Does the Little Lehigh have any wild browns left?

I learned to fly fish on the little lehigh and the pohopoco back in the early 80's. I stopped going to the
LL a long time ago as it just wasn't worth the drive. My biggest pa fish, a 24" hen, was caught there
on a yellow belly beaver strip leach after a heavy storm while the creek was chocolate milk. It was 1986 on Thanksgiving i think. I still have the stick i broke off to measure it with the date carved in it.

Little Lehigh stick
 
6xAdams(Jones) said:
In only a few hours, a question about wild (from stocked) trout became a discussion about solar panels?
... I can't resist...
- The solar power industry would have never, nor could it ever, survive a free market economy without tax revenue paying for the majority of its implementation.
- Solar panels don't last forever in regard to functional effectiveness. In 20-30 years a solar farm becomes a really big open-air shelter for farm animals and storage area for farm equipment.
- Only the metal and glass frames are feasibly recyclable. The mishmash of heavy metals in the cells is difficult - if not impossible - to separate and repurpose without an excessive use of other resources (and $$$).

I feel better now.
Thanks.
Click to expand...
In my defense, and lycos', it was about development. You just made it about solar panels!
 
lycoflyfisher said:
Worse yet than the ongoing urban sprawl of warehouses, strip malls, residential housing projects etc is the push to build solar and wind farms to offset the carbon footprint of said development. Thousands of acres if not 10s of thousands of mature forest will be cut to build industrial scale power generation. The city of Philadelphia is building a huge solar facility on prime farmland in Adam's Co.

Development, the lack of effective stormwater management regulations or enforcement and the lack of protective measures for floodplain, sinkholes, and riparian areas is certainly impacting water quality and hydrologic patterns throughout the Lehigh valley.
Click to expand...
6xAdams(Jones) said:
In only a few hours, a question about wild (from stocked) trout became a discussion about solar panels?
... I can't resist...
- The solar power industry would have never, nor could it ever, survive a free market economy without tax revenue paying for the majority of its implementation.
- Solar panels don't last forever in regard to functional effectiveness. In 20-30 years a solar farm becomes a really big open-air shelter for farm animals and storage area for farm equipment.
- Only the metal and glass frames are feasibly recyclable. The mishmash of heavy metals in the cells is difficult - if not impossible - to separate and repurpose without an excessive use of other resources (and $$$).

I feel better now.
Thanks.
Click to expand...
It seemed to me the discussion centered around the health of the stream and the causes. I don't see anything wrong with your response or others. I'm always interested in learning, so I appreciate your response.
 
Development is a necessary evil that makes my soul hurt down to the core. I cannot stand seeing wilderness/rural settings demolished to build roads, warehouses, housing developments, etc and all I can ever think about is that John Prine lyric in his song "Paradise," "we wrote it all down to the progress of man."
We are generationally conditioned to it, though. The towns and development that had already existed when I was born don't bother me although I think about what the landscape would have been before they existed. The new development and changes to the landscape around me bother me very much. Seeing wild places lost in my lifetime to the "progress of man" very much bothers me.

Not to derail the thread, but this all brings me back to the Nicholas Meats thread. Development is hard to watch and our human actions affect the landscape in a huge way. We continue to encroach more and more on the natural environment and consume. No one wants it in their backyards, but unless a major downward trend in global population, major technological advancements that change the way society functions, or something else that I can't even conceive happens it is just gonna keep getting worse and worse. Even here in depressed Mifflin County more development than I would like to see is happening.

I am glad I do not know the Little Lehigh so that I am not bothered by its destruction and I cannot relate to it like someone who has known it for a lifetime, but someday the same will probably happen to the places I love and cherish.
 
6xAdams(Jones) said:
In only a few hours, a question about wild (from stocked) trout became a discussion about solar panels?
... I can't resist...
- The solar power industry would have never, nor could it ever, survive a free market economy without tax revenue paying for the majority of its implementation.
- Solar panels don't last forever in regard to functional effectiveness. In 20-30 years a solar farm becomes a really big open-air shelter for farm animals and storage area for farm equipment.
- Only the metal and glass frames are feasibly recyclable. The mishmash of heavy metals in the cells is difficult - if not impossible - to separate and repurpose without an excessive use of other resources (and $$$).

I feel better now.
Thanks.
Click to expand...
I feel better too knowing someone else has their head on straight, thanks!
 
We all need to take a look in the mirror when bemoaning the proliferation of warehouses...

We've changed our buying habits from driving around looking for stuff in brick & mortar establishments to ordering 90% from online retailers and paying membership fees so we get it in a day or two.

However what especially gnaws at my craw is when I drive by these warehouses and they are vacant or looking for tenants while another new facility is breaking ground a mile away in another former open space.

Back to the Little Lehigh... ;)
 
jifigz said:
Not to derail the thread, but this all brings me back to the Nicholas Meats thread. Development is hard to watch and our human actions affect the landscape in a huge way. We continue to encroach more and more on the natural environment and consume. No one wants it in their backyards, but unless a major downward trend in global population, major technological advancements that change the way society functions, or something else that I can't even conceive happens it is just gonna keep getting worse and worse. Even here in depressed Mifflin County more development than I would like to see is happening.

I am glad I do not know the Little Lehigh so that I am not bothered by its destruction and I cannot relate to it like someone who has known it for a lifetime, but someday the same will probably happen to the places I love and cherish.
Click to expand...
Our society is based on consumption. My advice to our Environmental Stewardship Committee is not to recycle more, though recycling i guess kinda works, it's more important to consume less.
Unfortunately folks aren't willing to not have all the latest greatest stuff.
 
The op’s question is a timely one given 1) the habitat degradation that is apparent in areas and 2) the fact that two sections are included in the proposal that would have BT being C&R and stocked fish being harvestable. I do not subscribe to the philosophy of “once a Class A, always a Class A” from stocking and fishing regulation standpoints if and when, pragmatically speaking, physical degradation is irreversible and there is no sense that biomass will make a comeback. There are urban/metro streams, not necessarily wild trout streams, where such substantial degradation is the case; it’s not reversible. The only encouraging sign that I have seen anywhere in that regard has been occasional (rare) and apparent retrofitting of a developed area with a stormwater retention basin.
 
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Nymph-wristed said:
In my defense, and lycos', it was about development. You just made it about solar panels!
Click to expand...
Guilty. It's been a pet peeve of mine since my neighbors started buying into them and bragging about it. They aren't bragging about it now.
 
Maybe it's time the creek becomes a stocked fishery. DH or something.
Sounds like the rainbows can holdover.
 
6xAdams(Jones) said:
Guilty. It's been a pet peeve of mine since my neighbors started buying into them and bragging about it. They aren't bragging about it now.
Click to expand...
So do you think there is no future for solar. Are you involved in the field somehow?
 
JeffP said:
So do you think there is no future for solar. Are you involved in the field somehow?
Click to expand...
There is definitely a future for solar. Whether that future is good for us and the planet in the long term is debatable, though.

There is a pretty sizable logging company near me that specializes in clearing land, cutting timber, landscaping, making and selling firewood and mulch, etc and I know a guy who is a chainsaw-er and tree feller for them. The company is Metlzer's near Reedsville. He said that a lot of their work right now is clear cutting huge tracts for solar fields.

God, that sounds depressing. Obviously the timber is used, but it isn't getting replanted.....
 
jifigz said:
There is definitely a future for solar. Whether that future is good for us and the planet in the long term is debatable, though.

There is a pretty sizable logging company near me that specializes in clearing land, cutting timber, landscaping, making and selling firewood and mulch, etc and I know a guy who is a chainsaw-er and tree feller for them. The company is Metlzer's near Reedsville. He said that a lot of their work right now is clear cutting huge tracts for solar fields.

God, that sounds depressing. Obviously the timber is used, but it isn't getting replanted.....
Click to expand...
Why would you need to cut trees down for solar power?
 
jifigz said:
There is definitely a future for solar. Whether that future is good for us and the planet in the long term is debatable, though.

There is a pretty sizable logging company near me that specializes in clearing land, cutting timber, landscaping, making and selling firewood and mulch, etc and I know a guy who is a chainsaw-er and tree feller for them. The company is Metlzer's near Reedsville. He said that a lot of their work right now is clear cutting huge tracts for solar fields.

God, that sounds depressing. Obviously the timber is used, but it isn't getting replanted.....
Click to expand...


And after being managed as grass land for 30 years there will be no native seed bed to re establish a forest if the facility is dismantled.
 
Dear Board,

The larger issue in my opinion isn't solar power itself. The real issue as I see it is our undying refusal to re-use most formerly developed land. Someone posted above that solar farms could probably be built on existing developed land like an old, shuttered mall. That makes sense to me, but instead we ruin good land in 100-acre chunks like the supply of land is unlimited.

Regards,

Tim Murphy
 
jifigz said:
Is this is a serious question? If it is, then I will type a serious answer.....
Click to expand...
Yes. I guess its a private company looking to do things as cheaply as possible to make a profit. How would a company not find a large area of fields as more profitable than tearing down a mountain?
 
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