Notes from my Knapsack 9-8-22

Notes from my Knapsack 9-8-22
Jeff Gill

Looking up and down the watershed
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When I mentioned the Intel site as being bisected by a diagonal line, northwest to southeast, and the upper righthand portion draining into the Raccoon Creek watershed, a logical question came up: what about the lower left half?

This is the beginning of thinking with the landscape, and speaking in watersheds. In fact, while the northeast half ends up flowing past Granville into Newark, the southwest half of Intel's parcel drains over into Duncan Run, past Center Village and on into Big Walnut Creek's watershed at Hoover Reservoir, then downstream meeting Blacklick & Alum Creeks before it bends west under I-270, and on into the Scioto River just past Lockbourne.

So that level well-drained piece of real estate is part of those "heights" you hear about, faintly still, in our local geography: Licking Heights, Summit Station, Summit Road. In the old horseback and canoe oriented days, it is part of the "height of land" between drainages. In fact, the South Fork of the Licking River starts its trickling course just a stone's throw to the southeast of the area under development, with a presidential blessing coming this week. Just east of Mink Street, north of Rt. 161, a watercourse meanders first west, then very slowly turns south, making a wide arc around Jersey before picking up strength and speed towards Pataskala, then flirting with US 40 heading east until diving under at National Trail Raceway to join the canal era constructed Buckeye Lake . . . which took advantage of the watershed to create a reservoir for the Ohio & Erie Canal to drain both the artificial waterway and the now full fledged river due north past Hebron and Heath into Newark.

In other words, we are all downstream from what happens between Beech Road and Mink Street, one way or another. We could shrug at floods which didn't touch us, tut-tut at algae blooms in Millersport from excess nitrogen and phosphorus off of agricultural fields, and mutter imprecations when a water line repair means a boil water alert, but in general we don't think much about what's upstream from us, nor do we worry about those who are downstream from where we are, and what we're doing.

We are also downstream of impacts which are getting much discussion: new jobs and the need for skilled employees, the desire for housing and schools by couples and families and anyone moving here to work there, tax credits and incentives creating development which municipalities and local governance units hope increase revenues. Those downstream flows, trickle out, trickle down, trickle through, are all getting much play.

And I'm hearing a great deal about how Intel has been elsewhere, and is likely here, to be a good partner in not only economic but ecological matters. Frankly, I believe most of it, and I'm not worried about Intel. It's the "and everyone who follows them" that I wonder about, here downstream.

The beaver (no surprise there's a Beaver Road just east of Mink Street in those highlands, is there?) builds a dam, changing the flow downstream and backing up a pond above their lodge. They tend their shore, and keep up the beaver dam nicely. Meanwhile, other creatures move in to make use of the transformed landscape. There's where I'm watching closely.


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he thinks highly of most busy beavers, and is respectful of skunks. Tell him about new wildlife you've seen lately at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.