The trout of Tom’s Creek need our voice
A fellow Monocacy Scenic River Board member, Jack Lynch, sent me the following information today. The pristine Tom’s Creek is being threatened by possible mining in the area. The headwaters of Tom’s Creek, a rare high quality cold water fishery in southwest Adams County, Pennsylvania is under threat from mountain-top removal mining on land that lies next to the creek, near Michaux State Forest.
According to the Friend’s of Tom’s Creek’s Website, on Saturday, April 13, 2013 at 9:00 AM, The Hamilton Township Board of Supervisors intends to enact a proposed zoning map amendment and ordinance together with an application submitted by Specialty Granules, Inc. covering 112 acres currently zoned Woodland Conservation.
Protecting Tom’s Creek, the Monocacy and the Chesapeake Bay.
It is impossible to care about our waterways if we don’t care first for our smaller streams. Among the many streams of southern Adams County, Pennsylvania, which comprise about twenty-five percent of the Monocacy River watershed, is Tom’s Creek, which runs through Carroll Valley and into Emmitsburg, Md as a nearly pristine tributary of the river. It begins on South Mountain, part of the northern Blue Ridge range that we call the Catoctin, separating the Maryland Piedmont region from the western valleys. The Appalachian Trail crosses and follows alongside it.
We have been fortunate for a long time that its reaches were mostly protected and little impacted by dense development or heavy industry. But today, in a nearly hidden municipal government process, which has closed off public testimony, it is threatened by a large mining operation proposal.
Until today, Tom’s Creek has been a wilderness, freestone creek with nearly crystal clear waters, yielding trout up to twenty-five inches length, including brook trout, which only survive in the best quality waters. It is a fly fishing paradise.
We have a clear choice today, either we protect Tom’s Creek, or little we do below it will protect the Monocacy River, or eventually the Chesapeake Bay. Streams are like our tiny capillaries, carrying our life’s blood, and oxygen and nutrients to the smallest parts of our body. When capillaries or streams fail, our entire support systems begin to die off and never recover. Without healthy waterways, our own health and environmental activities like fishing, canoeing and hunting and our enjoyment suffers.
Jacks Mountain Adams County
Jacks Mountain Covered Bridge, crosses Tom’s Creek, Fairfield, Adams County, PA, built 1890
Worse, the area contemplated for a mining operation was recently part of a large protected timber forest tract, and its ownership was traded by Pennsylvania for other public protection lands.
How can we compare the production of mine products with a generational need for quality streams and clean water? To help oppose this mining location and its impacts on the creek, get involved with the Friends of Tom’s Creek: http://www.friendsoftomscreek.org/ Preserving a few of our best upper watershed streams is our best and most valuable watershed protection plan, they just don’t build streams like that once they’re destroyed and their natural attributes diminished.
