The Cahaba River
For thousands of years, the Cahaba River, with the other rivers and streams of Alabama, has moved unceasingly to the sea. And just beneath the normally peaceful waters exist perhaps the greatest collection of plant and animal life in North America. Overstatement? Hardly.While Alabama is the 29th largest state, it ranks fourth in the number of plant and animal species. Fully eight percent of all the freshwater flowing through the continental United States flows through this state. Only Florida can rival Alabama in the number of species per square mile. Alabama's waterways host 38 percent of all the freshwater fill-breathing snails, 52 percent of all turtle species and 60 percent of all the freshwater mussel species. Since 1991, three new fish species previously undescribed by science have been found in the Mobile River basin.The Cahaba River has more fish species per mile, 131, than any river its size in North America, including 18 species that exist only in th
It is considered by many natural historians the single greatest extinction catastrophe in American history. Each spring, in May and June, the Lillies rise above the flowing current in an explosion of white and green. The Cahaba River basin supports 69 rare and imperiled species, including 10 fish and mussel species listed under the U. For thousands of years people have lived along the banks of the Cahaba River, relying on it to provide the necessities of life. Today, in a great twist of irony, the Cahaba is both our most important drinking water supply and our central sewer. No other city of Birmingham's size contains an urban environmental experience to rival the Cahaba. Perhaps the best known of the Cahaba's endangered inhabitants is the Cahaba Lily, also known as the Shoals Lily. The Cahaba "peopleshed" includes more than 800,000 people in the Birmingham metropolitan area. Ironically, most of Birmingham's drinking water, outside drought periods, is not released from Lake Purdy but taken directly from the main stem of the Cahaba. By contrast, with the damming of the Coosa River and the drowning of the Coosa shoals, came the extinction of 27 species of aquatic snails. In addition, the Alabama Department of Environmental Management has licensed 103 industries to discharge waste at 167 points along the river. The Cahaba is the primary source of drinking water for one-quarter of Alabama's population. To put this in perspective, the Cahaba has more native species of fish than the entire state of California.
Common topics in this essay:
Cahaba River,
Hardly Alabama,
Cahaba/Lake Purdy,
Environmental Management,
Lake Purdy,
Coosa River,
Jim Allison,
Likewise Alabama's,
Cahaba Lily,
Mobile River,
cahaba river,
drinking water,
percent freshwater,
drinking water supply,
plant animal,
gallons water,
river basin,
fish species,
gallons day,
north america,
mussel species,
|
Acceptance Essays
