By Ethan Hollifield
Summer is finally upon us here in the Appalachians. This brings with it the nostalgic notions of wet wading in cool mountain streams to cast dry flies at wild trout, away from everything and everyone. However, summertime also brings with it tourists… lots of tourists. A great number of tourists flock to Western North Carolina from all over the country to escape the stress of suburbia and the intolerable heat of the flatlands. Our streams offer opportunities for those seeking a respite from life to enjoy varied types of recreation: the most popular being fishing, tubing, and swimming. All of these things are well and good, but it also creates an issue from an ecological standpoint on how these seemingly innocent activities can evolve into an issue that affects the biotic health of our streams as a whole. To put it simply, people are moving too many rocks, and this relatively insignificant act is having significant consequences on our streams.
Most campgrounds and recreational areas in Western North Carolina are based around rivers and streams. I spent a good portion of my summer guiding around one particular campground next to a river where I saw a massive amount of tourist traffic in a singular location. Over the course of the summer, I noticed that more and more rocks that made up the bottom of the stream were being moved in extremely large quantities to make things like dams, V-shaped river channels, and rock statues. At one point, a rock dam over 30 feet across and 5 feet high was erected across the entire width of this trout stream during the heat of the summer. By the end of September, I had removed a total of 15 of these dams from this stretch of river, which as considerable amount of bed load that is being moved at an unnatural rate along the streambed.
So, what’s the big deal about moving a few rocks in a creek? The biggest issue that can arise is the increased water temperature that comes from the water’s velocity decreasing. This increase in temperature lowers the dissolved oxygen levels of a stream, which can negatively affect populations of aquatic insects and trout that require cold water with high amounts of dissolved oxygen to survive. Rocks can also acts as radiators of heat when positioned around sunny areas, further compounding the issue. On top of this, the decreased velocity of stream flow allows for unnatural amounts of dissolved sediment loads to be deposited behind the rock dam, further choking out aquatic insects and vegetation. The disturbances of these rocks will also disturb and potentially lead to the further decline in the populations of hellbenders. Hellbenders are an ancient species of salamander that can reach lengths of up to a meter long. These critters are nocturnal, and live most of their lives under the same rock. Moving these rocks from the stream bottom results in their habitat being disturbed, and can increase the chances of this threatened species being exposed to predation or even crushed by the ignorance of someone who doesn’t know any better.
This article is short and I wish I could go into more detail about how the consequences of one simple act can be compounded to have negative effects on our ecosystems. However I hope this will serve as a reminder to everyone of how fragile these places are to disturbance. If you come to the mountains to enjoy our streams, remember you are it’s visitor and these places deserve all the protection that we can give.
Ethan Hollifield is an Environmental/Physical Science Teacher and is also a guide for Southern Appalachian Anglers.