The Hemlock    

Volume 2, Issue 1 ( September 2008)

 "The technology we need most badly is the technology of community -- the knowledge about how to cooperate to get things done. . . . We Americans haven't needed our neighbors for anything important, and hence neighborliness -- local solidarity -- has disappeared. Our problem now is that there is no way forward, at least if we're serious about preventing the worst ecological nightmares, that doesn't involve working together politically to make changes deep enough and rapid enough to matter." --Bill McKibben

Welcome Back!
Hopefully much of your summer was spent immersed in the natural beauty of central Pennsylvania.  This is the first issue of the new academic year for the online newsletter, The Hemlock, a publication of the Environmental Focus Group.  Our goal is to help the Lock Haven University community develop a deeper sense of place.  Thus, The Hemlock features articles on outdoor recreation opportunities, information on ways to protect and preserve the environment, and insights into the heritage and culture of central Pennsylvania.  The articles are contributed by LHU faculty, staff, and students--if you would like to submit something for a future issue, please contact Bob Myers.  If you missed the previous three issues of The Hemlock and would like to get caught up, you can find them online at: Hemlock 1.1 (March 2008), Hemlock 1.2 (April 2008), and Hemlock 1.3 (May 2008).

The theme of this issue is environmental threat.  Although The Hemlock tries to maintain a positive tone, it is important to recognize the seriousness of the many environmental challenges that we face.  There is much work that needs to be done by all of us.

The Unraveling Ecosystem in State Game Land 295
     --Barrie Overton (LHU Biology Professor)

Just across the road from Lock Haven University's Sieg Conference Center is a trail that follows Cherry Run through State Game Land (SGL) 295.  SGL 295 was founded in 1979 and represents the largest project in Pennsylvania Conservancy history to protect four mountain streams and nearly 20 square miles (12,860 acres) of game-rich forested mountain terrain in which bear, deer, squirrels, turkey, grouse, box turtles, and frogs abound.  You can even fish for brook trout in the limestone waters of Cherry Run (although they remain elusive prey for me). However, the forests and mountain streams of State Game Land 295 are facing a serious threat. 

Hemlock Wooly Adelgid
The dominant tree in SGL 295 is the Pennsylvania state tree, the hemlock (Tsuga canadensis).  The hemlocks in SGL 295 are severely infested by the hemlock woolly adelgid (Adelges tsugae) an invasive pest from East Asia, and the trees are currently showing signs of stress.  If nothing is done, the hemlocks will disappear, possibly within a decade.  Apart from the tragic loss of these beautiful trees, the hemlock is a cornerstone species, and if a cornerstone species disappears from a habitat, it will lead to fundamental shifts in the ecosystem and the disappearance of other species from that habitat.  Without the hemlocks, the wilderness streams will no longer be sheltered in shade, stream temperatures will rise, trout will no longer find the stream a hospitable place, box turtles and frogs will no longer find the area a moist and suitable habitat, there will be increased soil erosion, and many organisms will have to move to a different location to survive or face extinction (given that hemlock forest are declining across PA).  Furthermore, we will lose microorganisms such as fungi that are associated with the hemlocks in symbiotic relationships.

Based on previous scientific research, we know that right now in State Game Land 295, pine trees and oak trees are sending emails to the hemlocks (please excuse the anthropomorphism) along a vast internet made up of billions of tiny connections of fungal threads called mycelium smaller than the width of a human hair.  Instead of a text based email outlining the pros and cons of university policies, the message that the pine and oak are sending is in the form ofphotosynthates, or sugars.  The hemlocks are stressed, their products of photosynthesis are being utilized by the woolly adelgid and the hemlocks are literally starving to death, so pine and oak are sharing sugars they produced by photosynthesis.  Sugars are shared between tree speciesthrough a fungal network of mycelium that mycologists, like myself, call ectomycorrhizal associations (symbiotic associations between trees and mushrooms, in which the tree provides the mushroom photosynthates, and the tree is compensated by the increased efficiency of mineral absorption by fungal mycelium, and by the storage of mineral nutrients that aren't immediately needed by the tree). You may have seen ectomycorrhizal fungi--they are the mushrooms you find fruiting in abundance this time of year. Mycologists do not yet understand how the fungi determine that one of their hosts is under stress and how the mechanism of sharing carbon (sugar) resources works, but we do know that the process has limitations and that the hemlocks will eventually die if the woolly adelgid is not eradicated.

Eradication of the adelgid may never occur.  States such as New Hampshire have switched almost exclusively to restoration programs where pine and spruce are being planted to replace the hemlocks in an attempt to maintain coniferous forests and the benefits of shade and moisture retention they provide. There are pesticides available for treating infected trees, but they are applicable more for the homeowner than a 12,860 acre forest.  Minor advances in biocontrol have been made and some predatory beetles are being evaluated.  Recovery plans include protecting some hemlock stands with pesticides as a seed source for breeding programs.   However, breeding programs take decades.  Additionally, in order to replant resistant trees, you need to also seed their symbiotic fungi.  The problem is that we don’t know what fungi are associated with hemlocks in any detail. 

LHU Students Puzzling Over Mushrooms with Dr. Overton
In an effort to document the fungal organisms that are associated with hemlocks, I have been working with other mycologists to collect and identify fungi at State Game Land 295.  Scientists from the New York Botanical Garden, the Chicago Field Museum, Cornell, Berkley, the University of Oregon, SUNY-ESF, Howard University, Penn State, amateur naturalists from around Pennsylvania, and international scientists from Japan, Spain, and Estonia have helped me to generate a list of 207 species of fungi found in State Game Land 295.  This list will continue to grow with research being conducted in an independent study project this fall by a Lock Haven University undergraduate, A.J. Johnson.  This list will be used by scientists at other institutions who are cloning fungi from hemlock roots and determining their identity based on DNA sequence data.  This information will be necessary for restoring hemlocks in Pennsylvania. 

To fully appreciate the importance of the need to save the hemlocks and SGL 295, I encourage you go for a hike along Cherry Run. I think that you will agree that this unique habitat needs to be protected.  It took the greatest Central Pennsylvania Conservancy effort in the history of the organization to create SGL 295 and it is going to take the greatest restoration effort in Pennsylvania history to protect it for future generations to enjoy. Currently there are no pines or spruce being planted along the streams to offset the loss of hemlocks, and state funding for research in woolly adelgid control is minimal.  As a result, the wilderness streams and all of the animal and plant species that depend on them are endangered.  The ecosystem is unraveling and no-one is paying attention.  Join with me and send your copy of this publication to your state representatives and congressional leaders and ask them to begin the restoration project now!

For more information, visit these websites:  Save Our Hemlocks, the US Forest Service's Wooly Adelgid page (source of the adelgid picture above), and PA DCNR's Hemlock Wooly Adelgid site.

Hike of the Month: State Game Land 295
To see the hemlocks described in Professor Overton's article, try the following 10 mile hike (4-5 hours).  First, download the map of SGL 295.  Go to LHU's Sieg Conference Center, which is 14 miles from campus (directions).  Do not turn into Sieg; instead continue on Narrows Road for two tenths of a mile until you reach the bridge over Cherry Run.  Park in the lot on the left and follow the red blazes to the main trail--you will cross two (slippery!) wooden bridges before reaching the trail, where you turn left (note the red arrow sign) and begin following Cherry Run northeast.  After 4.5 miles (about 2 hours), you will reach a gravel road (Cherry Run Road).  Turn right and follow the gravel road south for 1/2 mile.  The road continues southwest along Bear Run for 4.5 miles, gradually becoming a trail, before it connects again to Narrows Road.  Turn right on Narrows Road and a half mile later, you will be back at your car.

This is a beautiful hike that is not terribly difficult.  Most of it is level, and, with the exception of a few muddy and rocky areas, the trail is smooth.  The hemlocks on the return leg down Bear Run seem to be the most damaged by the wooly adelgid.  You can see trout in the small pools of Bear Run. (My thanks to my hiking partners who helped me investigate this trail--Mark, Lisette, John, Sue, Elizabeth, and Max.)

For your convenience, we have put all of the previous Hikes of the Month on one webpage: Hemlock Hikes.

Nature Photography by Nate Fought (LHU Art Major)

pH and Paradox
     --Mark Smith (LHU English Professor)

I remember the first time I saw the West Branch of the Susquehanna. Newly arrived from the midwest, I walked the full length of Lock Haven up on the levee. To me, my new hometown was just the right size. The University, too. And the river? So clear I could see down fifteen, maybe twenty feet. An astonishing green-hued clarity. On that day in June I watched a loon diving for fish between the shore and Boom Island beside the University. I watched the dark bird swimming sleek and swift as a fish, though I didn’t see it catch anything. I had seen water this clear out west—at Lake Tahoe, and Lake McDonald in Glacier National—but now I would be kayaking a clean, clear river of my own. I couldn’t wait to put in, couldn’t wait to explore.

I had the river all wrong of course. Within a week of moving here, I had kayaked upriver past Queen’s Run to Lick Run, about five miles up. By the time I got there unease had replaced my enthusiasm. I understood then that the upper reaches of this river (from Lock Haven up) are all but lifeless. Acid mine drainage (AMD) has so altered the pH that almost nothing lives in the water. Many of the tributaries are acidic, and in spots, garish, rust-red seeps of acid enter the river from left or right, often staining the stones on the riverbottom. From a kayak I look down into a rocky riverscape of almost lunar lifelessness. I often feel like the only living thing in the river, and sometimes, of course, I am. That absence of living things can be a strange and lonely experience.

According to E.O. Wilson’s “biophilia hypothesis” we are attracted to life and living things because it’s in our genes. As Stephen Kellert describes it, the hypothesis is “a scientific claim of a human need, fired in the crucible of evolutionary development, for deep and intimate association with the natural environment, particularly its living biota.” I have always known that bone-deep need so my first outings on the West Branch were quite a shock. In fact, I felt out of place, almost like a man touring a watery moon in an alien solar system. I looked for all the river life I knew in the midwest: the great blue herons, the green herons, the bald eagles and ospreys. I wanted kingfishers scolding me with chittering calls. I wanted damselflies—civil bluets and American rubyspots—alighting on my boat, my paddle, my hands. I wanted fish streaming away for deeper water and turtles basking on logs. I looked for these things in the West Branch but almost nothing was there. Just the ghostly rocks, the deep green pools sinking into blackness, the acid transparency of the water.

Oh, I’ll see some fish now and again—little ones mostly. And I’ll sometimes see the birds. On a twenty mile trip down from Hyner I might see a pair of bald eagles, or one green heron, or a few spotted sandpipers. I’ve happened upon a particular snapping turtle twice now, it’s shell stained red like the rocks. And thankfully, in my own unscientific surveys I see a bit more life with every passing year.

And yet, despite the life-loneliness, there is a curious paradox on the West Branch. On one hand it’s almost dead. On the other hand all that sparkling water can be a tremendous and beautiful sight. The stony riverbottom can be lovely to watch as it glides beneath my boat hull. In the pools, I watch the bottom drop into holes so deep the light can’t escape. Then I watch the blackness go to green, the green resolve itself into stones, the stones rise up until bright rock-colors are gliding swiftly past in sun-filled rapids. The clarity makes it easy to study the morphology of this river—a classic “pool and riffle” pattern, with big lazy pools alternating with short easy riffles.

Mornings and evenings the sun explodes off the clear water in a million places, a glittering glorious immersion in light. From the mountaintops, and from cliffs overlooking the river, the water takes on rich and varied (and often unnatural) hues in many lights and seasons. And of course on hot summer days, the river is a perfect place to swim. After all, the water is practically swimming-pool clear. All summer the kids of Lock Haven drift down from the railroad bridge three miles up, their limbs draped over inner tubes and hanging from rafts.

So the West Branch is a paradox. A lovely, but lonely place, both beautiful and dead.

Restoring the West Branch watershed is—and will be for decades to come—hard and costly work. According to the Pennsylvania DEP, estimates range from 279 to 464 million dollars to do the whole thing. It sounds like a lot of money, but of course it’s a simple question of priorities. I have to believe we’ll get those priorities straightened out again.  And when we do, imagine the beautiful healing we will witness, as life—species by species—returns to the West Branch. Dragonflies. Crayfish. Mollusks. The American shad. Along with the fish, the birds that eat the fish, and also the fisherman who eat the fish. Imagine the ripe plenitude of a healthy, living river. The recovery might remind us of evolution greatly speeded up, like a second Cambrian explosion of life. A moment of astounding growth and healing. I look forward to a day when I travel the West Branch in the full company of life. I can’t wait for the day when I startle a big school of American shad, watch them close ranks like a liquid fist and charge upstream into a living river once again, a living river for all of us.

Reflecting upon Our Relationship with the Environment or R-E-S-P-E-C-T
     --Joan Whitman Hoff (LHU Philosophy Professor)

When we think of relationships, we often think of the people in our lives and the different types of bonds we have with each of them.  Whether we are children or parents, teachers or students, buyers or sellers, our relationships play significant roles in our lives and, perhaps, help us to define ourselves.  In many ways, the people in our lives help us to live and grow in the world.  Often, respect for the "other" in those relationships is one of the basic values we hold – or know we should hold.  We often assume that people have "integrity" as humans and deserve to be treated in a particular way.  We may give thanks for them, and to them, throughout our lives, though sometimes only after something awakens us and reminds us not to take them for granted.

 In a similar manner, it might be helpful for us to think about the kind of relationship we have with the environment.  Of course, we can think about the different ways in which the environment manifests itself: culturally, socially, biologically, etc., and each of these may hold their own special meaning for us.  It is also possible, and necessary, to consider how we interact with the environment itself and how we see ourselves in relation to it.  Sometimes, we may take the environment for granted and not be as respectful as we should be.  Sometimes, it may be invisible to us as we move through our busy lives. 

 The word ‘relationship’ refers to a connection or alliance … a common origin.  Surely, we share much with the environment; yet, perhaps because it remains in the ‘background’, or at least we think it does, we don’t often see it as we should, nor treat it as we should.  We may take it for granted and view it only in terms of what it can do for us.  Or, it may remain invisible to us as we move through the day with tunnel vision, trying to satisfy our own needs.

 For some, the anthropocentric (human-centered) view we have is used to legitimate the use, and abuse, of the environment.  Even though people, arguably, are the most important entities in our relationships, we may not think about the impact our actions toward the environment might have on those we love.  For others, like Eagle Man, “We are all related,” and we cannot separate who we are or what we do, and the human relationships we have, fully from the environment.  We are because it is.  This non-anthropocentric view requires us to recognize what ‘mother earth’ has given us, and it reminds us that we should give thanks to it and for it. 

 Environmental slogans such as, “Love your mother” and “Hug a tree” might seem silly to some, but they surely can serve as reminders that we owe much to the environment and the world around us as we do to those with whom we share our lives.  These reminders can wake us up and help us to recognize that our tunnel vision may leave us with an incomplete view of the world, and no trees left to hug. 

 Just as a neglected human relationship often results in a breakup, and lots of shouting and screaming along the way, a neglected relationship with the environment may lead to the environment shouting at us in a different manner.  As Eagle Man says, Mother Earth is showing signs of being weary from our lack of respect.   Its resources are being exploited, it water begin wasted, and its air being polluted.  We cannot continue to take without giving something back in return; we cannot continue to be cared for and not care in return. 

 John Locke (17^th century) told us that we should be mindful that the things of the world are not ours to abuse; rather, they are gifts. We need to be mindful that they are to be used respectfully, keeping in mind that others have needs for these things, too.  This requires us to at least consider the value of all things in the world, and not just us.

 Any relationship requires give and take.  One that only takes will soon surely see its demise.  The earth is shouting to us in a variety of ways, asking us to wake up, see its beauty, take care of it, and give it a little respect.  If we choose not to do so, there may be nothing, and no one, left to hug, nothing and no one to whom we can relate. 

 Maybe it’s time to give your Mother a call.

Eagle Man's essay  “We are all related” can be found in Philosophies for Living (Robert M. Timko & Joan Whitman Hoff, eds.).

Book Review: Bill McKibben, The End of Nature
     --Bob Myers

A colleague recently gave me a journal that listed the ten most important environmental books, and one of these was McKibben's 1989 The End of Nature, a title that I'd often come across, but had never read.  In addition to being an important environmental book, I would also nominate it for one of the ten best depression-inducing books, rivaling Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure.  McKibben was one of the earliest environmentalists to point to the threat of global warming, and he does an impressive job of compiling the evidence to show that humanity is on the verge of disaster.  The title refers to the end of nature as a separate entity, something wild that sets limits on human vanity.  This belief that man and nature were ever fully separate has been challenged recently by environmental critics, but McKibben's recognition of the threat to the world as we've known it for thousands of years remains powerful. 

My depression came from the realization of how little we've done since 1989 to address this problem.  Once conscious of the urgency of the crisis, it's hard not to feel outrage at the continued indifference of our political leaders.  Or at our own continued indifference.  McKibben's book makes it clear that this crisis will not be averted by changing a few light bulbs, recycling, and buying smaller cars.  It requires a radical reduction in our culture of consumption, what he calls a more "humble" lifestyle.  We all need to use much less than we do.  And we need to do it immediately.  Perhaps it's time that we initiate a discussion about how we as a university could reduce our consumption of paper and other resources. 

McKibben ends his book with hope: "This could be the epoch when people decide at least to go no farther down the path we've been following--when we make not only the necessary technological adjustments to preserve the world from overheating but also the necessary mental adjustments to ensure that we'll never again put our good ahead of everything else's.  This is the path I choose, for it offers at least a shred of hope for a living, eternal, meaningful world."

The Environmental Focus Group
Bob Myers (chair), Md. Khalequzzaman, Lenny Long, Jeff Walsh, Danielle Tolton, John Crossen, Sandra Barney, David White, Tom Ormond.  The committee is charged with promoting and supporting activities, experiences, and structures that encourage students, faculty, and staff to develop a stronger sense of place for Lock Haven University and central Pennsylvania.  Such a sense of place involves a stewardship of natural resources (environmentalism), meaningful outdoor experiences, and appreciation for the heritage of the region.