Friends of the Preserve and Sanctuary

As y’all know, I’m a big tree-hugger and I love me some Alabama.  Actually I’m a water-hugger but that makes no sense, except that we drink the water from the Flint River so protecting the area around our water supply is pretty important.  I attended the Friends of the Hays Nature Preserve and Goldsmith Schiffman Wildlife Sanctuary annual meeting this evening at the Monte Sano State Park Lodge. 

The speaker was Bill Finch, Conservation Director of the Alabama Chapter of the Nature Conservancy.  I’ll go ahead and note that I like most of what the Nature Conservancy does, and they’ve done great work by preserving Alabama’s natural heritage in concert with the State’s Forever Wild program (for example, they helped buy the Walls of Jericho in Jackson County).  I don’t like their support for cap and trade (which I think is an Enron-like scheme that does nothing for the environment and will harm the American economy).  More on Finch and Forever Wild later…

The Hays Preserve and the Goldsmith Schiffman Sanctuary are Huntsville City Parks out Governors Drive past Hampton Cove.  I’d like to acknowledge and thank Boeing for their $23,000 grant and the Alabama Homebuilders for their $1,000 grant.  One of the projects underway is the construction of an interpretive center  being designed by Greg Kamback which will be LEED certified (which seems to take “the longest time for the smallest building”), but it will be way cool and cheap to operate once built.  It will feature a native drought tolerant landscape, natural lighting inside (tube skylights, light shelf, windows), an airlock, and possibly a geo-thermal heat exchange (like President GW Bush’s house – he was an early adopter of the technology) and a vegetative roof (real plants on the roof with a recirculating rain barrel system).  The Nature Preserve is also trying to be a dark sky park – which means limiting the light spillage from parking lots and driveways.  Note – the HSV Planning Department is interested in re-writing the Lighting Ordinance to better accomodate dark sky areas.

Now, back to Bill Finch.  He was a managing editor of the Mobile Press Register and their attention contributed to the purchase of the  Mobile Tensaw Delta under the State’s Forever Wild program.  Notable quotes include the following:  “Alabama is the most diverse Eastern State” in terms of forests and aquatic life (i.e., we have more different species of fish, turtles, mussles, and crawfish).  “In some years of our worst drought, we were almost as dry as Seattle” (Mobile is the wettest City / Alabama is the wettest State in the CONUS).  Alabama is the “genetic reserve” for North America.

My favorite quote was “Fire is as natural as rain in Alabama”.

Finch spoke about the Nature Conservancy and Forever Wild’s efforts to preserve the Paint Rock watershed (coincidentally, I drove through the area last weekend – absolutely incredible after the rains).  “We have the possibility in Paint Rock of recreating a functioning landscape” and it’s “the last 19th Century Appalachian Valley”.

Finch also spoke of the threats posed by invasive species.  The top threats are 1) ‘Laurel Wilt’, which could kill most of the undergrowth in our forests, and 2) the ‘Emerald Ash Borer’, which could kill ALL of the ash trees in the State.

He also reminded the audience that the Alabama Forever Wild program expires in 2012 and warns that there may be efforts to redefine the program (keep the name, change the deal).  I encourage all State elected officials and candidates for State office to pass the Forever Wild program as it stands now.

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More thoughts and stuff.  The Monte Sano State Park Lodge is beautiful.  Thanks to the Hays and Goldsmith Schiffman families for their generosity in donating the Preserve and Sanctuary.  After the event, I ran into Bill Finch at Humphreys, which was pretty cool.  I also ran into Professor Tom and Vince, which was, again, pretty cool.  Prichard Distilleries up around Fayetteville makes an outstanding Double-Barrelled Bourbon (support your local businesses).