Nearly 1 million people live along the Haw River's 1707 square mile watershed.
When paddling down the Haw, it is a humbling experience. The paddler feels its history as this rich web of flora, fauna and natural + historical features create a certain awe factor that is hard to look away from.
Ducking from overhanging tree branches and observing the wide array of species and wildlife, the paddler engulfs on a journey. This journey, in many ways, represents a surrendering. A submission occurs as this immersive experience takes ahold. The current takes you, you question your feeling of lostness. Am I lost, or am I where I am supposed to be?
The journey experienced paddling on the Haw is breathtaking and in many ways fixating as you join your body with your outside landscape, becoming one entity. However, do we experience such amazement when standing atop water that is trapped underground?
"Sixty times more water is underground than we see streaming across earth's surface," says author of Down Along the Haw, Anne Melyn. "We are almost always standing on water," (7).
We almost never consider the water resting deep in the soil under our feet. The only times we realize water's impact is when it is in either abundance or scarcity.
From hawriver.org--
"The earlier history of the Haw River is a tale of pollution from the river powered textile factories, poor framing practices that led to massive soil erosion and inadequate treatment of wastes from cities and towns growing up in this part of the Piedmont. The federal Clean Water Act of 1972 and subsequent NC water quality regulations made a huge impact in reducing pollution in the Haw River. The Haw River watershed is very much a part of the new South. The declining textile industry has been supplanted by a surge of new economic development. People have moved here from all over the country. Modern cities live side by side with an older rural way of life. And still the Haw flows on, through farms and forests, past abandoned cotton mills and new suburbs."
The tale of the Haw River's past may be one ridden with irresponsibility, but how can we envision a brighter future for the Haw River? Let's focus on what we cannot see- the water beneath our feet in the depths of the soil, the water that is reused and recycled in the air, the water passing through our bodies- then we can make strides in appreciating what they eye can see.
Ducking from overhanging tree branches and observing the wide array of species and wildlife, the paddler engulfs on a journey. This journey, in many ways, represents a surrendering. A submission occurs as this immersive experience takes ahold. The current takes you, you question your feeling of lostness. Am I lost, or am I where I am supposed to be?
The journey experienced paddling on the Haw is breathtaking and in many ways fixating as you join your body with your outside landscape, becoming one entity. However, do we experience such amazement when standing atop water that is trapped underground?
"Sixty times more water is underground than we see streaming across earth's surface," says author of Down Along the Haw, Anne Melyn. "We are almost always standing on water," (7).
We almost never consider the water resting deep in the soil under our feet. The only times we realize water's impact is when it is in either abundance or scarcity.
From hawriver.org--
"The earlier history of the Haw River is a tale of pollution from the river powered textile factories, poor framing practices that led to massive soil erosion and inadequate treatment of wastes from cities and towns growing up in this part of the Piedmont. The federal Clean Water Act of 1972 and subsequent NC water quality regulations made a huge impact in reducing pollution in the Haw River. The Haw River watershed is very much a part of the new South. The declining textile industry has been supplanted by a surge of new economic development. People have moved here from all over the country. Modern cities live side by side with an older rural way of life. And still the Haw flows on, through farms and forests, past abandoned cotton mills and new suburbs."
The tale of the Haw River's past may be one ridden with irresponsibility, but how can we envision a brighter future for the Haw River? Let's focus on what we cannot see- the water beneath our feet in the depths of the soil, the water that is reused and recycled in the air, the water passing through our bodies- then we can make strides in appreciating what they eye can see.