White Pine Group

A northeastern Iowa group of the Iowa chapter of the Sierra Club.
Serving the counties of Allamakee, Clayton, Delaware, Dubuque, Fayette, Howard, Jackson, and Winneshiek

Sierra Club - founded 1892

• Explore, enjoy and protect the wild places of the earth
• Practice and promote the responsible use of the earth's ecosystems and resources
• Educate and enlist humanity to protect and restore the quality of the natural and human environment
• Use all lawful means to carry out these objectives

Follow-up from our October 23, 2007 Program/Meeting! Explore, Enjoy and PROTECT.

Stop mountaintop removal mining by protecting our waterways.

Background
The Bush administration has made a rule change to the Clean Water Act of 1977, which allows coal mining companies to dump waste material into waterways. This change has legalized the destructive practice of mountaintop removal coal mining. In this practice, forests are clear-cut, entire mountaintops are blown off and the millions of tons of debris are dumped into nearby streams to get at coal seams that lie deep beneath the surface. Over 300,000 acres of mountains in Appalachia have been permitted for flattening. Over 1,000 miles of mountain streams have been buried beneath mining rubble. At the current rate, half the mountains of southern West Virginia will be gone in the next 20 years.

Representatives Frank Paltone and Christopher Shays have introduced bipartisan legislation that will amend the Clean Water Act to prohibit the practice of burying our waterways underneath valley fills.

PLEASE WRITE A LETTER to your Washington representatives and urge them to cosponsor and support HR 2169, The Clean Water Protection Act, which would prohibit mining waste from being used for valley fill, and would protect streams across America from being used as waste disposal sites.

1. Rep. Bruce Braley, 1408 Longworth Bidg, Washington DC 20515 (Waterloo, Davenport)
2. Rep. Dave Loebsack, 1513 Longworth Btdg, Washington DC 20515 (Iowa City)

Sample points to make in your letter:

• The Clean Water Act is meant to protect, not bury, our rivers, streams, wetlands, and coastal areas.


• The rule change by the Bush administration, which allows mining companies to dump waste in our waterways, is corporate exploitation for industry profit.
  
• I urge you to cosponsor The Clean Water Protection Act to help protect our waterways and end the destructive practice of mountaintop removal mining.
  
• For more info or for photos of active mountaintop removal mining, go to http://www.ohvec.org/

The following e-mail was received by Dick Worm from another retired teacher following the Turkey Dinner Fundraiser. This man's wife, Donna, is a substitute teacher for the Dubuque Community Schools and happened to sub for the same 6th grade class the Friday before and the Monday following the Turkey Dinner:

"Donna just told me of a boy by the name of Mitchell who said he had the best time of his life this weekend. He spent a night out (Nov. 3) with the Roosevelt School Sierra Society club at a pond that had the biggest bluegills he'd ever seen. He had the greatest time and there was a guy by the name of Worm. He said, 'Worms and a pond' sorta go together."

"Donna had subbed Friday and this boy told her he was going to camp out at a pond with the Sierra Club. Donna told him that the man that owned it was Mr. Worm. He reported this back to her today. He was just beaming, Donna said."

"Way to go... [the Sierra Club] is still giving a lot of kids a chance of a lifetime, especially to those who aren't into the common athletic sports. I have to tip my hat to [your outings]." (& to Barb Anderson!) (Mitchell's family was also on the 10/25 Moon Hike.)

Learn about a wilderness therapy program, Outback Therapeutic Expeditions out of Lehi, Utah. At the February 26 meeting, Barb Cooey will describe her experiences working in wilderness therapy with this organization during wilderness treks in a sagebrush/juniper tree unit of the Wasatch Mountains south-southwest of Salt Lake City. Outback "works with 13-17 year-olds struggling with behavior at a transitional time in their lives. Students may be experiencing family conflict or negative peer group pressures. They may be isolating themselves, acting abusively towards their parents or siblings, or experimenting with drugs and alcohol. Some may be spending excessive time alone on computers, struggling academically, or having difficulties stemming from adoption. Often they are bright but underachieving.

"A wilderness expedition removes the distractions found in our modern lives. Food, water and shelter, 'the basics,' are suddenly appreciated. Attitudes, affectations and selfish habits seem dramatically out of place against the stark contrast of a fair but uncaring wilderness. This new environment refuses to promote students' immature external images of themselves. Out of their comfort
zone, students quickly desire to learn new skills--skills necessary to their well being.

"Primitive wilderness skills like building a fire without matches, making your own backpack, cooking, doing camp chores, and other individualized skills become life-affirming and community-building activities that replace negative thoughts and habits. Students learn through example, metaphor, group effort, and experimentation.

"Outback, as a rite of passage, is designed to engage students in character development, resolve personal and family issues and assist in aftercare planning."

Quoted material from http://www.outbacktreatment.com/

The following is taken from a journal entry made on August 23 2005, the morning following my first exposure to Whitewater Canyon via a canoe float trip. But, it has nothing to do with Whitewater Canyon. I had camped at a remote Faraway Farm "brook" campsite two nights and this was written after the second night there. The Rock Column is on the river bluff on adjoining property downstream but is always a hi-lite of treks along the bluff.

6:05 AM
Must be a catbird nearby. Sure sounds like a cat! No need for a headlamp now. Morning has broken!

I think I'll get up and go have my bottle of grape juice and a Vegan breakfast thing (I've had it for a couple of years - well, one year, anyway) over at the Rock Column. Heavy dew but my old, black, too small Asolo boots should keep my feet dry.

6:45 AM
Awesome here at the Rock Column! Mist is rising from the Mississippi River shoreline below me and then swirling in streaks northeastward across the river. I had to look up to be sure I was not seeing a reflection of cirrus clouds overhead, but the sky is perfectly clear. Water is perfectly smooth. Across the river, mist is hanging at the various levels of trees; a fish jumps occasionally; and the sun is rising down river! The river here IS more eastward than southward!

The mist movement pattern is amazing! Like a kaleidoscope with the spreading concentric rings on the water surface beneath where fish are surfacing.

Sheez!! 2 miniature hurricanes are swirling! Now 3. It's like there is a front of two air masses about 1/3 way across the river and swirls keep erupting along that line. Mist is coming this way from the far shore. Just amazing what beauty and spectacle nature can create!

6:57 AM
The "airmass" of foggy mist from the far shore has won so the swirling front has been pushed out of view of destroyed near the shore below me - now only streaky swirling mist is coming this way and weakening as sunlight warms the mystical dance.

On the far shore, there seems to be a line--oh, it is a shadow line due to the low sun. On this side of that line there is a reflection of the far, tree-lined shore!!

WHOA! 3 more mini-hurricanes of mist have erupted below me! I see nothing like this upriver.

It's as if this spectacle is being produced just for me! I need a video camera--and I don't even have my regular camera. I wonder how soon I will forget about this dance of the spinning ballerinas of mist! I gotta get here more often! I can still remember the patterns on river ice I saw from here quite a while back--so maybe this mistical revue will stick with me for some time, also. I hope so. Almost too good to be true! I had two dark chocolate Doves and two dark chocolate and peppermint candies on the way here--maybe I am hallucinating on dark chocolate caffeine! :)

The "Vegan Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookie Breakfast meal", dairy-free, all natural, high energy... tastes pretty durn good. "Baker's Breakfast Cookies, Inc.; Baker's Healthy Start." It goes down really well! 18% of fiber, too? 13% of sodium.

So, with the Welch's 100% Grape Juice given the American Heart Asociation seal of approval, I am off to an unusual health start for today! 100% Vitamin C, too.

Jeepers! More hurricanes! Two just converged from their opposite spinning directions. (My sketch showed a clockwise swirl for the one on the left; a counter-clockwise swirl for the one on the right.) Cool!

7:25 AM
Well, I already have stuffed the sleeping bag and rolled the pad in the tent, but I better get back; take down the tent, pack the backpack and tree trimming tools, and head for the house. My grandkids may be coming at 9 AM.

While the mist on the river is much thinner now, swirls are still being generated at times as the general drift of the mist is downriver. Fog looks much thicker upriver at Dubuque--and just now a breeze has come up and mist is streaming downriver faster. Leaves are rustling. Nature at play! Wow! Well, I see one more "hurricane"... but, I gotta go!

Back at the camp before I begin to take the tent down: As I walked back, a mist was rising from the river and almost engulfed the higher ridge beyond the bluff top in a fluffy white shroud--and with the waning gibbous white moon hanging above! Also, quite a breeze had developed just as I left the Rock Column and mist was coming toward the near shore and rising. No breeze here at camp.

7:44 AM
GOTTA get moving! Dew is very thick. Glad I wore my boots. They are soaked! Don't wanna leave, but grandkids are cool, TOO!! Good reason to be on my way.

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