Canoeists: Don't Forget Your
Test Tubes
If Hank Graddy gets his wish, when canoeists on Sierra Club
outings in Kentucky launch their boats into the streams, they'll be packing more than
paddles. Also on board will be sterile lab-approved sample grab bottles. That's already happened on five outings. It's part of the
Cumberland Chapter's Watershed Watch project, which, with Graddy as project manager, has
trained 430 volunteers in the last two years to monitor streams and assess habitat in the
Salt, Licking and Kentucky rivers.
Using criteria from the Environmental Protection Agency,
volunteers go to the stream -- most of them walk or drive instead of paddle -- then wade
in, take a water sample for the lab and do some field tests for dissolved ogygen and pH.
A lab then tests for five pesticides, as well as human and
animal waste. The data is shared with the state Division of Water, the Kentucky River
Authority and other interested parties.
"We are not discovering something that no one has
discovered before," says Graddy, "but we're testing where it hasn't been tested
before."
The next step, says Alice Howell, past chair of the
project steering committee and member of the Bluegrass Group, will be a roundtable
discussion this fall to determine action for each watershed.
"We expect there are too many nutrients in the creeks
-- agricultural runoff, lawn chemicals and improperly treated human waste," says
Graddy.
Graddy says he is enthusiastic about the program because
it integrates conservation into outings. "We're trying to turn activism from
something that happens inside a building to something that happens on a streambank."
Two-thirds of the participants have not been Sierra Club
members, he adds.
You can find dozens of photos of Watershed Watch events at
the Kentucky Division of Water Web site: http://water.nr.state.ky.us/watch/.
Avoid the Shaft
The Santa Fe Group and Rio Grande Chapter celebrated Earth
Day by publishing Sue McIntosh's manual for fighting bad mines, "Avoiding the Shaft:
A New Mexico Citizen's Mining Manual," with a major editorial assist from volunteer
Barbara Johnson.
Two years in the making, the manual is a comprehensive
look at mining, its effects on the environment and how the public can stop or mitigate
potential damage to watersheds and wildlife. It grew out of efforts to stop Cobre's
Continental Mine near Fierra and Richard Price's pumice mine near Jemez. Activists
regularly called on McIntosh, an attorney and former director of the chapter's Mining
Oversight and Control Committee, for advice; eventually members of the Santa Fe Group
convinced her to write down what she's learned over the years.
"Few citizens, however well-intentioned, can cope
with the array of industry experts and lawyers they will face when opposing a mine,"
says McIntosh.
The manual focuses on New Mexico but is applicable for
citizen activists elsewhere; it tells how to harness the Clean Water Act, National
Environmental Protection Act and Freedom of Information Act.
Other contributors to the manual include Chapter Mining
Issues Chair Abe Jacobson, Cliff Larsen, Doug Fraser, and many others.
To receive a copy, send $10 plus $2.50 postage and
handling to: Mining Manual, Santa Fe Group Sierra Club, 621 Old Santa Fe Trail, Ste. 10,
Santa Fe, NM 87501, or call (505) 983-2703.
And the Winner: Ford Valdez
(and the Sierra Club's Sense of Humor)
We reported back in April about the Club's "Name that
Gas Guzzler" contest, which aimed to help Ford find an appropriate name for next
year's four-ton sport-utility vehicle. Now we have a winner, and the announcement garnered
tons of press and made the Big 3 automakers squirm.
First place went to "Ford Valdez -- Have you driven a
tanker lately?"
Other winning entries: "Ford Saddam" and "Ford
Fiasco."
The Seattle Times commended the efforts of the
"tongue-in-cheek" contest to "transform the image of the popular
sport-utility vehicles from that of sporty, go-anywhere family transportation, to
environmental menace."
"Don't say the Sierra Club doesn't know how to have
fun," wrote John Monahan in the Worcester, Mass., Sunday Telegram.
A 'Swimmable, Fishable'
Potomac
For five years, reports Maryland volunteer Bonnie Bick, Joe
Stewart and other strong swimmers have raised money for Potomac River conservation efforts
by swimming across it. This year, on the last Saturday in May, their seven-mile swim, from
the Virginia shore to Point Lookout, Md., was part of a weekend of events organized by the
Maryland Conservation Council.
The night before the swim, the Southern Maryland Astronomy
Association hosted a star-gazing event, the Maryland Audubon organized a morning bird walk
and the Friends of the Mattawoman presented a slide show about Mattawoman Creek, the most
productive spawning and nursery area along the Potomac.
"The Potomac is a real winner in terms of the Clean
Water Act," says Bick, "but still has a long way to go. I would never want to
stick my face in the water upriver, near Chapman Forest. Our goal is a river that is
fishable and swimmable its entire length." |
