ED-6. Planning Commission amended the plan after many citizens cited the conservation and recreation values of the areas, and designated both areas for “nature and open space.” The changes came in two separate amendments, both of which passed.
KNOXVILLE — In a startling about-face, the Tennessee Valley Authority Board of Directors on Wednesday voted unanimously to reverse plans to decommission two aging coal-fired power plants in Tennessee.
The board’s decision represents a dramatic departure from a utilitywide effort to move away from coal as an energy source.
Climate activists panned the board vote as a sop to the fossil-fuel industry and an abdication of the massive public utility’s statutory responsibility to the public.
The decision during the board’s meeting in Hopkinsville, Ky., applies to the Cumberland and Kingston fossil plants, both of which were to be replaced with natural-gas plants. The utility will continue planned natural-gas upgrades but will still fire the coal plants, which were both set to be decommissioned by 2028.
The site of the 70-year-old Kingston plant in Roane County was also supposed to be home to a solar array and other alternative-energy sources. A 2008 coal-ash slurry spill at the Kingston facility devastated a wide swath of adjacent property and the Emory and Clinch river watersheds. The Cumberland plant is situated near Clarksville in Middle Tennessee.
The Bull Run coal plant in Claxton near Oak Ridge was taken offline in 2023. Its locally iconic stacks were demolished in 2025. Last month, TVA announced a multimillion-dollar fusion energy research complex at the site in cooperation with Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the University of Tennessee and Knoxville-based Type One Energy.
The board’s decision on the Kingston and Cumberland facilities represents a dramatic departure from a utilitywide effort to move on from coal and shutter coal-fired boilers in favor, largely, of natural gas.
Burning coal and other fossil fuels releases large amounts of sulfates, nitrates and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and worsens a greenhouse effect that drives global temperature increases. Fine particles are also a threat to respiratory health. TVA has long operated costly emissions-control technologies at its coal plants.
This 2024 global temperature anomaly recap was released after the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared 2024 the hottest year on record. On Feb. 12, 2026, the Trump Administration moved to gut the science-based “findings” rule that allowed the U.S. to restrict the release of carbon dioxide and other pollutants known to be contributing to the global greenhouse effect. NOAA
This story was originally published by The Conversation. R. Alexander Bentley is a professor of anthropology at the University of Tennessee.
KNOXVILLE — Years ago, after taking an Earth science class, I found myself looking at the world differently. It was the 1990s, and lakes in Wisconsin where I lived at the time were beginning to freeze later in winter and thaw earlier in spring, and flowers seemed to bloom a bit earlier.
That geology class helped me understand the gradual warming that was underway, warming that has accelerated since then.
People are more likely to believe an explanation when they see direct evidence of it. In the U.S., the percentage of people who recognize that global warming is happening is higher in counties that experienced record high temperatures in the previous decade. But understanding what’s happening and why also matters. That’s because people’s existing knowledge shapes how they interpret the evidence they see.
Education level and political affiliation are both known to be strong global predictors of concern about climate change.
But does higher education actually create climate concern? As an anthropologist and a researcher in computational social science, I and my colleague Ben Horne set up a study to try to answer that question.
Dr. Genia Naro-Maciel, Dr. Leonardo Maciel and DLiA intern, Chloe Pryor collect eDNA samples in vernal pools in Cades Cove to study amphibian diversity. Jaimie Matzko
GATLINBURG — Discover Life in America (DLiA), nonprofit science partner of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, invites scientists, educators, students, and nature enthusiasts to the 2026 Park Science Colloquium on March 5.
DLiA hosts this annual symposium in cooperation with the park to celebrate the innovative science and research happening in the Smokies.
The Colloquium is free and open to everyone and there are two ways to participate:
Virtually via Zoom or in person at the historic Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, Gatlinburg, TN
The 2026 Park Science Colloquium will feature engaging presentations from scientists working in and around the Great Smoky Mountains, offering insights into current research and conservation efforts. Participants will have opportunities to interact directly with presenters, whether attending online or in-person at the Arrowmont School.
“The thing I love most about our annual colloquium is that I always learn something new—something I’d never heard of before but I won’t be able to stop thinking about,” said Dr. Will Kuhn, director of science and research at Discover Life in America. “As one of the most researched national parks, there are all kinds of research happening here all the time. We invite you to tune in, be amazed, and gain a new appreciation for our natural world.”
Environmental theologian Julie Lehman is the MountainTrue Creation Care coordinator. Based in Asheville, she works with church congregations to improve their environmental stewardship. Creation Care Alliance
ASHEVILLE — Julie Lehman is shepherding positive change across the Southern Appalachians.
“(Creation care) is a beautiful trend in faith communities, and kind of a new ministry in faith communities because it hasn’t been one of the staples of ministry work that churches do,” said Lehman, engagement manager for Creation Care Alliance. “People are really having fun with creation care, adopting it as one of the essential callings that faith communities have to do in the world.”
Creation Care Alliance (CCA) works to connect faith-based communities in the region to environmentalism through the religious concept of creation care. Creation care can be loosely defined as the practice of engaging in environmentalism through a religious lens – for example, planting a pollinator garden at a place of worship, or cleaning up a stream with a church group.
In many rural or isolated American communities, churches are still the center of life. The Southern Appalachians are a strong example of this. Lehman is based in Asheville, where the destruction wrought by Hurricane Helene opened doors to her modern ministry practices. The devastation waged on both land and lives marked a crossroads in the climate change debate for many who were affected.
“Hurricane Helene really helped people to see that you can’t go to one place to be safe from the impact of climate change and that the climate change debate seems to be less (of) a debate,” Lehman said. “I’m sensing a real strong readiness on the part of the people of faith that I work with. People are fully engaged and wanting to tie in what they naturally want to do to help nature with their faith.”
Thousands of sandhill cranes winter at the confluence of the Hiwassee and Tennessee rivers in Birchwood, Tennessee. The 35th edition of the Sandhill Crane Festival is set for Jan. 16-17. TWRA
Lee Wilmot is statewide information specialist for the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency.
BIRCHWOOD — The 35th Tennessee Sandhill Crane Festival is set for Jan. 17-18 at the Hiwassee Wildlife Refuge, Cherokee Removal Memorial Park, and Birchwood Community Center. The festival celebrates the thousands of sandhill cranes that stop over or spend the winter on or near the refuge. It is also an opportunity to focus attention on the rich heritage of the state and the Native American history of the area.
The free event runs 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day and includes free shuttle transportation from the Birchwood Community Center to the Cherokee Removal Memorial Park and the Hiwassee Wildlife Refuge and parking is available at the Birchwood Baptist Church. Visitors will notice a change this year regarding parking. A parking map can be found on the festival webpage.
Beginning in the early 1990s, the recovering population of eastern sandhill cranes began stopping at the Hiwassee Refuge on their way to and from their wintering grounds in Georgia and Florida. TWRA has been managing the refuge for more than 60 years for waterfowl, and it provides sandhill cranes with a combination of feeding and shallow water roosting habitat. Thousands of birds now spend the entire winter at the confluence of the Hiwassee and Tennessee rivers. The Hiwassee Refuge comprises about 6,000 acres.
Jessica Waller, whose father worked on cleanup of a massive Tennessee Valley Authority coal ash spill, reflects on the effects of his work nearly 20 years after the spill. Benjamin Pounds for Tennessee Lookout
This story was originally published by Tennessee Lookout.
HARRIMAN — Seventeen years have passed since a massive rupture at a Tennessee Valley Authority plant spilled more than 1.1 billion gallons of coal ash into Harriman, Tenn., but the event is still raw in Jessica Waller’s mind.
Waller’s father, Ernest Hickman, a union contractor for Jacobs Engineering Group, worked on cleanup of the spill.
Hickman died of emphysema, which Waller attributes to his contact with the ash over a six-year cleanup period — specifically beryllium, a naturally occurring metal used in the nuclear, automotive and aerospace industries; and arsenic, which is used in metal, technology and some medical uses.
Both are present in coal fly ash and are highly toxic.
She believes her mother, Patsy Hickman, also got ill from exposure after washing her husband’s clothes and other activities putting her in contact with the ash, causing her death of respiratory failure.
“It’s sad to know there’s a lot of people even here in Tennessee in the area who have no idea about the coal ash spill,” Waller said. “Or they do but they didn’t know the extent of the devastation that it caused, especially health-wise of making so many people sick.”
In May, researchers assessed the damage to a road and the stream than flowed within the culverts that resulted from flooding caused by Hurricane Helene. Colin Krause/USDA Forest Service.
BLACKSBURG — Virginia Tech and its Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation, in partnership with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service Southern Research Station, received an $8.8 million grant to address environmental impacts from Hurricane Helene in the Southern Appalachians.
The initiative will be carried out through the Center for Aquatic Technology Transfer, a Forest Service office in Blacksburg that focuses on aquatic ecosystem science and management in national forests.
Virginia Tech will lead the human resources component, hiring and training technicians and crew leaders to conduct fieldwork. With the ability to call on current graduate students as well as connections to alumni with experience conducting analysis in a forest environment, the university can rapidly contract 20 employees to form teams and begin critical data collection in early 2026.
The benefit to the university comes in the experience students receive in providing this vital field research.
