Good prime lenses have much to teach the earnest photographer. 

Because I’m cheap, and haven’t sprung for the latest hyper expensive, nano-coated Nikkors, designed and optimized for the full frame FX sensor. I am forced to operate with a collection of lenses that I suspect, would arouse sniffs of derision from a “best and latest” FX Nikon aficionado. I don’t yet own a 14-24mm f2.8, or a 24-80mm f2.8 or a 70-200 f2.8VR Mark II. I struggle by with my old 70-200 VR, and my 17-35 f2.8 along with a variety of single focal length “prime” lenses.

This has given me an appreciation for shooting in a fixed focal length .  In other words, these are lenses that don’t zoom. This makes them simpler, and thus easier to design well.  Great “primes” tend to have low distortion, and have great secondary characteristics.  They are also really sharp, often much more so than common zoom lenses. Best of all, “primes” tend to be inexpensive to purchase compared to equivalent quality zooms.

I like that.

The simplicity of construction also allows these lenses tend to be “fast” or in other words to have wide open apertures so they can admit a lot of light to the sensor. With an imager like that of the D700 which has wonderful high ISO capabilities, a lens with an aperture wider than f 2.0 can let a camera essentially “see in the dark”. 

 Wide apertures also facilitate images with a narrow depth of field isolating the subject from the background. This is very flattering especially in portraiture but it can also be very helpful in landscape work.

Better lenses, but particularly fast “primes” also render the out-of-focus areas of the images they acquire in a smooth, flattering way. That characteristic is called “bokeh”.

On this day, I decided to do some hiking in the Nescopeck State Park, which is near to my home. I chose a part of the park which was previously farmland, bought by the state and cut periodically, to maintain the character of the land.

There was a lot of color already evident in the late September afternoon. Goldenrod had painted the background an almost uniform yellow, but in the fields there were white and purple Asters, Black-Eyed Susans and Pokeberry bushes. There were Milkweed pods, ready to erupt. Monarch butterflies were plentiful, as if waiting for that event.

I took the D700 and three primes, but I resolved early in the hike to leave a Nikkor 85mm f1.8 mounted on the body.

This is a mid-level Nikkor prime, though arguably, compared to the other 85mm Nikkors; it’s the most suitable for shooting landscape work. Though it’s not as “bright” (f1.8 vs.f1.4) it has measured in some reports to have the highest resolution across the frame. Oh, and it’s considerably smaller and lighter than its bigger brothers.

 It’s a interesting photographic exercise, to adapt one’s vision to the constraints of the focal length. I walked as usual, with a heavy steel Manfrotto monopod, with a Bogen ballhead, to control camera movement.  With a prime lens, one can no longer twist the zoom ring to frame the image. Instead, one has to “zoom with one’s feet”. Ultimately, this gives the photo a different look than when one just changes the focal length of a zoom lens. It suggests the almost infinite number of choices available to us when evaluating a scene for capture.

The experience tends to teach the true nature of each focal length.

 I love good zoom lenses, but sometimes I think they stop you from thinking photographically. Shoot with primes and you begin to understand not only the framing inherent in the focal length, the changes that occur at different distances from the subject,  the reletive magnification of the foreground and backround inherent in the particular lens length, and the available depth of field at various apertures.

 Also, one sometimes tends to forget how useful, longer focal length lenses are in shooting landscapes. You just have to recalibrate from thoughts of wide scenic vistas, to focusing your attention on a particular detail of the scenery, and using the shorter depth of field, and the bokeh inherent in good long glass, to blur the background into a sort of impressionistic look. This is what good lenses, particularly primes, allow you to do.

Good photographers understand all the characteristics of various focal length lenses in their bags.

Hopefully, by spending a day with a single prime lens on the front of the camera, you can then begin to use your zooms lenses more thoughtfully and effectively.

 

At the end of August, in the Appalachian highlands, there is often early evidence of the cool weather that is waiting its turn in the unfolding year.

Autumn touches the ridge tops far earlier than in the river valleys.

    Fall’s opening gambit generally occurs after a late summer hot spell. A strong line of storms usually heralds the season’s first outbreak of true Canadian air. One morning you awaken to a strikingly beautiful sunrise and a crispness that is shocking to one who is well acclimated to the warmth of summer. As the day progresses, the sharp reds of sunrise evolve into a deep blue, more like the skies of midwinter. There is a strong breeze. Small white clouds pass quickly overhead as if embarrassed to deprive us of the brilliant sunshine.

   The next several nights will be unnaturally cool. The day’s winds are becalmed; heat radiates quickly from the earth below. The fans and air conditioners so useful on warm summer nights will be stilled. Sleeping will be more comfortable, albeit with an extra blanket.

   There are potent changes occurring in the natural world. After the first few brisk mornings, other colors will accent the uniform green of the forest. First are the bracken ferns whose early autumn yellow contrasts with the larger cinnamon ferns that now assume a deep rust hue. Low in the canopy, small maples and dogwoods add splashes of red and yellow to the scene, sometimes one branch at a time. Wetlands offer a hiker the first preview of fall colors as the trees and shrubs in those places often change before their counterparts in better-drained areas.

   By mid-September, the hummingbird feeders in our yard hang abandoned, their usual dependents driven south by the early chill. Deer, which were scarce all summer, are beginning to reappear in the yards and gardens. Velvet-covered antlers distinguish the bucks, as they feed on acorns that now litter the lawn.

    On the ridge top scrub barrens, unprotected by the forest canopy, nighttime temperatures will tend to fall significantly compared to the surrounding woodlands. Hiking these areas on a fall evening, one can encounter rivers of cold air as they course though the landscape’s shallow draws, eventually to pool in the so-called “frost pockets.” Here, even in early fall; there may be freezes, which quickly melt in the bright morning sunshine.

    A walk along a lakeside trail in late September reveals further evidence of a transition occurring. One immediately notices the absence of frogs and tadpoles at the shoreline.  The latter have by now, matured into the former and have burrowed into the mud below the cooling waters. Migrating geese visit to feed and briefly rest. Along the shore, fruit still clings to blueberry bushes, though their leaves are already changing to crimson.

    Summer may yet fleetingly return for one more encore; bowing before it leaves the stage. Eventually the climate will change more definitively, and the forest canopy will explode with color. Fall has returned. Winter will not be far behind.

  

 Sometimes an image will surprise you in small but delightful ways.

   Sometimes it will be the inclusion of an unnoticed detail in a corner of the image that adds interest to the eye.

  When shooting on the water, it can be a feature under the surface, unseen through the viewfinder, but revealed courtesy of the polarizing filter you thoughtfully placed on the lens.

   In my case recently, it was blue light.

  I was camping with my daughter Brigid, a sort of last attempt to bond before she escapes to college life. We paddled our kayaks to an island in the Saranac Lake chain of upstate New York.

  Truth be told, she wasn’t real happy about this. Her brother escaped “dad duty” as he had brought two friends with him on our trip up north, and there weren’t enough kayaks. His time will come.

  I was going one way or another, and I’d like to think if anything, Brigid went to make sure that I didn’t capsize and drown.

 This particular trip is lovely.  You “put in” at a state sponsored site on the Saranac River and paddle through a series of ”ponds” prior to emerging into the vast waters of Lower Saranac lake. This is a large convoluted body of water, connected to the Middle Saranac Lake again by the Saranac River which reappears at the southwestern end of the lake. Multiple islands erupt from the lake floor. They vary in size from single rocks harboring a small pad of soil and a few conifers, to multiple acre-sized landforms covered in White Pine and northern hardwoods. This makes Lower Saranac a pleasant, visually interesting, largely sheltered place to paddle, though we did encounter fairly fresh winds and chop over the open sections we had to traverse.

   As they were loaded with gear, the ‘yaks rode lower in the water than usual, and it was somewhat difficult to “beach” them on the steep and slippery gneiss shoreline on the island we had chosen. Once secured, we unloaded and set up camp.

The NYS DEC maintain this area nicely. There are nice wide open tenting areas. There is even a privy available (definitely necessary, as these are busy sites)

Each site has a concrete fireplace, correctly designed to provide reflected heat for the cool Adirondack nights (thirty to forty degree nights would not be uncommon).

  I removed my Panasonic GH1 and two lenses from the dry bag where they resided for the trip over and waited for the light to get interesting.

  I had thought about taking some video, especially if the lake’s loons cooperated by calling prominently, but they were quiet that night. A few of their mournful cries were audible, but only in the distance. We contented ourselves with the warbling of wood thrushes, the chittering of the islands sole red squirel, and the occasional sound of passing powerboat.

   Periodically, dark clouds appeared, threatening rain. Happily it held off until much later, when we were finally zipped into the tent for the night.

  At dusk, the temperature dropped and fire seemed like a nice idea. I gathered wood and using the bark from a birch log we found already at the site, started one fairly easily.

  I spent a lot of time in the hour around sunset, shooting from various vantage points before returning to the campsite for good.

   There, Brigid and I sat around the fire as the light faded. The glow of the fireplace was evocative. I had no tripod on the trip ( yes, I know, big faux pas) so I was forced to set the camera at ISO 1600 (not the GH1’s best strength) to get reasonable shutter speeds.

   I asked Brigid to stay very still, and shot several frames with her in the foreground, counting on the image stabilization to keep things sharp. It was important to if anything, over-expose a bit (with a fire as the bright point it doesn’t matter so much), to avoid shadow noise. I looked at the image on the LCD in camp, it looked OK, and I put the equipment away for the night.

   I shot a few more images in the morning before we left the next morning but the sky was cloudy and the light mostly unremarkable. Still… there were moments.

   When I got back to my computer and was able to view the images in Photoshop, I noticed something I hadn’t seen in camp. In sharp contrast to reds and oranges of the firelight, was a soft blue glow evident through the trees at the shoreline, the fading blue of the night sky reflected in the water of the lake. I played with raw image a bit, pushing the exposure to a point that enhanced this effect (but only a bit). I was surprised and impressed with the camera’s dynamic range and metering which had allowed all of this to be recorded.

I like this picture. It reminds me of the numerous, and largely anonymous campfire scenes one sees for sale at souvenir shops throughout the Adirondacks.

  More importantly, it will always remind me of a very pleasant memory of time spent with my daughter before she embarks on a new phase of her young life.

BTW Brigid, Happy 18th.

  

Creating interesting images in midsummer, in the northeastern United States is sometimes a struggle. 

 Now I’m not saying that there aren’t subjects to shoot. There certainly are. 

    Streams, waterfalls, lakes, sunrises and sunsets all are available in midsummer the way they are the rest of the year. It’s just that everything is a fairly uniform green. And one day looks like the next. 

   There’s little change or evolution in the landscape, like in the fall with the leaves that seem to change almost day-by-day; or more obviously in the winter, when a snowstorm can utterly transform the scenery overnight. 

   There is however, a pattern of subtle, but predictable events in rural landscapes. There is for instance, the reliable blooming of summer flowers. If one pays attention during the year, you can begin to date an image by what blooms are present. 

  In early July for instance, here in the Moosic Mountains, purple thistles decorate the sunny edges of dirt roads throughout the region. Three weeks later, the seeds and their white parachutes are grasping at currents of air. 

Cardinal flowers decorate the channels of ephemeral streams that have dried up in the warm dry summer air. Blueberries, their blossoms long gone, ripen on the branches of trailside shrubs. 

  Sunflower blooms appear on their towering stalks sometime later, generally in August, and often well into September, their appearance roughly corresponding to the eruption of yellow in fields of goldenrod, the scourge of allergy sufferers everywhere. 

    On local farms, hay is being cut, depending on the summer weather, for the second or third time. This applies a sweet aroma to the summer breezes. 

   Sweet corn starts to be harvested. Heavy green fruit begins to pull the thin branches of tomato plants downward. Vast armies of wheat stalks bend in unison, to the wind of midsummer storms. 

   For me the goal of scenic summer photography, and for that matter, all seasonal photography is to capture the essence…the feeling of the moment that I and others experience in our little nook of the world. 

    I want my audience to view an image with all their senses, and share the full experience; for instance, the chill of a distinctly cool August morning in the Adirondacks, after a cold front passes. I surely want then to see the glory of the sun as it burns through the early morning fog.  But I want them to inhabit the scene, and to imagine the fresh smell of the dew-laden grasses, and to hear, as I heard that morning,  the distant sound of a loon on this obscure little lake, shrouded in mist (I guess now that I have a GH1, I could just take some video). 

   I want to convey the feeling as a rivulet of sweat runs down the back of your neck, in the lingering heat of a summer evening, on an uphill walk to an old abandoned farm. 

 Or the satisfaction of a quick Saturday afternoon mountain bike ride to a reservoir high in the surrounding hills. 

 Or the joy of a paddle on the Susquehanna River as the sun sets over the surrounding mountains. 

  I want to evoke the memory of hunting woodchucks at a friend’s farm on an August afternoon…or the joy of the amusements and food at a volunteer fire department “bazaar”. 

Images shouldn’t always just be technically competent and well composed. 

 I believe they need to tell a story.

 

The new  photo above, was taken at one of my favorite local places: Hickory Run State Park, which is located at the very western border of the Pocono “Mountains” of Pennsylvania.

   It depicts the “Old Stage Road”, which runs through the park as a hiking trail but converts to a public road at the park’s border.

  Hickory Run is a fascinating place from a geologic standpoint. As I understand it, the park is situated on land at the very end of the  ice sheet that formed over North America 18,000 years ago

    The glaciated, “Pocono” portion of the park on the east is actually a high flat plateau with a mix of woodland and barrens species and the locally famous Boulder field (depicted in a photo published with the “Mountain Laurels” article”). As you travel west, the land falls off and with it, multiple streams tumble off the heights,  through a succession of lovely glens, and over countless small (and some large) waterfalls,  all flowing inexorably  towards the Lehigh River at the park’s western border.

  At places on the property, very dense pockets of second-growth hemlocks block out sunlight even in midday. This helps visitors to this park understand the descriptions  by early settlers quoted in in park’s brochures of the “shades of death” they encountered here.

   This was the description by colonists who travelled this wilderness centuries ago, fearful of attack by predators or aboriginal Americans, that they imagined were lurking among the vast groves of  white pine and hemlock, many of which may have been 2-300 ft tall, and 500-hundred years old.

Those trees are long gone now, logged out in the 18th and 19th centuries for timber and tannin. They have been replaced by ancestors that are by comparison, mere adolescents. Nonetheless, as you pass through these dark verdent sections, you can easily imagine the anxiety of travellers riding on open wagon, in a stage coach, or worse, on foot as they traversed this dark, seemingly endless forest.

But I digress.

  Unfortunately, the method I use to bring higher-quality images to the site does not appear to be available for the header image. I am stuck with less than crisp images at this location on the site.

  I’m working on it.

  

 I have always loved the Fourth of July holiday here in the USA. 

  I will say, that the holiday’s proximity to Memorial day in late May, always makes it seem that the summer is rushing by. Summer, after all, is very precious in the Appalachian mountains. In truth, there are two months left before Labor Day backstops the summer vacation season. After this we will have at least 6 weeks of glorious fall weather before things get brown and chilly. 

  Obviously this holiday marks a profound event in American history: the moment a people decided to stand against taxation and non-representative government. The risk taken by those involved, from the militiaman that stood side-by side against the indomitable British Army, to he founders themselves, are I think, severely under appreciated by modern Americans, save perhaps, those that currently risk it all in the service of our armed forces.

God bless them.
 

  At my home, high in the Moosic Mountains of Pennsylvania, we celebrate the holiday with great enthusiasm. I live in an old Victorian resort community with big old cottages, most built with multiple bedrooms so to accommodate family and friends in the summer months when the houses were open.
On this weekend in particular the houses fill; every one of the little summer bedrooms has a suitcase and rumpled bed; the sound of adults who grew up here, playing with the their children is pervasive and lovely as one walks in the afternoon. 

Since the 1890s, people come here for the same ends: to revel in the summer warmth, but sleep comfortably in  the cool night air, to swim in the lake, hike the trails, ride bicycles, play a little tennis, and to sit on the front porch for a cocktail before dinner. 

The climate is extremely unpredictable in early July. This year it’s going to be brightly sunny and around 90 degrees, though we’ve had years where the temps stayed in the fifties. On that holiday, the only one outside was the griller; the rest of us were inside, gathered around the fireplace. 

We also have a parade. I’m not sure how long it’s been going on, but apparently for 40-plus Fourth of Julys by the accounts of some of the older residents. 

The event starts at one pm sharp, so starting around eleven, we gather at one of the larger driveways in the community. A diverse group of vehicles participates, from bicycles, to tractors to ATVs, convertibles, and pickup trucks. The children descend, with tape, and crepe paper ribbons, little American flags and red white and blue pinwheels, and bunting. The children are very enthusiastic, they sometimes fail to understand that in order to drive a vehicle you have to be able to open the door, or see through the windshield. A little parental modification is sometimes necessary. 

Eventually with issues corrected, away we drive, to our community center, where we are met by the Fairview Township Volunteer Fire Department.
The department is very capably managed by several community residents who I think worry that our huge old wood frame homes are likely to be potential future “clients” for the firemen’s services. Happily for us, the department’s massive and impeccably maintained equipment rivals that seen in big cities. Their efforts in the recent past have saved at least one of these historic structures from complete immolation. 

The fireman help as young children and their parents are loaded aboard the pumpers and ladder trucks. Then we line the vehicles up, and the parade begins, on a route through the network of gravel roads designed so that all may participate. 

Now I have always tended to be a “parader” but there are others who traditionally serve as “watchers” standing by the roadside in little knots of people with flags and perhaps a camera, waving as the parade goes by. After all everyone can’t be a “parader”. The “watchers” tend to congregate in the same places year to year, ducking as candy rains down opon them, thrown by the gleeful children in the trucks and fire engines. 

It takes about twenty minutes to do the route, then return to the community center and disband. It’s then on to the lake for a community picnic, and later, hopefully, fireworks.
  

  In truth, it’s a small event in a small community in Pennsylvania. 

I love it, because in this neighborhood, we draw together as a community rather than sequester ourselves in our own fenced-in backyards, isolated from our neighbors. I would rather be here no matter what the weather, than at the biggest celebration in New York or Boston.

Undoubtedly, I’d have to be a “watcher” there. 

  After all, I am a “Parader”.

   

  Every summer for the last several years, when school lets out, I pack my children in a vehicle full of photography equipment and outdoor gear, and head out into the northeastern US.   

I do this for several reasons:  

 One reason is to attempt to bond with my children, who tend otherwise to be illuminated more by the LCDs of a video screen, than by any remaining wisdom their father may have left to impart.  

  I also do a little photography.  

It started in 2004 as a trip with my son Gus, driving around Pennsylvania to capture spring/summer images for what became Pennsylvania Seasons, a book of Commonwealth images with poetry contributed by native authors. My nine-year-old son put up with my prattling, carried my tripod, hung around as I planned out shots and fiddled with equipment, and endured the days we spent together. He was a wonderful companion.  

He thus made a huge mistake.

  After this, it became a tradition. The next year Brigid was added. My loving wife, who I think is grateful for a week of solitude and peace, is happy to stay home.  

   I love this trip every year. We camp, tour new places, hike, and at times, visit my relatives and old friends, particularly those that have children of similar age. We have visited the deepest old growth areas of the Allegheny National Forest, whitewater rafted on the Youghiogheny River, explored the baseball museum in Cooperstown, NY, toured the battlefields of Gettysburg on horseback, did the “rock scramble” at Mohunk Mountain, and visited the aquarium at the Inner Harbor of Baltimore. Last year, as we ate dinner on a deck in Annapolis, we watched as a line of historically severe thunderstorms pummeled the town.  

 I vainly try to keep it interesting.  

The family tradition is that the kids hate the trip. It takes them away from the refrigerator, their computers, and their friends. They began very early on, referring to it as “Bad Dad’s Summer Camp”. They claim to consider it to be something to endure, so that they may enjoy the remaining summer.  

   Despite this, I love to spend time with my children, watching them interact with each other. I am lucky that they are close, and enjoy each other’s company. They seem to spend most of the week laughing.  

   I am proud to say that both of my offspring are experienced campers, with strong backpacking skills. “Car camping” is thus a breeze; one of my joys is watching my kids as they set up in the evening ( I generally sit in a comfortable chair, eating corn chips with a nice spicy salsa, with a cold drink close at hand). Of course, I critique their efforts as any good parent would.  It is rewarding to watch one’s children demonstrate competence in skills that they will undoubtedly pass on to their offspring (though they adamantly deny that this will ever happen).  

   I admit to some issues. I do snore… apparently, in fact, loudly. We bought Gus a backpacking tent a year ago for use at the Philmont Boy Scout Reservation.  He now demands to sleep in it, on our trips, as far from where I am sleeping as the campsite will allow. Brigid tragically, is stuck in a two room tent with me. The dividing wall is made of nylon which offers little in the way of sound insulation. She sleeps, no matter what the temperature, with her head buried in the “mummy bag” groaning at me occasionally when I reach a crescendo.  

  Like most teens, my kids have a delayed sleep phase, preferring to “sleep in” for the morning. This has begun to work out for me as I can’t seem to sleep past the first bird call in the morning, which as it turns out, in the first weeks of June, happens about 5am. Now that the kids are older I am more comfortable leaving the campsite while they sleep.  I arise before the sun, my gear already prepared in the car.  When the weather is right, this can work out really well.  

In Vermont, several weeks ago, we had pitched on the shores of large lake on what was already an unseasonably cool night.  

A front passed, dropping an hour’s worth of rain just after we had retired to the tents. The sky then cleared and the temperature dropped further, ultimately into the low 40’s.  

 I knew on awakening that the atmospherics would be interesting… and they were. The lake was shrouded in a fog that moved deliberately over the water. A more subtle mist clouded the atmosphere elsewhere, leaving heavy dew on the marsh plants of the boggy wetlands that were a prominent feature of this state park. I spent the hour or so around sunrise walking on the lakeshore and exploring the surroundings, shooting with both the Nikon D700 and the Panasonic GH1 to a soundtrack of flutelike birdsong and distant loon calls.  

   Finally with the passage of time, the sun angles became less interesting and the fog very suddenly dissipated. I trudged back to the tents, the kid’s rhythmic breathing signaling that for now at least, they remained oblivious to the beautiful day evolving around them. It still being chilly I restarted the fireplace, zipped up my fleece and made coffee, then settled in with a book, waiting for them to awaken.  

  With Brigid on her way to college next year, I don’t know for sure for how many years I will have this time with them in June.  

  I love this trip.  I really hope we have at least a few left.

   

    

    

Gas Drilling In Pennsylvania   

This is the full text of an Editorial published in the Wilkes Barre, Times Leader on Sunday , June 6th, 2010. It is about the juggernaut of Marcellus Shale Gas drilling that is  steamrolling across the farms and wildlands of Pennsylvania.   

   Like many in our region, I am struggling with the issue of drilling for gas in the Marcellus Shale formation. It’s hard to ignore the potential benefits. Gas drilling in Pennsylvania has the potential to tap a new source of clean-burning fuel applicable to many uses, from home heating, to motive transport, to the production of electricity.  In North Texas, where companies have been drilling gas wells in the Barnett Shale formation since the 1990s, gas production has added a significant number of new, good paying jobs to a struggling region. For land owners, gas leases offer the prospect of significant income in these challenging financial times. Unlike the wind energy boondoggle of several years ago, the gas industry comes with the prospect of very real and tangible benefits.   

  Given my previous modest involvement in environmental advocacy, I have been asked by a number of people to weigh in on the issue. Up to now I have been reluctant, as I was not knowledgeable enough to have an answer. I’m still not sure that I am. What I have learned however is sufficient to cause me great concern.   

    In my travels, I have spent a lot of time in the western part of the state, where small gas and oil wells have been a regular feature of the landscape for many years. They generally sit on a small footprint, and appear to have little impact on their pastoral surroundings. I once encountered a venerable, but functioning gas/ oil well in the middle of a lush forest that had grown up around the installation. Many of these are so-called “stripper wells” were drilled by landowners themselves, down to depths of 1500-2000 ft. They produce modest amounts of natural gas, and have had some problems such as “gas migration”, particularly the so-called “orphaned” wells, abandoned by their owners before being properly “plugged”.   

   So, at first blush, gas drilling wasn’t particularly frightening to me.   

   But… this isn’t your grandfather’s gas drilling.   

  “Fracing” is the process by which gas is extracted from the shale that lies roughly 5000-9000 ft below ground in this region. Suffice it to say that it involves injection under great pressure of very large volumes of water, sand, and what was, until recently, a secret mix of chemicals, now known to contain some really nasty toxins and carcinogens. This is done do fracture the rock and allow gas to be extracted. It said to be safe, because the process occurs a mile or more below the surface, far below the natural aquifers. As I understand it, a good proportion of the fluid is then recovered, and has to be dealt with at the surface. A pad site can house 6 to 8 wells, each of which will need to be fraced.     

Given the usual strict federal regulations that apply to industry, I wondered how such a risky process could be legal. It turns out that since 2005, gas drillers have been exempt from the Safe Drinking Water Act, and thus the nation’s most potent and pertinent regulatory laws. Arguably, this is the only way that they could get away with injecting these toxic chemicals into the earth.   

   Each episode of fracing requires significant heavy truck traffic to transport the literally millions of gallons of water, plus the sand, and chemicals required. And what is the source of the water? Apparently in western Pennsylvania where drilling is well underway, it has been streams and rivers.  A Pittsburg television news team recently reported that in August of 2008, well drillers actually “pumped dry” Sugarcamp Run, a stream in Washington County.   

  Another huge problem is what to do with the toxic brine extracted from the well after fracing is completed. Our current DEP Secretary, John Hanger was recently quoted on the topic: “I am concerned about the capacity to treat the water…There is a problem looming.”   

  There are very few treatment plants in the state that are equipped to properly detoxify the mixture pumped out of the well head.  Some drillers have attempted to present the waste water to municipal treatment plants. Many have prudently refused the gift. In some parts of the state the water, which may not be completely detoxified by the municipal equipment, is still being discharged into the Monongahela River which serves as drinking water source.   

By the way,  brine samples from 11/13 Marcellus wells in New York tested by their DEC recently, were found to be radioactive, some at levels as much as 250 time the level allowed by law   

    If this large volume of contaminated, possibly even radioactive liquid is not treated, then it must be stored on the site. Where there are liquids, there will be spills…and there’s going to be a lot of liquids in holding ponds, in tanks, and in trucks driving on our roads.   

Also, has anyone considered how  the municipalities involved are going to pay for the rather drastically increased wear and tear on what have been up to now often lightly travelled rural roads and bridges?   

    I think of the Foster Wheeler incident near my home in Mountaintop. There, a relatively small amount of trichloroethylene, a chemical degreaser, escaped into the soil and fouled a great many water wells downstream. The solution was to run public water into the affected homes. What would happen to the value of your home if there were no public water nearby, and fracing water contaminates the local aquifer? Or worse, if drilling contaminates the public water supply, a scary thought with drilling set to occur near to the Ceasetown and Huntsville reservoirs.   

    I have a number of friends who own acreage suitable for drilling; others have been offered money for a well to be run beneath them from a drilling “pad” on adjacent land. I have heard them describe the money that they have been offered for leases on these properties, often where they reside. I own no such land, and I think I’m glad I don’t.  The temptation to sign on must be overwhelming.   

   I am concerned that these friends do not understand the intrusion on their lives, as well as those of their neighbors, that drilling on their property would involve. I also fear that the effects of such a violent and toxic geologic manipulation might cause problems far beyond the borders of their parcels. I hope that they’re testing their water supplies and perhaps the soils near to where drilling may occur, to establish a baseline. Someday that information may be essential.   

  I honestly believe we should slow down the rush towards widespread drilling.  Let’s drill some wells in carefully selected sites.  See what happens. If everything comes out OK, drill a few more. After all, it’s not like the gas is going away any time soon. What’s the big rush?  The potential downside is huge.     

  Perhaps we should wait for the results of recently announced EPA study, commissioned to investigate the surge in reports of drinking water contamination in sites near to where fracing has been used.   

   I fervently hope that we can find a safe, cost-effective way to exploit this wonderful resource with out permanently ruining our aquifers, wild places, and watersheds.   

I’m just not convinced that we have, as of yet.   

                                                                                   Henry F. Smith Jr. MD   

    

 

  Bluegrass music can be a little raw sometimes.

For fans accustomed to overproduced commercial country, or popular music, bluegrass music can at times, sound unsophisticated and perhaps even, a little shabby, very much the hillbilly cousin you have to acknowledge, but are secretly ashamed of.

For dazzling urban sophisticates, the music is tainted, at times with an unpleasant aroma of religiosity and with a sense of poor rural folk living a life devoid of the things they value.

   They fail to appreciate the beauty of hard work, innocent romance, and devotion to God and family, that is often thematic in Bluegrass music.

  I had little interest in the genre until like many people, I was captivated by the soundtrack of the Coen Brothers film, Oh Brother, Where Art Thou. This wonderful film is a beautifully written allegory to Homer’s Odyssey   set in the deep south of the 1930’s. The  film is populated by wonderful actors such as George Clooney, John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson, John Goodman, Holly Hunter, and Charles Durning. It  features music by some of the most talented practitioners of the craft, including Allison Kraus, Gillian Welch, Pat Enright, and  Dan Tyminski (who is the true lead vocalist of the movies most memorable hit: “A Man of Constant Sorrows”.

    As a long time fan of Celtic music, I have found much joy in these extraordinary performers, as well as the largely Celtic-based melodies, which after all, have their roots in my beloved Appalachian Mountains.

   Submitted for your approval: a wonderful version of an old gospel tune: “Soldiers of the Cross”, performed by a bluegrass legend, Ricky Skaggs, and his band, “Kentucky Thunder”.

 For the bluegrass newbie, I think it helps a lot that the back up “band” is the Boston Pops Orchestra, with an incredibly congruent and complimentary symphonic treatment. It should be clear from the performance, that these are some incredibly talented and creative musicians, as skilled and polished as any.

This genre is a window into the past, to the rugged individualists who settled the frontier of the eastern mountains from North Carolina, to Pennsylvania.  To me it makes for a wonderful accompaniment to a good book, a porch rocker, and a warm June evening.

 

The Mountain Laurels are starting to bloom in Pennsylvania.

    This is our state flower, and its emergence marks the point where our climate finally evolves from the fickle whims of April and May, to the soft summer weather of June. It is a moment of unconscious celebration for people who begin to open their pools, grill in the evening after work, and sit on the porches at night, listening to the distant call of whippoorwill.

   Here in the northeastern part of the state, we are beginning to see the delicate clusters of white blooms open up on the lower altitude woodland slopes in our region. By mid to late June they will bloom in abundance throughout the northern third of the commonwealth.

   I have for the last fifteen years, taken a week of vacation at this time, to wander the mountains, either by backpacking, or more recently, because of the burgeoning weight of my photo equipment, and a bad knee, car camping and day hiking. The laurels, and their cousins, wild rhododendrons, provide the forests their last splash of widespread color before they settle in to the monotonous green of summer. Arguably, it is the last time until fall, for a photographer to use wider lenses in the forest. After the laurels are extinguished,  longer focal  lengths become more useful to capture the later blooming wildflowers which are scattered throughout the woodland greenery.

I have several striking memories of this time of year involving Mountain Laurels:

   I first hiked the West Rim Trail of north central Pennsylvania in mid June, perhaps eighteen years ago. I was mainly a mountain biker at the time and hadn’t backpacked in years. I didn’t realize at the time, the different conditioning needed to carry a pack over distance. The rugged trail, plus the weight on my back played hell with my feet.  The weather had been wet, and I remember being extremely eager for the trip to end. I was getting close on the third day. The last portion of the trail diverts west into the Tioga State Forest, apparently to avoid Coulton Point State Park which hugs the rim of the” Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania”  in that location. Within the last four miles of its northern terminus, the trail leaves the woods to once again skirt the edge of the gorge.

   The Pine River gorge at this point is roughly 800 feet above the river, and the edges are swathed in laurel, which was in full bloom as I emerged from the forest on the path as it swerved to edge of the ridge. My jaw dropped at the beauty. White blossoms were everywhere, densely surrounding the trail. To my right was the spectacular vista off the ridge. I photographed it at the time but the small pocket camera and I were inadequate to the task, and the results were unpublishable. The memory of this, however, was worth every blister.

   A year later, I was on the Loyalsock Trail in the Wyoming State forest. This is a very vertical trail, laid out I am told by an Explorer troop, which must have had very sadistic leadership.

   I was in better shape that year and enjoying as I recall some wonderful June weather with blue skies, seventy degree days, and fifty degree nights. Hiking with several friends, we lugged our heavy backpacks up another of the seemingly limitless up hill climbs that mark the trail’s early miles.

    I remember cresting a hill, and looking down on a relatively old growth stand of trees on the vast wooded slope below. The canopy was quite high, perhaps 150 feet. There was a feeling of being in a vast verdant space. The forest floor was lush with white laurels, all in full bloom, a carpet that extended for as far as your eyes could discern. All of this was dappled with shafts of sunlight, occurring at random spots where the leaf cover was spare. No one could help but to stop, and stare. Though it was only 11 AM, we found a log on which to sit, and ate our lunch early.

June is a wonderful time of year in the eastern mountains.

 Perhaps God makes the Mountain Laurels bloom, just to remind us.