When Pam and the kids and I visit our family in Beaufort, North Carolina, I often take the opportunity to hire a small plane at the friendly Michael J. Smith Airport to take photos of nearby RS sites. I did so yesterday and enjoyed nearly perfect conditions. Here are some pictures of the Bear Creek, Jarman’s Oak and Lloyd wetland and stream mitigation sites. (As regular readers will recall, I flew Bear Creek earlier this month. But I returned this time WITH my stabilized lens).
I also flew the North Carolina Coastal Federation’s North River Restoration Site, about which I have provided some background below.
Note: If you “click through” the photo box you can more easily read captions and navigate the photos.
Enjoy!
Below are some photos of North River Farms, which is being restored by the North Carolina Coastal Federation. This project is near and dear to RS’ heart. RS owned the option to purchase this 6000 acre farm in the 90’s. Determining that the farm had significantly more restoration potential than could be used as mitigation in the watershed (unless Cape Canaveral were relocated to the NC coast), we contacted the NCCF and suggested they take our option and make an application for its restoration to the then newly formed NC Clean Water Management Trust Fund.
The rest is history. The project is now one of the largest coastal restoration projects in the nation. We retained 390 acres within the farm, for which RS was recently awarded a grant from the Natural Resources Conservation Service to restore and protect. Brassgrill and I will blog in the future and tell you more about this project.
Wow! The Lloyd site is looking great…as all the sites the RS restores. Of course the Lloyd site is near a dear to my heart. As Mr. Lloyd himself said…”as my life here on earth comes to a close, I want to leave my mark as a statement that man can indeed be a good steward to the land he walks”… here here Mr. Lloyd…I did my part by meeting you and convincing you that you should sell you land and do something good with it. Even though Sakvarla and Aycock were reluctant to put the final ink on the deal allowing for a monument to be placed at the front of the “Lloyd Stream and Wetland Restoration Site” I was able to come back with a signed deal, amending the language to say “Sign” rather than “Monument” and making it so Aycock could sleep at night just knowing that Paul Parker did not promise the Washington Monument be constructed in the outskirts of Jacksonville, NC. Now I can sleep knowing that the site turned out just as we planned and I to have left my mark on this earth at such an early age…. I expect I will leave many a more mark on this earth before my time ends…I say lift your glass in honor of Mr. Lloyd and shout from the top of the hills..”to making a mark”…Onward young lads and be a good steward, for it will come back ten-fold.
Sincerely,
Paul Tillery Parker
you seem to really enjoy complementing yourself. this must be great work.
Thanks, Bob!
And thanks for the post, Paul. You are dearly beloved at RS and your work does indeed live on. I hope you and your family have a wonderful Christmas.
SM (GAH)