Redwood Reader

76. Comments on the Elk River Watershed Plan
From: Rich McGuiness [mailto:armich@cox.net]
>Sent: Wednesday, May 26, 2004 10:55 PM
>To: edunn@palco.com
>Subject: The Elk River Watershed Analysis
>
>Hello, Please send me an electronic copy of the Elk River Watershed
>Analysis. I saw this in the Times-Standard. Thank you.

We need to MAIL you the CD of the of the Elk River Watershed Analysis
>DRAFT report as it is too big to send via email. Please send me you
>mailing address and we will get it out to you immediately.

PALCO, I have read the ER/SC Watershed analysis and find it eerily similar to most other planning documents I have read. They all have one thing in common, a desire to reduce sediment as a result of land disturbance. I believe the mechanism has been found that accounts for sedimentation- the glycoprotein glomnalin, produced by mycorrhizal fungi from carbon based root exudates discovered by Sara Wright of USDA Sustainable Agriculture Systems Laboratories in Beltsville in 1996 while researching sustainable systems for field crops. Farmers are getting paid to sequester carbon AND grow crops using no-till methods, also increasing profits, reducing labor, fuel and machine time, and crops are inferior carbon storers compared to trees. This amazing molecule is responsible for aggregating soils and increasing soil moisture. It has amazing enemies-sunlight, ambient air and running water. This has been a bumper year for twenty and thirty year plans as well as ongoing planning for industrial land managers. I believe understanding glomalin can help us write better rules, for example, about buffer zones, construction site runoff, clearcuts, roadbuilding etc. It also unites all land managers and users, as roads are roads and soil storage of carbon is nearly universal except a few specialties like annual grasses, which reseed rather than condition the environment, and sugar beets, where exudation is blocked and the sugar accumulates. I have posted my thoughts as well as my source information on my blog www.redwoodreader.blogspot.com. I am currently rewriting writing for my website on this issue at www.redwoodreader.org. Both sites are unsupporteds and I will probably only run them several months. But many people are quantifying parts of this scenario such as the CO2 studies, and a few are right on top of glomalin based legislation. Positive feedback and criticism welcome. Hope this helps- I think it will be the new science that causes new (less) regulations and more profitable activities in the next century. See my Carbon Credits article for how carbon storage can help landowners to grow large trees and create habitat and water, taking pressure off intensive managers, who would opt out as not profitable enough, and acquisitions where we wind up with permanently protected lands instead of correctly managed lands. Besides the ability to increase soil water storage capacity, glomalin has been called "soil glue" and binds small water repellant particles into larger porous aggregates. The protein adds a coefficient of stregnth to soils and needs to be understood as part of what makes the land fail in a slide or debris flow and how topsoil turns back into uncohesive sediment when it lets go.
Thanks for sending the CD's. It let me see you need this info too. Please share with your science director as a scientist is only as good as his current knowledge base, which should be always growing. You know all the issues, here are some answers.

Mr. McGuiness,
Many thanks for your response to the Elk River Watershed Analysis. Our science team will take a look at your feedback as we are always interested in ways to reduce sediment.

Many thanks. I hope you look at glomalin and soil moisture as well, because that is as large a problem in local watersheds as sedimentation. Please find a way to share what you find. THanks again.