My family loves exploring backroads and streams which lead to favorite river sites; listening to water girgle as it flows downstream; and watching graceful birds with long legs walk through the shallows looking for minnows to snap up. We have had a decade love affair with the rivers that flow through McCormick and Abbeville counties of South Carolina.
Our love affair seems to be turning to a silent tragedy. About three years ago as we explored, we watched our favorite river sites begin to dwindle. Marshland dried out and the tributaries became smaller and smaller mud puddles. What impact is this having on the beautiful wading birds we once saw walking on high stilts as they looked for food? We don’t seem them on the drying banks.
For the next two weeks, I plan to show you the tragedy unfolding in our backyard. Could something similar be happening in your backyard? How healthy are your rivers? At this point, I don’t know why these water treasures are disappearing. I know that we had a drought from about 2007 to 2009, but now we are getting sufficient rainfall and still our rivers and streams are emptying?
I will touch on this more in the weeks to come. In meantime, do you have natural resources disappearing near you home? What can be done to highlight this? I will write more and even add photographs in the coming weeks.
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