ENVIRONMENT

Residents can help improve area water quality by picking up trash from local streams on Saturday during Mecklenburg County’s annual creek clean-up, Big Sweep. To register, click here. The Big Sweep will take place at six sites, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Volunteers can walk alongside or, if they’re adventurous, wade into local streams […]

What kinds of wild animals are in the woods, and what are they up to? The Smithsonian Institution and the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences have set up cameras to find out. Scroll below for a photo gallery of animal images captured as part of the eMammal project. This summer, as part of my […]

Charlotte area planning and sustainability enthusiasts can have their say about the future of the region in coming weeks by taking part in two long-range regional planning efforts. In Mecklenburg County, volunteers are being sought to help draft the Mecklenburg Livable Communities Plan. Mecklenburg County residents can apply to participate in a work group through […]

The right combination of protective hedges, sun-absorbing walls and a southern exposure can turn a corner of your yard into a tropical microclimate ­– especially in a rain-soaked year like this one. Last summer’s record heat and drought gave us a taste of weather in desert regions. This year, the abundant rainfall has been more […]

Thru-hiking means going the complete distance (end-to-end) on a long-distance trail. Thanks to the efforts of several organizations, all 40 miles of the Uwharrie Trail can now be “thru-hiked.” Often we hike trails and visit parks and don’t think much about how they came about for us to enjoy. The Uwharrie Trail was originally built […]

The Rocky River begins in Iredell County and flows through Cabarrus, Stanly, Anson and Union counties. This part of our region is very close to South Carolina and you find some interesting critters here you don’t see in other parts of the central N.C. Piedmont. One distinctive species is the Gulf Coast spiny softshell turtle […]

On a blustery March day last year, Syreeta Kitchen-Dukes and her neighbors in the Applegate Community of east Charlotte gathered in rainy front yards to meet the neighborhood’s newest residents: 177 young trees. See more tree photos at article’s end. The would-be forest arrived with a crew from TreesCharlotte, a public/private collaborative whose goal is […]

Have you been seeing more turtles than usual on your morning commute lately? If you’ve been driving this spring on rural highways in North Carolina, you might have detected a surge in turtle activity, especially snapping turtles. Chelydraserpentina, or the common snapping turtle, is one of the more striking members of our state’s turtle clan. […]

Years ago, a friend in Uwharrie showed me a crooked tree on his family’s property. Its trunk was bent at two right angles, creating a horizontal span about 4 feet off the ground. He said they called it their “ducker-header” tree. Their clever terminology came to mind again recently when I learned about the Trail […]

Mecklenburg County residents can add one more item to the growing list of uses for their smartphones: reporting water pollution. Be a Water Watcher Click here to learn about downloading the Water Watcher app for your smart phone. Charlotte Mecklenburg Storm Water Services launched a new app in February called Water Watchers, which lets users […]