By Wil Rainer, Field Programs Director at the Cahaba River Society
TRUSSVILLE — The unnamed tributary in my backyard flows from the peak of an unnamed mountain. As the gathering waters build, the creek twists and turns over bedrock and through culverts from my forested Irondale neighborhood toward I-459, its first major manmade barrier.
Here the creek does something fairly common for the creeks in our area: it enters a concrete culvert underground. After emerging from its concrete chute, my unnamed tributary reenters the forest, travels through one more culvert, and then continues its journey to the gulf in the Cahaba River. From here, it will only be truly interrupted twice more. The two-odd mile journey this unnamed tributary embarks from mountain-top to confluence has remained relatively unchanged since the formation of the Appalachian Mountains, North America’s oldest mountain range; that is, until the development of I-459 in 1968 and of the auto mall circa 2001.
And there is yet another major change occurring on Grants Mill Road today. Prior to its entrapment, this unnamed tributary carried vital nutrients, the lifeblood of its aquatic inhabitants, from the mountainside to the main channel of the Cahaba and beyond. The multitude of aquatic life which call this creek home rely on steady levels of light, temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen, and other essential nutrients in order to survive. These water-dependent insects are vital to the health of the Cahaba River ecosystem and of the greater Alabama River watershed, indeed one of the last bastions of biodiversity in our state and in our country.
Human activities within these unique freshwater systems create changes to water quality and to biodiversity that, relative to the time it took for the systems to form, happens in the blink of an eye. While the year-long road widening imposition seems to last forever to those whose morning commute just got minutes longer, in the Cahaba’s eyes, these changes happen in a split second. These are literally life-changing decisions made with no serious thought given to the effects. Sediment pours from now barren hillsides into the streams, affecting not only life no, but also the potential for life in the future. While this unnamed Irondale tributary is my example, the small headwater creeks and streams, where life truly begins for an entire river system, are being removed and rerouted at equally alarming rates.
The Cahaba’s headwaters gather themselves through Trussville. One hundred ninety-one miles of immeasurable Alabama biodiversity begins in Trussville. As our changing climate affects our changing watershed, we sit at an important precipice. We have the opportunity to modify how change happens. We have always needed schools, hospitals, houses, and roads, but we have never needed to sacrifice our natural resources, our Alabama identity, to develop these places. As we continue to grow and change Alabama, a state which sits at the top of every biodiversity list in our country, we can and should keep conservation, recreation, and ecotourism at the forefront of our decision-making process.