'America's Amazon'

Thousands of American lotuses carpet the water's surface, turned toward the morning sun. Yellow warblers flit among cypress trees along a creek bank. A paddlefish jumps as a motorboat rounds a bend.

The more than 400-square-mile Mobile-Tensaw Delta — a lush, vibrant and surprisingly intact expanse of cypress swamps, oxbow lakes, marshland, hardwood stands and rivers — teems with more aquatic species than almost anywhere in North America. It's considered one of the world's most important delta ecosystems, yet its ecological riches are only a part of the even more diverse watershed that includes much of Alabama. It's the only place 77-year-old Lucy Hollings calls home.



As a kid, she swam daily across the Tensaw River. She still fishes daily and is the sole proprietor of Cloverleaf Landing, a boat launch that offers anglers access to the river and delta. "I know I live in the most beautiful place in the world," said Hollings, who cools off in the shade of towering sweetgum trees draped with Spanish moss and watches dazzling sunsets from her deck.

The delta is a critical conduit between the rest of Alabama and the Gulf of Mexico — "a dynamo" that continually exchanges energy between the river systems and the Gulf, said Bill Finch, director of a forest research center. Two-thirds of the state drains to the delta, which cleans water and warehouses silt that could damage Mobile Bay and its fisheries. It's a spawning ground for many fish species.

It's also home to hundreds of bird species, rare flowers and carnivorous plants. So residents, scientists and environmentalists are working to protect the entire Alabama ecosystem, considered crucial to the survival of species as well as the health of the delta and the Gulf of Mexico. They're also trying to raise awareness of an important and unique area that many in the U.

S. never heard of. Diverse species Glaciers that covered much of North America never reached Alabama, where the relatively warm and humid climate helped species proliferate.

What's here astonishes biologists: American elms, decimated by disease in other parts of the country, thrive in the delta and its watershed, reflecting "this ancient, ancient heritage" of genetically hardy trees, Finch said. It's central to the nation's oak diversity, with about 40 species, compared with about a dozen in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Its fish diversity is unmatched on the continent, with about 350 species, including more than 230 in the 44,000-square-mile Mobile River basin.

A single small Alabama river may have more species than all of California. There are more than 100 crawfish species, almost three dozen turtle species and more mussel species than in all of South America. Experts say it's impossible to protect the delta without considering the entire watershed, which reaches to Tennessee, Mississippi and Georgia.

Some water begins in the Appalachian Mountains, moving through forests, urban areas and the delta until the Mobile River empties into the Gulf of Mexico at Mobile Bay. There still is much to discover, said Ben Raines, who has spread awareness of the state's ecological importance, first as environmental reporter at Mobile's daily newspaper — where he rediscovered a crayfish thought to be extinct — and now as the environmental fellow at the University of South Alabama, where he's the writer and filmmaker in residence, and as a boat captain offering nature tours. He dubbed Alabama "America's Amazon" in a book and documentary.

"We don't even know what's here," Raines said. "We're losing things that haven't been discovered, and there are things still here that we think are gone." Altered ecosystem Forests of giant cypress and water tupelo were clear cut as recently as the 1980s by loggers.

Chemical plants, paper mills and a factory that made the now-banned insecticide DDT contaminated land and water. Dams altered waterflow, blocked fish passage and led to extinction of dozens of freshwater species, including fish, snails and mussels. This spring, The Nature Conservancy bought 8,000 acres of forested wetland between the Tombigbee and Alabama rivers at the top of the delta.

The land, which regularly floods and is an important bird habitat and fish-spawning and feeding area, was in danger of being logged to produce wood pellets for European power plants. Environmentalists also won a victory when a coal-fired power plant agreed in January to remove 21 million tons of coal ash stored in an unlined pit near the Mobile River. The state did not require its removal, though a breach could be catastrophic for the delta.

A canal built to connect the Tennessee and Tombigbee rivers in northern Alabama could allow invasive Asian carp to reach the Mobile River system and the delta, which could devastate native fish. The U.S.

Fish & Wildlife Service says carp were found and removed downstream of the canal, with biologists relying on early detection while other control measures are considered. Stronger hurricanes and saltwater surges caused serious erosion and killed trees, biologists and Hollings say. Increased rainfall and sea-level rise also will push saltwater farther into the delta — potentially causing forested areas to convert to marshland and shrinking the important area where saltwater and freshwater mix.

That also adds urgency to efforts to acquire more land outside the delta for species to move in the future, said Judy Haner, the Alabama Nature Conservancy's coastal programs director. Species from the delta and its watershed could be transplanted to other states where they've been lost, Finch said, noting that's already happening with some plants and mussels. Heat-tolerant species could be moved to other parts of the country as the climate changes, he added.

The Nature Conservancy is working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to design fish bypasses around two aging dams on the Alabama River to allow species to swim up from the Gulf and delta to historical spawning grounds.

While similar projects out west often focus on one species, Mitchell Reid, director of The Nature Conservancy in Alabama, says the Alabama plan could benefit about 20. The conservancy also is working to restore ecosystems in urban areas as far north as Birmingham, about 200 miles from Mobile, to prevent floodwater from sending sediment down rivers that could harm the delta. Everyone's delta Jimbo Meador spent a lifetime here, hunting, fishing, shrimping, crabbing, frogging and trapping.

For years, he offered boat tours for people to learn about the delta's ecological riches. After 82 years, he has stories about flocks of ducks that once blackened the skies and about hunting invasive nutria — rodents brought from Argentina for their fur — that were destroying marshes until an alligator rebound helped control them. "I'm blessed to have been born when I was," he said.

"Each generation is losing some, but they don't know what they lost. ..

. Thank goodness we've got a bunch of conservation organizations." People haven't always agreed how to preserve what's left.

A decade ago, Alabama conservationists and famed biologist Edward O. Wilson undertook an effort to make the delta a national park, but it fizzled after some groups balked at federal oversight and others feared losing access. Pat O'Neil, a biologist and former deputy director of the Alabama Geological Survey, says much of the land proposed for a national park was state-owned and already protected but available for hunting and fishing.

"The thing about conservation is it's not a one-agency or a one-organization thing," he said, noting more than 95% of land in Alabama is privately owned. The key, he said, is cooperation among private landowners, the government and nongovernmental agencies. Still, some say the best way to get people to care is to help them experience the delta for themselves.

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