PUTNEY — One of the better-recognized calls to environmental action over the past two decades has been to “think globally, act locally.” Sometimes "act locally" means personal lifestyle changes: reduce our trash output by recycling, drive our cars smarter and less often, and just plain consume less. In these tough financial times though, budget cutbacks at state environmental agencies mean we may need to help our resource agencies as our response to the challenge of "act locally." The Connecticut River Watershed Council now calls on local volunteers to take that challenge in defense of something we all value, our Connecticut River.
Do you want an opportunity to act locally? If you'd like to take an active hand in protecting the Connecticut River, the Connecticut River Watershed Council wants you! Join us today and become part of the upper river volunteer Eyes and Ears Network. We will train you to recognize potential environmental threats and to use the tools of advocacy so you can protect your local river, be it the main Connecticut River or one of its tributaries.
Network volunteers are fishers, boaters, canoers, bird watchers, hikers and other river users recruited throughout the watershed. As a member of this group, you would join a corps of people who know about permits on their own rivers and see that permit conditions are adhered to. And you would keep an eye on the river for unexpected events such as new erosion sites, unexplained discharges and accidents that impact the river.
An Eyes and Ears Network volunteer would:
• Be active on the river or its tributaries regularly, participating in canoeing, boating, fishing, bird watching, swimming or any other river-related activity.
• Learn about permitting; how to ask questions about possible violations of permit conditions; how to report unexplained discharges and events that have negative effects on the river.
• Be prepared to take water samples, take pictures, and write accurate descriptions of events you observe on the river
• Be a member of the Connecticut River Watershed Council.
• Work closely with the CRWC river steward (me).
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Over the years, a constant refrain from resource agencies about suspected water-quality violations is that the reports do not come to them in a timely manner. By the time they hear of a possible problem it has stopped, no one has documented where and what the problem really is, and no pictures or accurate descriptions illustrate the problem.
Our work will begin in June 2009 with what will be a twice-a-year meetings for new and ongoing volunteers. We will share monitoring procedures for permit applications to determine impacts on the river. We will share contact information to let volunteers report incidents to enforcement authorities at the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services and the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation. We would like to know about your river activities and have you look out for any problems while you're on the river; we would like you to share any good ideas you have for how to protect it. If necessary any reports to resource agencies will go through me as the river steward; I'll be in regular contact, making field visits with volunteers on their reach of the river.
The goal for volunteers is to provide an on-river presence to monitor environmental conditions and take action in partnership with others to protect water quality, important habitat and wildlife species, and the natural and scenic lands of the valley. Volunteers will be asked to foster public and private partnerships on their river that promote the entire river's value and where appropriate help implement on-the-ground projects to restore wildlife habitat and water quality in conjunction with our partners. We also hope the volunteers can promote opportunities for environmental education for the public and the region's teachers, children, and community leaders, a task that will spawn the discovery, enjoyment, and love of the watershed environment.
Because of the uncertainty of the nation's economy and major budget cuts at the state level, environmental agencies have far fewer resources or staff to bring to the Connecticut River. Nonprofits like CRWC and other watershed groups in many ways will become an important line of defense for our river. In all likelihood a further reduction of attention to the upper river issues will be the result of Vermont and New Hampshire state governments reorganizing and streamlining their environmental agencies.
The result is that we at the CRWC - the only professionally staffed watershed association and advocacy group operating in all four states of the Connecticut River Watershed - will need to step up our efforts to ensure that our volunteers, volunteer watershed groups, local land trusts, and communities continue cooperative conservation work. As an Eyes and Ears volunteer you will be key to that effort.
Interested in taking the challenge? Then contact Christine Luis-Schultz, our volunteer coordinator, at (413) 772-2020 ext. 201 or at [email protected]. You can also sign up at www.ctriver.org, our Web site.