Hold off on that ark.

Yesterday, I was trying to get to work at the White Clay Creek State Park nature center, and I ran into a minor obstacle.


Much of the east coast got slammed Thursday by remnants of a tropical storm... or was it a hurricane? Anyway, it rained more than Hurricane Floyd. The flooding uprooted this bridge (which normally allows for car access to the nature center).


It turns out that the schools were all canceled anyway, which put a nix on the geology program we were supposed to run. That's probably a good thing, since the gravel bar that we normally go to was very much underwater.


According to the staff, the flooding will "recharge" the gravel bar, though, which basically means that the old rocks will move out and we'll get some new and exciting rocks.

This year, the White Clay Creek celebrated its tenth year as a National Wild and Scenic River. It's not a national park, but the designation is a partnership between locals and the National Park Service. In light of this flooding, it's a good thing that this land is all preserved.

In the first place, trees and other plants are HUGE help when it comes to preventing floods. Instead of going into the stream, water gets absorbed by trees. Their roots also aerate the soil, helping the water to go into the ground.

In the second place, most development that happens today actually increases flooding. This is basically because we like to create impermeable surfaces like parking lots, driveways, and rooftops, where water just slides right off where it used to be absorbed. So preserving land and protecting it from development helps decrease flooding.

Given these facts, it seems like it would be nice if we could develop responsibly -- making efforts to put back what we take from the earth, put those natural flood barriers in place when we remove them as a part of development -- but I'd argue that it's not only "nice." It's our responsibility.

Plus, everyone likes a parking lot with some trees in it anyhow.