Eco Blurbs

Annual National River Cleanup Week Planned

If you plan on paddling in mid-May, stow a trashbag in your boat: the ninth annual National River Cleanup Week is slated for May 15-22, 1999. "The purpose of National River Cleanup Week is to demonstrate the importance of clean waterways and to encourage constituencies to preserve a community’s streams, rivers and lakes," says David Brown, executive director of America Outdoors (AO) and national coordinator of the event. National River Cleanup Week is coordinated by AO with the assistance of American Whitewater, the Professional Paddlesports Association, American Canoe Association, Trade Association for Paddlesports and the Water Environment Federation. Last year 34,000 volunteers—including private groups, outfitters, boy scouts, conservation groups and schools--participated in more than 300 registered cleanups nationwide, scouring more than 6,850 miles of rivers and shorelines. Since the event’s inception, nearly 250,000 volunteers have cleaned more than 65,802 miles of waterways. Groups interested in adding to these numbers should call AO at (423) 558-3595 or visit www.americaoutdoors.org. A detailed video, "Organizing a Successful River Cleanup," ($10.95) is also available from AO with all proceeds benefiting National River Cleanup Week. --ahb

Hog King Ordered To Cut The Crap

U.S. District Court Judge James C. Fox granted the American Canoe Association's (ACA) motion for a preliminary injunction Dec. 15 ordering the nation's largest hog producer, Murphy Family Farms of North Carolina, to apply for a federal Clean Water Act permit. Fox gave Murphy Farms until Jan. 4 to apply to the North Carolina Division of Water Quality for the permit. The ruling could ultimately require North Carolina to utilize the Clean Water Act permitting process for the state's other hog farms, many of which have proven to be detrimental to the state's waterways.

The judge's ruling comes on the heels of a recent Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) decision to join ACA's suit. In explaining EPA's siding with ACA, Adam Kushner, senior counsel for the U.S. Department of Justice, says that EPA intervened because the facts of the case show the failure of the state to follow the law. As for the judge's ruling, David Bookbinder, Legal Counsel for the ACA, says it could lead to an important precedent. "Thousands of farms could face tighter scrutiny of illegal waste discharges under a permitting system similar to that already required of sewage plants, factories and other facilities that pump wastewater into rivers. The permit will require them to monitor and make the monitoring results public," says Bookbinder. "This is big."

ACA filed the lawsuit because of illegal discharges of hog waste into Six Runs Creek and the farm's failure to obtain a National Pollution Discharge Elimination System permit. The farm in question is a 4,400-sow farm called Magnolia 4, located southeast of Clinton, N.C., near the Duplin County line. In November 1996 and July 1997, North Carolina State inspectors discovered sewage spills from the farm's spay fields into Six Runs Creek, a tributary of the Black River which flows into Cape Fear. --dj

Moose River Ruling Supports Recreational Use Test for Navigability

In a landmark ruling, New York's highest court recently decided that a river's recreational uses should be a factor in determining if a river is navigable. The court was ruling on a navigability question involving the South Branch of the Moose River. The case originated from a trespass case brought by the Adirondack League Club, a private hunting and fishing club, against the Sierra Club for an excursion on the river in 1991. "This is a great victory because now we can use recreational travel, the ability to support canoe use, to establish the navigability of a stream," the Adirondack Mountain Club's Neil Woodworth told Associated Press. "That was a test that the landowners contended did not exist." The ruling supported the position taken by the American Canoe Association, American Whitewater, Appalachian Mountain Club and New York Rivers United in an "Friend of the Court" Brief filed by the groups in July. The decision also adopts positions taken by the Sierra Club and Adirondack Mountain Club as defendants in the case.

Paddlers regard this case as a crucial judicial test of the public's right to take canoes and kayaks onto waterways flowing through private land. The court concluded that because rivers and streams are now more likely to be used for recreation than commerce, it makes sense to consider a waterway's ability to carry recreational boaters when determining navigability. The court also concluded that the "existence of occasional natural obstructions do not destroy the navigability of a river" and that boaters have a right to portage around rocks, timber and other obstacles in the waterway. --dj

Proposal Hopes to Open Yellowstone's Rivers

Paddlers used to poaching whitewater in Yellowstone National Park might not have to pursue clandestine kayak tactics any more. In November, American Whitewater (AW), a non-profit river conservation based in Silver Spring, Md., submitted a proposal to the Park Service recommending that Yellowstone National Park open four select river

segments for non-commercial whitewater recreation on a season-limited basis. Also signing onto the proposal was Springfield, Va.'s American Canoe Association (ACA).

The recommendation includes the Black Canyon of the Yellowstone (which local Ron Lodders calls "the premier multi-day whitewater run in any National Park in the U.S."), and portions of the Gardner, Lamar and Lewis rivers. "Yellowstone has over 400 miles of incredible rivers which are off-limits to boating," says AW Access Director Jason Robertson. "This is not consistent with National Park Service policies, which are designed to promote human-powered recreation such as kayaking and canoeing."

The proposal addresses the rivers' unique values as whitewater resources; the Park's need to balance use and resource protection; paddling's minimal environmental impacts; and the ability of Park personnel to manage the resource on a limited basis, with the ability to open or close additional rivers in the future. "The original ban on river recreation was inherently flawed because it was implemented to address over-fishing rather than river voyaging and recreation," says AW Executive Director Rich Bowers. "There are better tools for managing anglers without banning boater access to Yellowstone's rivers."

--For more information, contact AW at (301) 589-9453 or the ACA at (703) 451-0141.

Dam Removal in Colorado?

The Bureau of Reclamation is compiling public comments regarding the construction of a fish-only channel or removal of the Price-Stubb Dam on the Colorado River near Palisade, Colo. If the BLM decides to go ahead with the plan, modifications to the dam--located just downstream of Big Sur, a surf wave that appears during high water--could create a safe passage for both boats and fish. Removal of the Price-Stubb dam would make boating possible from nearby Island Acres State Park and eliminate a man-made barrier that was abandoned more than 80 years ago. The Grand Valley Project Diversion Dam farther upstream is also under consideration to be modified for fish passage. The site is the likely location for a fish-only channel allowing biologists to count endangered fish and trap and remove nonnative fish from populating the habitat upstream.

--For more information, visit www.mesastate.edu/~jerry/guide/price-stubb/price-stubb.html .

--Jerry Nolan