Using Good Civics, Science and Art to Save, Restore and Celebrate Fish

Using Good Civics, Science and Art
to Save, Restore and Celebrate Fish

















Eastern Rivers Summit
Shepherdstown, WV

Prepared by:

J. Glenn Eugster,
Assistant Regional Director for Partnerships
National Park Service, National Capital Region
Washington, DC

February 28, 2007

















I. Presentation Goal

The goal of the presentation is to help the attendees more effectively work with fishermen, and public and private leaders, to identify and understand important riverine fishery values and take action to protect, restore and enjoy them.

II. Background

Jim Cummins, the Director for Living Resources, of the Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin shared a paper with me that he did on American shad and Herring in the Potomac River. Jim is one of the leading advocates for the restoration of the American shad to the Potomac River. His paper includes reference to Captain John Smith’s early visit to the Potomac River. Evidently, in 1607 Smith visited the Potomac and noted that fish were “lying so thicke with their heads above water, as for want of nets we attempted to catch them with frying pans”.

Cummins paper chronicles the demise of the Potomac’s bountiful fishery which occurred during the late 1950’s to the early 1970’s. In 1962 thousands of striped bass and white perch died in the Potomac in Washington from water quality problems. In September that year more than 3 million menhaden died forming an ugly mat on the Anacostia. Migratory fish were also subject to over harvest and the loss of spawning habitat, the latter principally through the construction of dams. In the 1970’s and 1980’s the American shad fishery collapsed. It was closed in MD in 1980, the Potomac in 1982, and VA in 19993.

What was occurring on the Potomac then wasn’t a localized phenomenon. PCB’s were showing up in fish in the Hudson River in New York. The Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania and the Connecticut River in New England were feeling the impact of decades of dam building. The Little Tennessee River in Tennessee was being dammed and the Alcovy River in Georgia was being proposed to be channeled. Most Eastern rivers and their fish populations were being adversely impacted by development and poor land use practices.

Despite the water quality and fishery problems of the 1950’s through the 1970’s great progress has been made to provide our rivers with better protection, improve water quality and restore our fisheries.

However, over year I’ve seen disturbing news about the fish in our rivers. The following summaries are various news articles.

New Data Shows More than Half of Watershed’s Tidal Rivers
Contaminated: Fifty-three percent of the tidal tributaries in the Bay watershed are contaminated by chemical pollutants, including PCB’s and mercury contaminants, in fish tissue, according to newly compiled data by the Bay Program. To find out how fish become contaminated with certain chemical pollutants and how fish consumption advisories can teach you which fish are safe to eat, visit:
http://www.chesapeakebay.net/newscontaminants022107.htm
Contact: Alicia Pimental 410-267-5756

Would You Kiss These Lips?: While they are relatively unknown to the public, Polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) from oil, auto exhausts, tire particles, soot, and broken pavement, have been shown to cause high rates of lesions and tumors on bottom-dwelling fish in at least two Bay tributaries. To learn more about the sources of these chemical contaminants, as well as the choices consumers can make to decrease the amount of PAHs that enter the Bay, visit:
http://www.chesapeakebay.net/newspah022107.htm
Contact: Alicia Pimental 410-267-5756

In December 2006 a Washington Post news report indicated:

More Dead Fish Found in Va. River: Scientists baffled by massive springtime fish kills on the Shenandoah River over several years now have additional confusing information: several hundred dead fish in December. An environmentalist counted at least 300 dead northern hogsuckers on a 10-mile stretch
of the main branch of the Shenandoah in Clarke and Warren counties last week.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/
content/article/2006/12/12/AR2006121201337.html


Also in December 2006 U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report was released and reported on:

In 2003 a team of scientists from West Virginia Division of Natural Resources and the U.S. Geological Survey found a high incidence of an intersex condition, oocytes in the testes, among smallmouth bass (Micropterus dolomieu) in the South Branch Potomac River and the Cacapon River of West Virginia, indicating the possible presence of endocrine-disrupting compounds (EDCs). Possible sources of EDCs include municipal and domestic wastewater, and agricultural and industrial activities.

Alien Invasion of the Potomac Watershed: On a fairly regular basis Potomacaians are now seeing and hearing news about aliens. Alien plant and animal species whose introduction does, or is likely to, cause economic or environmental harm or harm to human health. News accounts of zebra mussels, bullhead and blue catfish, carp, that old favorite hydrilla grass, and snakeheads.

The National Invasive Species Council, created following the 1999 Presidential Executive Order on Invasive Species, even has a website with information on Invasive Species--including the Invader of the Month--the Northern Snakehead was a featured selection.

Invasive species are a big, big problem. In 2000 the USDOI indicated that invasive species cost the Nation's economy approximately $123 billion annually and are second only to habitat destruction in threatening extinction of native species. At that time invasive plants and weeds were spreading on Federal lands at 4,600 acres per day.

Aside for the money, why is this a big deal? Steve Chaconas, a bass fishing guide from Stratford Landing said, "When you have an invasive species, it really throws the whole food chain out of balance".
For additional information on aliens see:

http://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov
III. What Do You Say to A Dead Fish?

How do we as Americans explain our actions?

What do you say to a dead fish?

How do you explain dam building, water pollution, sedimentation, habitat loss, over-fishing, and other riverine alterations to a fish?

How would you try to explain our management of rivers, and their related lands, to a fish?

How did we get like this?

One of the simplest ways to explain, or rationalize our behavior is to read The Beholding Eye: Ten Versions of the Same Scene” by D.W.Meining. He wrote, “that even though we gather together and look in the same direction at the same instant, we will not—we cannot—see the same landscape. We will see many of the same elements, but such facts take on meaning only through association; they must be fitted together according to some coherent body of ideas”.

Meining went further to say, “any landscape is composed not only of what lies before your eyes but what lies within our heads”.

It is an interesting paper. It compares ten scenes of the same view of the landscape. Let’s apply that to our rivers and fish. What are some of the views of this scene?

As quality of life--many people seek out homes where there are rivers and fish
As a part of the food chain for other living resources
As amenity
As an indicator of river and watershed health
As recreation pursuit
As a food source
As an economic value to tourism and landowners
As a part of a sense of place
Are there any other views of this scene?


The late Professor Ian McHarg, a teacher and ecological planner, explained why we treat rivers, fish, other creatures, and the land, the way we do. In a lecture I attended Ian said:

“The primacy of man today is based more upon his power to destroy than to create. His religions, philosophies, ethics, and acts have tended to reflect a slave mentality, alternatively submissive or arrogant toward nature.”

McHarg believed that the origin for this domineering attitude traces back to the Book of Genesis; Chapter 1: 26 which says:

“Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. Let him have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and the cattle, and over all the wild animals and the creatures that crawl on the ground. God blessed many saying, be fertile and multiply: fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and all living things that move on the earth”.

Perhaps author James Lee Burke rationalizes it best when he writes, “The world is a hungry place. And whatever kind of thing you is, there’s something out there that likes to eat it. It’s natural. That’s the way the world keeps tidy”.

Is this acceptable? Maybe, maybe not. Former National park Service employee John Kaufman wrote a book called Flow East about the North Atlantic rivers. His chapter Hear the Fishes includes an 1839 quote from Henry David Thoreau which says, “Poor Shad! Where is thy redress? Who hears the fishes when they cry?” Thoreau was referring to the impact that dams and industrialization was having on the Shad fishery of the Merrimack River, once one of the Great Rivers of America.

We have been at this point many times in the past. NPS, along with river conservation groups, the boating industry, water quality agencies and sportsmen groups needs to hear the fishes when they cry and be an advocate for these living resources.

IV. What can we do to help?

Many of our rivers and fish are in a degraded state because of non-point sources of pollution. Under the authority of the Clean Water Act of 1972 pollution problems caused by non-point source pollution are to be dealt with by identifying—and implementing best management practices. Here are some suggestions from my point of view as a river worker.

Overall we need to embrace a goal to use good civics, science and art to save, restore and celebrate fish! It seems that the task of protecting rivers and fish require a unique combination of objective scientific information, public understanding and support and evocative communication.

The following are some principles and case study examples of ways to implement that goal.

It’s about our communication! We need to communicate more
effectively about fish and their habitat!

Is the current state of our rivers and fish populations because people don’t care about the loss of fish and the destruction of living and watershed resources? Or, is it that the written and spoken words we use to communicate important river and aquatic life issues, with the public don’t mean anything and they routinely fail to connect with people.

Lukas Beckman, a writer and a dominant figure in the creation of the German Green Party, wrote, “We need new sources of knowledge so that words do not become more and more devoid of meaning”. Beckman believes that inspiration of art is an essential and primary source to this connection between people and their environment.

Chuck Little, a former advertising executive, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers employee, environmental advocate and author, once said to me, “You do excellent reports but you don’t write very well. You should hire writers, like me, to translate your reports into information that people can understand”. Chuck would remind me regularly that “Behind every successful conservation movement is a writer”.

I believe that behind every successful river and fishery conservation effort is a writer or an artist.

Case Study: River and Fishery Writers and Artists

We routinely use writers to help us communicate government actions and activities to the public. For example, in artist Tim Collins has spoken to groups about his use of art to help restore Nine-Mile Run near Pittsburgh, PA. The premiere river conservation writer Tim Palmer has spoken several times to Potomac interests about the values and functions of rivers.

In 1994 EPA and the Ecosystem Recovery Institute, Inc. held a workshop on Natural History and Nature Writers. The workshop promoted stewardship and conservation of sensitive wetlands and waters through natural history documentation and nature writing. It featured a combination of field trips and discussions and included writer and Baltimore columnist Tom Horton, Jean Worthey, host of the television show “Hodge Podge Lodge”, Dan Willard of Public Radio’s “Earth Notes”, and many government and private sector interests.

Appropriately the workshop program quotes noted ecologist Aldo Leopold who once said. “Landscape ecology is putting the sciences and the arts together for the purposes of understanding our environment”.


2. It’s about the fish! Get to know the values and functions of the fish that live within your park, community, region, state, or watershed.

Although many agencies and organizations plan for the future use of rivers frequently these efforts are singular in focus; not coordinated with other competing interests; fail to fully consider a wide range of environmental values; and frequently lack commitments to carry out recommendations. In response to this situation NPS developed a method for statewide river assessments. The assessment is a cooperative multi-organizational planning method to objectively and systematically identify, evaluate and comparatively assess a variety of river resources of value to the public. The rational for an assessment
Is to gather better information about river corridors in order to focus the priorities of river interests, and promote more comprehensive, objective decision-making and conflict avoidance between competing river uses.

Case Study: Statewide River Assessments/ Fish Values and Functions

In 1981 Maine Governor Joe Brennan released his Energy Policy for Maine. The policy directed that the Dept. of Conservation would identify river stretches in the state that provide unique recreational opportunities and natural values and develop a strategy for protecting these areas. NPS’s Philadelphia Office, largely Drew Parkin and Dave Lange, were asked to assist Maine. Over 31,000 miles of Maine’s rivers were assessed. The study used existing quantitative and qualitative information; information from recognized experts; a river ecosystem approach; and public and expert input into the evaluation process.

As part of the effort NPS and our partners looked at Anadromous Fisheries and River-related Inland Fisheries. As part of the assessment process these riverine fisheries were evaluated to determine ecological importance; recreational importance; commercial importance. The method used criteria including: habitat quality and quantity; presence of threatened or endangered species; recreational importance; commercial importance; evidence of restoration efforts; unique characteristics; species composition; water quality; aquatic habitat quality; fishing quality; quality of recreation use; existing recreational use; and economic importance.

In July 1983 the Governor passed An Act to Promote the Wise Use and Management of Maine’s Outstanding River Resources. A large number of outstanding rivers were identified as off-limits to new hydropower development. The law also established specific policies for various river values including anadromous and inland fisheries.

The methodology was used to protect important fishery rivers in Vermont, the Pacific Northwest, South Carolina and many other states.

http://janus.state.me.us/legislation/statues/12/title12ch200sec0.html


3. It’s about the people! Use human ecology to understand people’s relationship with rivers, fish and their habitat.

Human ecology has proved to be a useful discipline to help protect rivers and fish. It melds good science and civics to synthesize and interpret hard and soft data to understand the often obscure connections between people, their rivers and fish. It reinforces the need for watershed and river conservation plans to be truly holistic and not exclude social, ethnographic, economic and political data in making decisions about rivers and their living resources.

Case Study: Place and Community-Based Projects

Recognizing and understanding traditional recreation and commercial uses, such as fishing, has proven to be a key ingredient in the planning and management of wild, scenic and recreational rivers, such as the Upper Delaware, Great Egg Harbor, Wildcat Brook, as well as watershed or river-focused park or heritage areas such as the Pinelands National Reserve or the Lackawanna Valley National Heritage Area.

An excellent guide for understanding the relationships between people, rivers and fish is Community Culture and Environment: A guide to Understanding a Sense of Place by the U.S. Environmental protection Agency.

4. It’s about the use of the compatible use of land and waters! Embrace a multi-objective approach to how you manage rivers, their corridors and watersheds so that you can save or restore fish and simultaneously meet other objectives.

Ann Riley’s book Restoring Streams in Cities: A Guide for Planners, Policymakers, and Citizens stresses the importance of meeting mutual goals simultaneously without destroying the values we hold special. In the book there is a definition of the multi-objective approach to rivers that sets a direction "To encourage comprehensive and cooperative planning among all individuals and institutions concerned with rivers and their adjacent lands, to facilitate decisions regarding such use which reflect a high degree of consensus at all stages of decision making, which maximize public and private benefits with the least adverse impacts on significant river/ watershed values".

Case Study: Upper Delaware, NY and PA

The Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River in PA and NY used a multiobjective approach to design and implement a river management plan for the river corridor and the river’s fisheries.
The corridor includes a combination of private and publicly owned lands and waters under the jurisdiction of two states, 15 local governments, the Delaware River Basin Commission, the Upper Delaware Council and a Citizens Advisory Council. Each of their authorities, interests and objectives have been integrated through the river management plan to ensure: the protection of water resources with respect to fisheries; continued public use and enjoyment of the traditional and historical fishing uses; the continued management of lands for fishing; and the continued and improved use of conservation release programs to conserve the fishery’s quality and integrity.

http://www.nps.gov/upde/parkmgmt/upload/river_management_plan.pdf


5. It’s about the people and groups that fish. Work with a drift of fishermen to start your discussions and work.

The earliest advocate for cleaning up the Potomac-and other rivers in the U.S., were sportsmen. As early as the 1840’s, anglers such as Frank Forester were calling for the restoration of game fish to waters depleted by dams and pollution. Joined later by Robert B. Roosevelt, Thaddeus Norris and Genio Scott anglers protested against the dumping of sawdust; mine wastes; factory chemicals; and other pollutants into the country’s waterways. These and other leaders also demanded fish ladders and were opposed to commercial fishermen whose nets stretched across rivers, lakes and sounds.

From the 1870’s on sportsmen had been working for the restoration of commercial fishing and the adoption of a national fish culture program that included efforts to control water pollution.

The early American pioneers in fish culture modeled their efforts on English and French precedents. For example, early fish culturists like Theodore Garlick and Thaddeus Norris studied French discoveries in order to adapt them to the U.S.

Another example of an idea transferred from European experience was the game preserve. Dating back to early Colonial days, game preserves were established by outdoorsmen who desired to perpetuate game and habitat in spite of the utter indifference of a nation seemingly obsessed with economic development. Instead of waiting for the indolent state and federal governments to assume their responsibility for natural resources, sportsmen decided to take the initiative themselves and create preserves.

The fish-culture movement was the very first environmental crusade to capture a significant percentage of the American public’s interest. Seven years before George Perkin’s Marsh published “Man & Nature” (1864) the Vermont legislature, at the request of sportsmen, commissioned Marsh to study the feasibility of restoring the state’s depleted fishing stocks. This action was prompted when sportsmen and non-sportsmen became alarmed over the disappearance of game and food fishes and the elimination of shad and salmon in the Connecticut River. As a result, Vermont and other New Englanders concerns led to the creation of the U.S. Fish Commission in 1871.

Twentieth century fish culturalists began to understand that the best way to produce more fish was to have a healthy habitat. In addition to their services in stocking the nation’s waters and protecting them from dams, pollution, and nets, sportsmen also made an important contribution in the private sector by establishing numerous game preserves. Virtually all of the sportsmen’s clubs controlled, by leasing or direct ownership, large acreage that was kept in a natural condition, thereby maintaining the ecosystems of those areas.

Today, as in the past, sportsmen’s and angler’s groups are important sources of information on rivers and excellent partners to work with to conserve fishery and other values.

Case Study: Battenkill Study, VT  Bennington County Regional Commission, 1984-1986
There are numerous examples of the important role that anglers, and angler groups, have played in protecting rivers and their fish populations. One effort of note is the Battenkill in VT.
Perhaps the premier recreational resource in the Bennington region of Vermont is the Batten Kill.  This river has been nationally recognized as an outstanding native brook and brown trout stream for many years.  The same characteristics that make the Batten Kill a productive and attractive fishery swift current, cool clear water from mountain tributaries, a gravel substrate, and the beauty of the surrounding landscape – have drawn many other people to the river.  Swimming, canoeing, kayaking, "tubing," and sightseeing are becoming ever more popular recreational activities in and along the river.  The segment of the river lying within the Town of Arlington receives the heaviest use by all of these recreational users. 
The intensity of use has raised concerns over both potential environmental effects (e.g., litter, stream bank erosion, etc.) and conflicts between the various user groups.  Some of these problems may be mitigated by providing additional public access opportunities along the Batten Kill and its tributaries; such access could disperse some of the use and thus reduce environmental impacts and conflicts among different recreational uses.  Of course, regardless of any such efforts, the main channel of the Batten Kill will continue to support intense and varied recreational use.  Cooperation among principal users has become increasingly important.  Municipal land use planning for areas along the Batten Kill should also be relied upon to prevent degradation of recreational and scenic values. 
The "Batten Kill Study," completed in l986 by the BCRC with assistance from the National Park Service, contains a number of recommendations for addressing river planning and management issues.  Other issues identified by that study include the fact that the river serves the Town of Manchester by receiving effluent from its wastewater treatment facility, and that a currently inactive landfill is located on the banks of the river in Sunderland. 
Many of the recommendations of the Batten Kill Study are currently being considered by the Batten Kill Watershed Alliance.  The Alliance, formed in the spring of 2001, is comprised of landowners, public officials, and interested citizens throughout the watershed in both New York and Vermont.  More recently the Bennington County Conservation District has initiated the Batten Kill Buffer outreach program, which educates landowners about the importance of maintaining vegetated streamside buffer strips.  Through this program, interested landowners can obtain native trees and shrubs to vegetate their stream bank. 
6. Protecting, conserving and restoring fish is most often about interdisciplinary approaches, collaborations and partnerships.

Fish issues are most often inside and outside your boundary.
Success is more likely if you work with NPS managers and experts, as well as fish and fishing experts and local leaders, to accomplish your goals.

As a part of President Johnson's Potomac effort in the 1960's Professor Ian McHarg and a team of graduate students was asked to inventory and assess the physical, biological and cultural elements of the landscape. McHarg's effort was the first ecological study done in the US and it illustrates the value in developing a coherent database.

McHarg's belief was that in order to understand a region, watershed or
site, one must understand the place, its inhabitants and all the areas
physical, biological and cultural history. He helped us to understand
how people use their lands and waters and how that understanding can
help us, help them, to make sound land use decisions in the future.
More than an environmental perspective, his model for planning and
design included the ecology of people as well as other living
organisms.

The information system would be used to increase the appreciation of the Potomac region as a central element of nature, heritage and commerce to demonstrate its relevance in education and public policies and to inspire fresh approaches to private and public land study and management. The information could be used to explore the physical and human elements of the Potomac which give the region its distinctive character emphasizing the human and natural elements such as settlements, forests, fields, buildings, archeology, history, monuments, canals, rivers, streams and wetlands.

Modern technologies employing all kinds of multi-media are now available to bring to life formerly flat and technical-looking maps and charts. Using these new techniques, we can simulate outcomes of potential decisions, and by accounting for myriad relationships, experience the outcomes of a virtual future. We can have the opportunity to correct a poor decision before we make it in a well designed system – or, to the contrary, move forward with new confidence in a new approach because we can see the direct and indirect benefits of it.

Case Study: Potomac Fisheries Outreach

In 2001 NCR, the Boat U.S. Foundation, and the Potomac Conservancy, a non-profit organization, and the Maryland, Virginia and District of Columbia Department of Fisheries worked with local community groups and businesses to implement an educational community outreach campaign to spread the word about fishing regulations and sustainable fishing practices. The Potomac, from below the Wilson Bridge to Great Falls, was experiencing illegal fishing, littering, fires and alcohol use at popular park areas. In addition a large percentage of fisherman, near the Chain Bridge area, were unaware of fishing regulations or were unable to read regulations that were printed in English.

They effort produced bi-lingual educational materials to promote low-impact fishing and river conservation. Brochures and other information about fishing regulations in multiple languages were disseminated with the help of volunteers and information was posted on new bulletin boards at key park locations. The effort also included a fishing workshop for young people and an improved enforcement program.


7. It’s about experience. Look at best practices for insights about how to save, protect and celebrate fish.

Presenting problems without solutions creates frustration and confusion. Many leaders have interest in learning more about river and fishery protection approaches being used your watershed. Close-to-home success stories are a way to demonstrate the benefits of protecting and restoring the river and its fish populations, and highlight the implementation process.

Case Study: Potomac Shad Restoration

In 1995 a coalition of federal, state, regional and local agencies and nonprofit groups organized a task force to open historic spawning and nursery habitat for native and anadromous fisheries in the Potomac. An eight year American shad stocking project began that same year. It was designed to imprint shad to the historic spawning and nursery waters and help rebuild Potomac shad stocks. The annual goal was to stock one million shad fry.

An important milestone for the fish passage restoration project was accomplished in January 2000 with the completion of the fishway at the Little Falls Dam by the US Army Corps of Engineers.

By 2002 almost 16 million shad fry were stocked into the Potomac. The USFWS, ICPRB, MD and VA monitor the project. As a result the population is rebounding well, stocks are in apparent recovery, and restoration stocking of the Potomac has concluded. For more information see:

http://www.potomacriver.org/living_resources/SHAD.pdf


8. It’s about innovation. Use creative approaches for outreach and education.

More and more when we discuss the future we need to communicate more effectively with those who will inherit our actions and hopefully be the next stewards of our rivers and fisheries. Outreach strategies that combine scientists and artists can be creatively designed to improve our messaging and reach groups we might not think to dialogue with.

Case Study: Willa in the Wetlands.

In 1991 EPA’s Office of Wetlands worked with Peyton Lewis of the National Children’s Theater for the Environment to develop a
a teacher’s guide for wetlands education for second and third grade school children. Peyton and the Wetlands Office staff designed a children’s play called Willa in the Wetlands. The play was performed by actors in a theater in the round and featured Willa, a modern day Alice in Wonderland, looking for priceless treasures in a wetland. What she found was “Johnny Rockfish”, “Shirley the Pink Shrimp”, Wild Rice, the “Fiddling Fiddler Crabs”, Blue Heron, and others who help her understand the true values of and threats to the natural world. Peyton and her performing artists leveraged Wetland Office dollars with other EPA funds and performed more than 15 times to enthusiastic children.

Copies of Willa in Wetlands script, and the accompanying teacher's guide, are available at no charge from the Wetlands Information Hotline. Call toll free 1-800-832-7828.


9. It’s about celebrating the fish, and river protection, conservation and restoration.

Even good conferences--such as this one, forums, meetings, reports and resolutions don't mean anything unless they lead to actions that make a difference. Creating opportunities to celebrate the many varied values of your river and fish is essential to the environmental quality movement. It creates a connection with the places that need protection and management and the people that care about them.


Case Study: Potomac: “Nation’s River Bass Tournament”

Environmental protection efforts, such as US EPA’s, have certainly played a significant role over the last thirty years. However, sportsmen’s groups began calling for pollution prevention and watershed conservation as early as 1840.

The Potomac River was recognized as an American Heritage River in July 1998 for its many values including its recreational fishery. Federal, State, local government and private sector efforts over the last twenty-five years have brought significant improvements in the water quality of the Potomac. One of the benefits of these efforts to reduce and prevent pollution and protect and restore aquatic habitats has been the increasing use of the lower portion of the Potomac River—from the District to Point Lookout, for bass fishing.

On June 8-9, 2000 the Friends of the Potomac and the Alexandria Seaport Foundation, with the support of the Alexandria Seaport Foundation, the National Park Service and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, celebrated the Potomac River’s remarkable comeback, to its current status as one of the nation’s top 10 bass-fishing rivers. Interestingly, the Nation’s River Bass Tournament, and related events brought these various parties together to celebrate the accomplishments of today and recognize the heritage of sportsmen’s role in the conservation movement.

The event included an evening gala and auction, the Tournament launch from Gravelly Point along the historic George Washington Memorial Parkway, and a picnic and awards ceremony on nearby Columbia Island. Endorsed by 14 members of Congress throughout the four-state watershed, the Potomac Tournament was promoted by ESPN as a model of citizen involvement in reducing and preventing pollution, and protecting and restoring aquatic habitats.

Sponsors of the Tournament included Waste Management Inc.; Pepco, Fannie Mae; Clarke Construction, US Airways, ESPN, Daimler Chrysler and Pennzoil. Twenty-four organizations sponsored boats for the tournament which carried one bass guide, one conservation-oriented youth from the greater Washington metropolitan region, and a leader from the community or sponsoring agency or organization.

10. It’s about how the fish, and your river or stream, is doing!

So how are your park or community river, and its fish populations, doing? Many of the more sophisticated conservation efforts have a system of environmental indicators that are used to monitor progress of the river effort and fish populations. These indicators are also intended to inform and involve the public in achieving protection and restoration goals.

Case Study: Fishery Indicators, Chesapeake Bay Program

The Chesapeake Bay Program has a system of indicators that are used to monitor the progress of the Bay protection and restoration effort. The Bay indicators could be used as a model for river and fishery indicators.

Interestingly one of the most effective ways that scientific and technical information about water quality indicators is being translated to the public has to do with Bernie Fowler’s sneakers and the Patuxent River. Former MD State Senator Bernie Fowler has lead leaders to the Patuxent River since 1988 in an effort to bring attention to water quality. He and others wade into the river, wearing white-sneakers, until the water until they lose site of their sneakers--or the water gets chest high. This "Sneaker Index" raises awareness and measures progress. For more information see:

http://www.chesapeakebay.net/status/i/i.ppt#257,1Environmental Indicators: Measuring Our Progress


V. Returning to the Challenge

The loss of river and fishery values in metropolitan Washington, DC has led me to Tim Collins work on Nine-Mile Run in Pittsburgh, PA, and a paper by Lukas Beckmann on Joseph Beuys, the famous German artist, performer, social sculpture and advocate for the Green Party in Germany. Bueys believed that the primary job of artists “is to introduce and encourage notions of a better world”.

Beckmann and Beuys have both taken issue about the damage that we inflict on the places that we live and work in and visit. They believe that, “The sense of the meaningfulness of the whole, the interconnectedness and cohesion of this world, the connection between the plant, animal and human world are central”.

As I have read Beckmann’s writing, and researched Joseph Beuys, I’ve been inspired with Beuys’ campaign “How I Explain Paintings to a Dead Hare”, which was intended to make people aware of the ecological damage that results from the actions of humanity. The campaign was described by some critics as “a complex tableau about the problems of language and about the problems of thought, of human consciousness, and the consciousness of animals”.

Beuys believed that “we are killing nature, animals, soil, forests—the external organs of mankind—all of which we need as oxygen sources or sources of food. He believed that in order to understand what we are doing, we have to enter into a dialogue with the animal world, with the plant world, with the soil, without which we cannot live, because mankind’s progress in it’s evolution has only been achieved with the help of the creatures that we are now destroying”.

So what is a direction we can take as we try to protect our rivers and the fish that live in and use them? We can all be stronger advocates for change and take on projects that improve our cultural values and make a difference. We can also look to enlightened leadership for clarity and an improved value system.

One surprising place I found enlightened leadership, clarity and improved values was in a published message on Biodiversity an Element in Efforts Against Hunger by the late Pope John Paul II.

In October 15, 2004 the Pope wrote, “It is urgently necessary in many areas to revise the strategy which has thus far been followed in order to protect the immense and irreplaceable resources of the planet and to achieve not only sustainable development but, above all, development with solidarity.

Solidarity, properly understood as a model of unity that can inspire the action of individuals, government authority, international organizations and institutions, and all members of civil society, strives for the proper growth of peoples and nations, and its objectives is the good of each and everyone.

Solidarity… safeguards the various ecosystems and their resources, the people who live there and their fundamental rights as individuals and community members.

The mandate that the Creator gave to human beings to have dominion over the earth and to use its fruits (cf Genesis 1:28), considered in the light of the virtue of solidarity, entails respect for the plan of creation through human action that does not imply challenging nature and its laws, even in order to reach new horizons, but on the contrary, preserves resources, guaranteeing their continuity and availability to the generations to come”.

VI. Summary

So let us be clear today. We know what the conditions and trends are in most of our rivers.

The alternatives to improve environmental quality--for landowners, private groups, businesses and governments, and living resources such as fish are well known.

We have the tools to achieve environmental protection and improvement and we know how these tools must be applied to be successful.

We know how the tools have to be applied to fit our social and political context.

What is unknown about the future of our rivers and their fish populations is what we, as individuals, organizations and governments, are prepared to do to protect and sustain them for future generations. The vision continues and we need only to commit to it.

The choice and the future are ours.

May you have continued success in your work.

________________________________________________________________

Biography: J. Glenn Eugster

Glenn is Assistant Regional Director for Partnerships at the National Park Service (NPS), National Capital Region in Washington, D.C. He has worked for more than 30 years with NPS, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and others, helping communities and park managers protect, conserve, restore and enjoy rivers.

His past experience includes working with NPS, state and community leaders to design and implement conservation approaches for the Upper Delaware, Connecticut, Battenkill, Potomac, Great Egg, Maurice, and Farmington Rivers, Wildcat Brook, tributaries to the Chesapeake Bay, and the Lackawanna, Blackstone and Quinebaug River Heritage Corridors. He helped Maine, Vermont, South Carolina, Oregon, Idaho, Washington and Montana implement statewide river assessments. Nationally he has helped to create Presidential policies for metropolitan and rural sustainability, the NPS Rivers, Trails & Conservation Assistance Program, and EPA’s Sustainable Development Challenge Grant Program.

He currently is working with the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments on the “Green Infrastructure Demonstration Project” and the “Greater Washington National Parks Fund” with the National Park Foundation.

Glenn was educated horticulture, landscape architecture and ecological planning at the State University of New York at Cobleskill, University of Georgia School of Environmental Design, and the University of Pennsylvania, Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning.


For Further Information: For information contact: Glenn Eugster at NPS, National Capital Region, 1100 Ohio Drive, SW, Room 350, Washington, DC 20242. By telephone call (202) 619-7492. By e-mail write: glenn_eugster@nps.gov