Pinxterflowers, Duke Energy, and Federal security contractors (and the NC DOT)

The first and largest South Alston pinxterflower azalea starting to bloom in late April a few years ago ©.

Pinxterflowers (Rhododendron periclymenoides), also called pink azaleas, are deciduous azaleas that have pale reddish purple or pink flowers with some fragrance in late April and are found in the East from New York and Vermont to Illinois and Alabama. Several deciduous azaleas and larger evergreen rhododendrons are native to North Carolina, but grow mostly west and east of the Triangle, while the ornamental evergreen azaleas common in landscaping come from East Asia (pinxterflowers and other natives are sometimes planted, for example there are some native flame azaleas at UNC, but Asian azaleas are far more common). Long ago I noticed a large pinxterflower growing near South Alston Road in southern Durham County, between TW Alexander Drive and Highway 55, just outside of Research Triangle Park. It grew beside a tiny brook that trickles over outcroppings of igneous rock in a wooded area that must have been a farm not many decades ago. Despite the tiny size of the brook, it has basically permanent pools and supports a breeding population of surprisingly large sunfish, as well as numerous crayfish (perhaps attracting queen snakes, which specialize in eating these crustaceans), black damselflies, and other invertebrates. Years ago, if not now, salamander species bred there, but conditions might have changed too much for them now. On the other side of the road an old tobacco barn stood next to a railroad paralleling Alston. There were other flowers in the woodland glade, such as very rare crimson red firepinks (I only know of two areas were they grow naturally, both in Durham), flowering spurge, yellow trout lilies, arrowwood, and painted buckeyes.
 

That was a few decades ago, and there have been many changes since then, endangering the pinxterflowers and other rare plants, now more widely known among locals. One of the highest hills around, with a commanding view up and down Highway 55, where the farm house was, was blasted away day and night around 10 years ago in early summer (leading to noise complaints to the police from several miles away, on Scott King Road). A County official said that the rock and soil was sold as fill to build the first toll road in North Carolina a few miles east down Hopson Road, and the rest was dumped in the nearby Triangle Brick Company claypit. There were plans for something like apartments or a strip mall on the plain left after the hill was demolished, across from the Triangle Wastewater Treatment Plant, but those fell through. Around two years ago Durham County bought the site for a sludge drying facility, but there are still plans for a residential project on the other (northeast) corner of 55 and TW Alexander Drive, just north. Around the time when the hill was destroyed, South Alston was split and renamed at a railroad crossing (also a copperhead crossing in late September and another place where firepinks grew in the vicinity), creating Solutions Drive to the north and Experiment Drive to the south. Part of nearby Hopson Road became part of new north-south running Louis Stephens Drive, connecting it to TW Alexander and another ridge, from which UNC Hospital can be seen several miles west, though it is more an issue of lack of trees than elevation, was cut through to connect Hopson Road directly to Highway 55. Hopson and Alston have been moved around a few times in this area.



Looking northwest toward the intersection of NC 55 and TW Alexander Drive, a gravel driveway once led up to the top of a ridge about 340 feet above sea level here, now a flat expanse about 40 feet lower; trash was dumped soon after the hill was destroyed ©.

Looking north on Experiment Drive, formerly part of South Alston Road, from a gate under the high-tension powerline; the SSA's property can't be seen from here and I think does not even touch this road, but their security harasses people who come here.  The area in the background on the right was clearcut and other trees were cut for the powerline on the left, leading to the new substation.  The land was cleared and graded for additional powerlines and the new Hopson Road looking south, removing more forest ©.



This is a view east along the powerline, looking into Research Triangle Park.  The dead trees were sprayed by Duke Energy in the summer of 2017, when this photo was taken.  There are more powerlines than there used to be, but there has long been an east - west powerline corridor here, and the railroad tracks can be seen.  There used to be a large tobacco barn to the left, probably connecting to the railroad.  The 4 - lane extension of Hopson Road on the right is new, and cuts through a high ridge, from which the UNC Bell Tower, etc, can be seen ©.

In the beginning a high-tension powerline crossed Alston east to west (and paralleled Hopson), but Duke Energy built a new substation where there had been a planted pinewoods at the old farm, and the line connecting it to the main powerline crosses right over the pinxterflower. This might have happened not many years before 2010. The large pinxterflower probably benefitted from the increased sunlight, and younger ones sprouted, but they are now threatened with annihilation by Duke Energy's right of way maintenance procedures. At first Duke Energy or its contractors would spray herbicides, but not next to the brook, saying they could only cut vegetation within feet of waterways, so the azaleas survived. A representative of Duke's right of way maintenance office, based in Greensboro, offered to avoid the large azalea if it was marked and brush cleared around it, which was done, but they cut it to the ground anyway. The large pinxterflower was cut and regrew this way about three or four times (sometime before 2011, in 2011, and in 2013), but last year Duke Energy's policy changed, and they now claim they can use herbicides throughout the site. A Duke Energy official said they use herbicides with trade names Rodeo, Polaris, and Method (one is not used around water, I think Method, but many of their powerlines cross bodies of water of some kind, so it would seem to be rarely used), diluted with 95% water, and sprayed every 3 – 4 years. Some pinxterflowers survived, but the first and largest one might have been killed this time. It still had a few leaves after being sprayed last summer, but this spring it seemed dead, though maybe it was just late to leaf out. The herbicide kills a small tree after being absorbed through the leaves, so woody plants such as buckeyes, which typically lose their leaves early, survived, as well as herbaceous species. Further west down the main powerline only individual saplings were sprayed, and in many cases showy small trees (including a non-native mimosa or silktree) were left alone. I only know of a handful of pinxterflowers growing in five places in the Triangle, and a 6^th grew in the woodlot around Meeting of the Waters Creek along South Road, west of UNC's Bell Tower, but it was killed by construction. Surely there are more azaleas around, but they can't be very common or I would come across them more frequently. Pinxterflowers might have been more common at one time, since they are so widely scattered now, usually isolated along headwater streams, despite seemingly only being able to seed over small distances. Many wildflowers have been seen at the now sunny site, including hot pink wood sorrel, evergreen wild ginger, green and gold, false Solomon's seal, pale blue toadflax, yellow rattlesnake weed, white penstemons, and on the hillsides there are young black locust trees filled with white flowers in April, flowering dogwoods (North Carolina's state flower), arrowwood, buckeyes, and there were blue passionflowers. Duke Energy argues that its herbicide use reduces woody growth, allowing herbaceous wildflowers to flourish. It is possible the herbicides only kill trees, but if the azaleas are exterminated, they probably won't come back for a very long time, and wildflowers would grow there even if the trees were only cut. The soil conditions and rural location are important factors in the diversity of wildflowers. The brushy habitat near water supports animals such as indigo buntings (named for the brilliant deep blue males), summer migrants that usually favor beaver ponds.
              

The main threat is Duke Energy, but the situation is complicated by Federal security contractors working for the Social Security Administration who have appropriated public roads near the pinxterflowers and far from the Federal facility. The SSA's unmarked Second Security Facility, which apparently prints social security cards, is the large building behind a black fence near the corner of Solutions Drive and Louis Stephens Drive (address 3604 Louis Stephens Drive; a search for this address plus social security administration reveals a lot of information), next to the older JMCUSA factory further south. The SSA's security contractors patrol Solutions Drive and Experiment Drive, telling people that they can't use these public roads, and they also drive on nearby roads, though it is an open question whether they would harass someone stopped there ( see www.fedconnect.net/FedConnect/PublicPages/PublicSearch/Public_OpportunityDescription.aspx?id=34504 and govtribe.com/opportunity/federal-contract-opportunity/armed-guard-services-at-the-second-support-center-in-durham-nc-ssarfp141008 ). Looking more carefully at the sign for Experiment Drive, it doesn't say this is a state-maintained road, but it isn't marked private either (and someone mows the shoulders) and it began as one of the oldest public roads in the area. The azaleas are around a fourth of a mile from the SSA's property and it cannot be seen from that end of the road. The contractors regularly patrol in SUVs, and they might have surveillance equipment on land they don't own (but they seem to surveill the former railroad crossing with their parking lot security cameras, though they can't see the rest of the tracks). The situation seems to have gotten worse over the years and while the contractors, who it is said are heavily armed, shouldn't have police power outside of the SSA's facility and as far as I know they don't get out of their vehicle and follow people away from the road, they are intimidating and they could involve the Durham police or Sheriff's deputies, and I expect that the police would side with the SSA and corporations in a dispute. There are similar situations elsewhere in and around RTP where corporations claim more than they have title to. People used to fish at a pond north of the substation, but were presumably driven off, and it seems that immigrants were living in the tobacco barn before it burned down. I don't know the circumstances, except that they seemed to have beat a hasty retreat. The Social Security Administration might have lobbied for the changes in this part of the old South Alston corridor, and the City of Durham has paid a few thousand dollars for construction and renovations at the SSA's facility over the years (see homeflock.com/contractor/10812784 ). Complaints have been made, though the City and County don't have answers and Congressman David Price's office says go to the General Assembly, which seems to be their default way of answering without answering. One solution is to talk about the situation and for people to go there and make the SSA expend time and money for what it wants to seize from the public. Duke Energy is being lobbied, and a long-term solution is to change herbicide regulations at the State or Federal level.

 

The airlock-like double gate leading to the SSA facility's back parking lot, off of Solutions Drive; the field in the foregroumd is where the road used to continue south across the railroad tracks nearby.  Many years ago there were a lot of firepinks on the edge of the woods on the left ©.
 

    

An SSA security contractor Jeep on Experiment Drive; this photo is from a few years ago, so the vehicles look different now ©.



As I worked on this article, a related problem arose. There is a group of pinxterflowers near Crooked Creek on Scott King Road, a few miles west of the above site, on land protected as part of the gamelands around Jordan Lake (owned by the US Army Corps of Engineers and leased to the NC Wildlife Commission). In July someone sprayed an herbicide on both sides of the road (including up into surrounding canopy trees) and under a nearby distribution powerline for roughly one and a half miles along Scott King Road, injuring the pinxterflowers, but they seem to have survived. At first it seemed like saplings along the road were drought-stressed and changing color and dropping their leaves early, but it became clear that they had been sprayed with something. This general spraying did not seem like Duke Energy's work, though they are spraying under the long-distance transmission line nearby, the same line that crosses Experiment Drive and their contractor Asplundh is cutting trees along powerlines in nearby residential areas. About a year ago Duke Energy's distribution line maintenance department cut a pretty old red oak, probably a Spanish/southern red oak, growing under a small powerline nearby, at the corner of Fayetteville Road and NC 751, in front of an abandoned house, since no one was living there to stop them. Sometimes an objection is all it takes to save part of the landscape. That tree used to be a landmark on the way south to Jordan Lake. There are PSNC Energy natural gas pipelines along Scott King Road, but a representative says they only mow their right of ways. There is a fiber optic cable, with MCI signs, but probably owned by a different company now (such as Frontier Communications), and I thought they were the culprit, but the NC DOT admitted to doing the spraying. They also sprayed in several places, mostly at creek crossings, along Highway 54 to the outskirts of Chapel Hill, using Garlon 3A (Triclopyr) and RRSI NIS surfactant, which apparently kills only branches it directly hits. The DOT says the spraying was done over “sight distance issues” and that vegetation problems can return in less than a year after mowing, while using both mechanical cutting and herbicide can control vegetation for three years. They spent almost $30 million dollars statewide from July into August on mechanical cutting, and $2.75 million on herbicide. Many of the places sprayed, including along Scott King Road, are straight and vegetation is not interfering with traffic, while the narrow, uneven shoulders and lack of guardrails at drop offs are much more dangerous. The only potential benefit is that the non-native kudzu surging over the guardrails at Little Creek near Chapel Hill was sprayed, but I'm sure it will be back again next summer. The pinxterflowers are within the 30-foot easement DOT claims on each side of Scott King, so their spraying is probably legal, but the pinxterflowers are at the edge of the protected forest, not within reach of the roadside shoulder, so there was no benefit to the DOT in spraying them. Simply spraying herbicide on everything to maintain a right of way is a wretchedly cheap and indiscriminate, as well as ugly way to maintain an easement (on roadsides often already well littered, revealed even more after the vegetation is dead). Everything was sprayed, from large sweetgum and loblolly pine saplings and the lower limbs of tall trees, to a small winged elm sapling along a fence under a powerline by the American Tobacco Trail, down to sensitive ferns and a clump of goldenrods about to bloom between two yards, as if in spite, and other wildflowers. Of course, not every plant was doused enough to be killed, and it seems like the groundsel bushes have such thick, waxy leaves that they can resist herbicide, but they are relatively common. Possibly the sourwoods also have some degree of resistance. I am thinking about what can be done, but changing national or state herbicide regulations could also prevent the DOT's wanton spraying.

[As of fall 2019 the pinxterflowers along Scott King Road survived the DOT's spraying, but were damaged and probably did not flower that year.  Whether any still grow at the site near RTP is unknown.]



A pinxterflower on Scott King Road blooming last April; the peak blooming has passed and the bush is leafing out ©.


 



Oak cut by Duke Energy at the corner of NC 751 (shown) and Fayetteville Road; its limbs and trunk are on the right ©.

 

The dazzling new Genlee powerline tap near the South Alston pinxterflowers, providing electricity for industry and homes (probably mostly in Cary), but built on rich land, now mostly deforested, and threatening Durham's biodiversity.  A sourwood is in the foreground and probably some winged elm saplings closer to the tap.  This brushy habitat supports animals such as indigo buntings ©.