Water (Super) Sentinels Save the World-- and Fish!
by Jon Schwedler
I don't even know where to start with this one.
You all may know about the Sierra Club's Water Sentinels, volunteers who monitor the health of their local streams, rivers, and lakes. In doing so they help local agencies track pollution, and keep polluters accountable. Bottom line is that Water Sentinels help people and wildlife, particularly fish.
So when I got the latest reports from national Water Sentinels honcho Scott Dye, I was blown away-- SO MUCH GOOD NEWS!!! The challenge was how to share this news with you all. Instead of doing separate blogs on each bit of news, I've glomped them all together under this blog.
Here are the subjects (scroll down until you reach the one that interests you):
1. "I will remember this when I get old" Colorado Water Sentinels at Youth Flyfishing Camp
2. Movie produced for Arizona's Verde River
3. Sentinels Help CO's Fountain Creek
4. Water Sentinels and Federation of Fly Fishers form national partnership
1. "I will remember this when I get old" Colorado Water Sentinels at Youth Flyfishing Camp
This summer, Water Sentinels
sponsored several underserved youth to attend Colorado Trout Unlimited’s
weeklong Youth Conservation and Flyfishing Camp. See: http://www.cotrout.org/Conservation/YouthConservationandFlyfishingCamp/tabid/155/Default.aspx
PuebloCOIt’s clear that the camp made a
profound impact on the participants. All of the ‘thank you’ notes were
heartfelt, and I wanted to share this one from a single mom and her son from Pueblo, CO:
“Thank you so so
so much for granting Alex the honor to attend the fishing camp. We went fishing
Weds and he shared his fishing techniques, and cooked all the fish!! With
appreciation and respect, Mom.”
“Thank you so
much for paying for me to go to Trout Unlimited. I had lots of fun. I will
remember this when I get old. Thank you sincerely,
Alex.”
Do what you can to make sure that we
leave no child inside.
2. Movie produced for Arizona's Verde River
Upper Verde
RiverArizona Verde Water Sentinels Gary Beverly and Tom Slaback helped create this great article and video on
protecting a desert gem—the Upper Verde River-- from off-road-vehicles (ORVs) and other human abuses
Gary’s
mini-documentary is one of the best and most powerful ever produced by Water
Sentinels.
‘"The movie is
supposed to show people what a beautiful place the Upper Verde is, and motivate
them to do something," Beverly said. "
The article, with a photo and a ‘How
to Help’ graphic, is also a powerful and urgent plea to stop ORV abuse and
pollution.
‘"We pick up
trash every month at the same place," said Tom Slaback of the Sierra Club, which
is monitoring Upper Verde River water quality. He sees numerous signs that people have ripped up or burned."
Video
length 10 minutes, 54 seconds
Starting east
of Chino Valley, area resident Gary Beverly hiked 30 miles up the Upper Verde in
May, 2008 to document damage from off-road vehicles (ORVs) and trash he'd been
seeing while volunteering with the Sierra Club Water Sentinels.
Colorado's Fountain Creek Water Sentinels earned accolades for their work to enhance protective water quality standards for
Fountain Creek.
From the
article:
‘Sal
Pace, the sole candidate on this fall's ballot to represent Pueblo in the
Colorado House, said the decision will help efforts to clean up the
environmentally troubled creek.
"It means that new discharges are held to
a higher standard, and potential pollutants must be mitigated before put into
Fountain Creek," said Pace, who was one of three to speak in support of the
reviewable category, along with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the
Sierra Club.’
‘When
assistant city attorney Tom Florczak announced that Pueblo opposes stricter
state regulation, Sierra Club senior consultant Ross Vincent correctly said,
"It's 180 degrees of where the city needs to be. The city seems to be saying
Fountain Creek is going to get worse and there's nothing we can do about it.
Then, why are we wasting our time on the Fountain Creek Vision Task Force?" Mr.
Vincent asks a good question. The task force largely was inspired by U.S. Sen.
Ken Salazar's vision of transforming Fountain Creek from the open sewer it is at
times into an important watershed marked by good water quality, flood control
and reduced sedimentation.’
---------------------------------------
Article-- Water Quality Panel Upholds Stricter Oversight of Fountain Creek:
http://www.chieftain.com/articles/2008/07/16/news/local/doc487df43bb6985356412971.txt
Editorial--Lead By Example
http://www.chieftain.com/articles/2008/07/15/editorial/doc487c0f321d05c244331239.txt
4. Water Sentinels and Federation of Fly Fishers form national partnership
The following excerpt is from Flyfisher magazine, Federation of Fly Fisher's national
publication, and penned by their CEO/President Pete Van Gytenbeek in his regular
column, this one titled ‘Keeping The Target In
Sight.’
“Your Federation
has also entered into a joint youth education agreement with the Sierra Club.
Under this agreement, the Sierra Club will provide the Federation with some
$38,000 worth of fishing rods to be used exclusively for youth education. For
our part we are responsible for carefully selecting the participant programs and
clubs and follow up to insure that they obtained the best possible returns on
their on their programs. Education Specialist Matt Wilhelm will manage the
program.”
FFF has long been an aggressive leader among national angling organizations in promoting and practicing youth outreach. We’ve teamed with an outstanding youth angling outreach partner, whose motto is “Conserving, Restoring and Educating Through Fly Fishing.” This collaboration will result in literally thousands of youth connecting with their natural heritage and the sport of fly fishing over the next several years.
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