CHOTA IS AWARDED
FLOWING RIVERS CAMPAIGN GRANT!!!
On July 7, 2004, Chota was awarded a $500 grant from the Clif Bar/American Whitewater “Flowing Rivers Campaign” in competition with dozens of clubs around the country. The money we receive will go to preparing a summary of the water quality problems facing Crooked Fork Creek (see below about the “ironic” history of this run) and what can be done to both raise awareness about this issue and solve the problem.
What and where is Crooked Fork Creek?
Crooked
Fork Creek is a premier class IV/V whitewater run located in the Emory – Obed
watershed, which is roughly 50 miles northeast of Knoxville, Tennessee. The
Emory – Obed area is nationally recognized for both its scenic beauty and water
quality. However, Crooked Fork Creek is polluted for most of when it is running
as a number of towns dump their sewage directly into the stream. This creek is
featured on the American Whitewater website and can be found here:
http://www.americanwhitewater.org/rivers/id/2661/
Because
many boaters in the nearby area (ranging from Nashville to Atlanta to
Knoxville) don’t realize the issues facing Crooked Fork Creek, it was thought
that an awareness campaign would help build grass root support for getting the
various communities involved to work towards a solution with this problem. It
should be noted that many in these communities are in favor changing the
present situation, but without additional support from people outside the
community very little can be done as the area surrounding Crooked Fork Creek is
very poor and remote. One of the partners for this grant will be the Emory –
Obed Watershed Association, which is quite active in environmental issues in
the area.
This
grant will fund a number of things that would both investigate the issue and
then consequently raise awareness of it. First, a very small amount of money
will be used to purchase small stickers that say “Save Crooked Fork Creek” that
can be put on canoes, kayaks and helmets. This will get people talking and help
raise the profile of the creek itself. The majority of the funds will be used
to help the Tennessee Clean Water Network (www.tcwn.org)
to research both the problem and potential solutions. TCWN will work in
conjunction with the Emory – Obed Watershed Association (EOWA) to develop in
effect a magazine article that will be published in American Whitewater
magazine and be used as web page material on about 6 different paddling clubs
in the roughly 250-mile area. It is hoped that out of these efforts the public
will be made aware of the problem and perhaps future efforts will be made to
continue the work.
The
idea with having such an article “in the can” where the issues, solutions and
photos documenting the problem is somewhat new and was a critical component of
our being awarded this grant. The idea was if you offer clubs a completed
package of information about an issue then all they have to do is put it on
their website and another step in getting the word out has been made. Very
often, community issues are hindered by miscommunication, misunderstanding of
the problems and their solutions and a lack of a general understanding of the
problem itself. This article will eliminate a lot of this and hopefully
encourage the respective clubs to go out and do the same (articles, community
awareness) with creeks/rivers in their area as well.
The ironic history of Crooked Fork Creek
When
Chota applied for this grant the focus was on a great run that is contaminated;
however, unbeknownst to the folks working on this grant there was some history
behind Crooked Fork Creek, most notably the large waterfall on the run:
“Potters Falls.” What wasn’t known at the time of our grant application was the
“controversial” role in whitewater history that Potters Falls played in the
early 70’s. Basically, Potters Falls was the first cover photo of the American
Whitewater’s Journal with a kayaker (C-1 actually) running a waterfall. This
sparked a heated debate with many in the whitewater community vehemently
opposing such photo’s being on the cover of a magazine like American
Whitewater’s Journal as it might encourage daredevil behavior or reckless
approach to navigating whitewater. One must remember, that in the early 70’s
whitewater kayaking was still in its infancy and our sport has come a long way
since then!!!!
Below
is an article written by Sue Taft entitled “History: From controversy to TV
ads” that was in the November/December 2003 issue of American Whitewater’s
Journal that talks about all this:
Thirty Years of Falls
Running
Much has changed since the
controversy of the fi rst published image of a waterfall run by a whitewater
paddler. Today we see images of waterfall runs fairly regularly− from the
latest accounts of running the highest and the baddest in whitewater videos to
ads on TV and in national magazines. But thirty years ago images of waterfall
runs were not only unseen and unheard of, but they were also considered taboo.
AW broke this long-standing taboo when it published a photo of Martin Begun
running Potter’s Falls (in a C-1) on the cover of the Summer 1973 issue of
American Whitewater. Begun ran the fifteen-foot fall on the Crooked Fork Creek
in Tennessee the previous January and wrote of his run: “Much to our surprise
there was nothing to it, and now everybody is doing it. It’s even a lot of fun
backwards.” The result of its publication put AW at the center of controversy,
a controversy that centered around two issues. The first was the preconceived
notion of suspected and anticipated dangers of falls running. Until this time
vertical waterfalls were largely considered too dangerous to even attempt and
this clearly illustrated the opposite. The second was that AW would go so far
as to include such photos in American Whitewater. Afterall, waterfall runs were
considered reckless and deemed contrary to AW’s safety standards as published
in the Safety Code. It just might encourage others to do the same − which
it did. In spite of all the controversy, AW included additional photos
submitted by Begun in the May/June 1974 American Whitewater issue where he gave
tribute to Mark Hall who was actually the first to run the falls. Begun wrote:
“Potter’s Falls is not a ‘daredevil’ stunt if one is an expert in a decked
boat. The only daredevil was the guy who tried it first. The numerous safe runs
since then have proven this.” Within five years many well known waterfalls were
run for the first time. Rob Lesser ran Ohiopyle Falls (18 vertical feet) on the
Lower Yough in 1974 much to the chagrin of local guides who had made plans to
do it themselves, with their own aborted attempt the previous year. In 1975,
Great Falls on the Potomac, with a total drop of 65 feet in 200 yards (the
Spout is 22 vertical feet) was run for the fi rst time by Tom McEwan, Dan
Schnurrenberger, and Wick Walker. Its first descent was kept a secret for a
number of years. In 1979, CANOE Magazine published an article written by Wick
Walker about waterfalls entitled “Waterfalls: Forbidden Fruit or Calculated
Risk?” The issue included as its cover photo a shot of Whit Deschner’s run of
Pilchuk Creek Falls (15 feet) in Washington, (Fearless) Fred Young’s C-1 run of
Ilgen Falls (31 feet) on the Baptism River in Minnesota, and Lesser’s run of
Ohiopyle Falls. With CANOE being the “Official Magazine of the American Canoe
Association,” an editor’s note accompanied the article explaining their
rationale for including a topic still viewed as controversial and/or reckless
and irresponsible: . . . our interest in the subject of waterfalls is one of
reportage - that truly expert paddlers have and will continue to run
waterfalls, pushing their skills to the limit of human endurance, until such
time as 1) the water stops, or 2) they stop. Thus, the following discussion
recognizes the activity only as an extreme deviation from sound boating
practices. . . Vol. 7 No. 1 (February
1979): 56-59, 68. Now, almost twenty-five
years later, waterfall runs are no longer considered “an extreme deviation from
sound boating practices.” While the extremes are still the domain of the truly
expert such as the likes of Tao Berman with his 98.4 ft vertical record, many
lesser falls are regularly run by less-than-expert paddlers across the country.
Even legal restrictions are suspended for the annual Ohiopyle Falls Race and
Freestyle weekend, giving paddlers a legal opportunity to run the falls to
compete for the fastest downstream run or for the best freestyle moves. Indeed,
much has changed.