Day Two: Carbonton Dam

May 13, 2008 at 11:54 pm (Uncategorized)

Carbonton Dam is a dam no more – a small hydroelectric dam built in the ’30’s, this dam was no longer useful – it generated only a tiny amount of power and very little profit. Its owner began to let it slide, letting it sit unused.

Restoration Systems saw this as an opportunity to bring back an ecosystem that had long been choked by the dam – dams cause disruption in aquatic animals’ life cycles, population, and movement, and usually make changes to the water and plant life nearby, in addition to drowning a portion of land nearby. This one was now only useful as a good place to fish for bass – which caused some conflict with the local populace, who did not want to lose their favorite fishing hole when the company first proposed taking out the dam. Restoration Systems and its partners, including UNC, did a lot of education and discussion before actually beginning the project to get local people on board as much as possible.

Restoration Systems is a company – almost entirely made up of UNC grads – that corrects or restores water systems and then sells credits for doing so to developers. Developers are required to do something to mitigate any damage they have caused to the environment with their developments by purchasing remediation credits. This often means wetlands restoration, but in this case this company decided that it wanted to focus on this small obsolescent dam, one of approximately 1000 in North Carolina.

They studied the situation, went through months to request the proper permits from the state, and began by notching holes in the dam, to allow some of the water to flow through. They continued expanding the notch over five months, to allow the waters to mix – they couldn’t let it through all at once not only because of the negative effects of a large rush of water suddenly hitting the land on the other side, but to maintain the oxygen and mineral balance on both sides.

It now has one tall building on one side, with a ladder roped off and a platform to one side. When you stand on it, you can see the inside of the former dam – it still has caked dried silt at the bottom of the large empty chambers. the other side of the river flows freely through, and is a definite success. The project managers told us that two populations of rare fish on each side have now mingled and increased to large degree.

The bass fishers actually have better fishing in their newly returned river, although they now must use canoes. The company also created a small public-use park to the side of the river nearest the road, replacing a mass of scrubby weeds – everybody won. Including us – we had an excellent barbeque picnic, sponsored by Restoration Technologies. I have never before liked baked beans, but these were excellent. They also had great brownies. This is turning into a food blog – I’m really not obsessed, they’re just feeding us very well!

I will write up our third stop and our very pleasant evening dinner with the NC State folks on their own bus tour tomorrow.

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Day Two: Seymour Johnson Air Force Base

May 13, 2008 at 11:40 pm (Tar Heel Bus Tour)
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After breakfast in New Bern, we drove to Seymour Johnson Air Force Base. A young man hopped on the bus after we arrived – after some joking about using Tim’s Marine ID to get on the base – and gave us a very quick hello and intro to the base. It was too quick and very military – nobody understood him, at least in the back of the bus where I was sitting. So, we hopped off and followed him into the unknown.

We entered a large airplane hanger. The first thing I thought was, where are the pigeons? – I used to work in an airport that had a major problem with them in the hangars – and the next thing I thought was, “Whoa!” There were two F-15 E planes and an assortment of bombs and missiles around the hangar, as well as several officers waiting for us. The officers broke us up into groups and showed us around, giving explanations about the armament and planes, as well as answering our questions about Seymour Johnson’s Iraq and Afghan deployments. Seymour Johnson just got 600 people and 14 planes back from deployment as part of the Surge. Our guide told us that he finds the current use of multiple staggered 4 – 6 month deployments preferable to the 9-month deployment in Desert Storm, where the entire base picked up and left, thereby devastating the local economies around the bases and leaving families apart for much longer periods.

Our guide, Lt.(?) Wreblewski, was very considerate and willing to answer many questions – he is a very nice man who is planning to go from one difficult career to another dangerous career – teaching middle school. We also climbed up to look into the planes’ cockpits and met a pilot, Lt. Flippin, who also answered questions. There was a lingering odor of fuel in the air, but it was spotlessly clean.

I was also pleased to hear that the Air Force still hosts Scout Troops – they were always so nice to us when I was in one. When I went through my adolescent military phase (very short for me for many reasons, but I still contemplated it), the Air Force was my first thought, largely because I had had such positive experiences with it. Anyway, I had thought that they might not because they’re on a war footing – but where else are they going to find new recruits, I suppose?

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Day One: Tryon Palace & Dinner

May 13, 2008 at 11:29 pm (Tar Heel Bus Tour)
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After arriving in New Bern, we checked into the hotel and walked down the street through the historic (and tourist shop-filled) downtown to Tryon Palace.

Tryon Palace is a reproduction of the first official central seat of the Colonial government of North Carolina, built in the late 1760’s right before the Revolutionary War. After the English Colonial Governor was evicted, it served as the state capital building until the end of the 18th century, when the capital was moved to Raleigh. It was rented out to various groups, but the main building burned to the ground very soon after the government moved out, only to then be covered by various roads and buildings.

In the 1940’s, a philanthropist with an interest in history convinced the state to collect all of the original piece of land, unearth the old foundations, and restore the Palace, most of it funded by a trust that she had provided. Having the Palace under the road was actually lucky – it saved the foundation’s bricks from reuse by builders and let the restorers figure out exactly where to place the reproduction. There were also extensive records of the Palace available, although they had to be collected from all over the world – literally; some of the most useful had found their way to Venezuela.

The Palace tour is provided by people dressed in period costume and goes through the entire house and grounds – we went through the first floor only due to time. One of the most interesting things was a collection of rare books – they’ve been collecting all of the books that the first governor was known to have in his library (there is an inventory available because he lost most of them in a fire and submitted a request for reimbursement later in his career) in contemporaneous editions. There are over 800 titles. The dining room with the reproduction period food also was very interesting to everyone – the food was beautiful. I thought it was made from Fimo, but apparently it was molded from plaster and painted. It looked very real.  I also liked seeing the servants’ quarters in the basement – my favorite part of historic homes or buildings is always seeing where people actually did the work of running the household.

After the tour – I’d like to go back and take a longer one sometime – we moved to a building across the street to have dinner. It was regional cooking – fittingly – and excellent. I tried shrimp and grits for the first time – I don’t normally like either of those things, but this was one of the best things I’ve eaten in a long time. Everyone near me at dinner (everyone who eats seafood, anyway) liked it the best. The dessert was also good – I would have called it pecan tassies, but it had another name which now escapes me. I’ll have to find out.

After dinner we went to yet another building to listen to Bland Simpson perform. He’s the head of Creative Writing at Carolina, but he is also a musician and has been performing for these tours for a long time. He read a funny story about a hapless kayaker who met the best and most helpful people in North Carolina after a series of misadventures, and then sang several songs. He has a wonderfully clear speaking voice – as soon as you heard him speak, you knew he was going to have a great singing voice, too. That was a great way to end the first evening, especially as he is part of Carolina, too.

This picture did not come out well – the room was a little too bright for my flash to work, and a little too dark not to need it.  Apologies to Dr. Simpson.

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