Brown Trout. Flickr photo by Tony Warelius

Among other things, like the sublime experience of nature’s solitude and the ability to slow down and collect my thoughts miles away from the frenetic pace of daily life, I realized there was something else that was escaping my awareness during my fishing experience. It was perhaps the most important ingredient that makes my passionate hobby all possible and I was constantly looking at it but never really seeing it-clean water and healthy aquatic habitats. Sure, I could read water and determine the most likely places where the fish would be, but mostly I was looking through the water and past it, as if it was somehow separate from the fish it supported. And, ironically, at that point I had already spent a significant amount of time in a professional career advocating for national policy changes that would clean up this country’s threatened water resources. So it took some time to appreciate much larger considerations about the sport of fishing, its important connection to the world of public policy in which I was deeply and personally immersed, and the most important pillar upon which all aquatic species rely: the Clean Water Act.

Clean Water Act Successes

So as we celebrate the 40^th anniversary of this historic federal environmental law this week, I’m thankful it didn’t take me until my golden years to connect all the dots. Since its enactment in 1972, the Clean Water Act has resuscitated thousands of waterways across the country; in many cases bringing them back from their deathbeds. Prior to 1972, many of our rivers and streams were little more than open sewers, receptacles for untreated chemical and biological pollutants that suffocated and defiled them to such a degree that they held little to no life.

The beautiful Snake River in Wyoming. Flickr photo by Bala Sivakumar

The speed at which the Act aided in the recovery of the nation’s waterways was breathtaking. You’d have to look long and hard to find another national law that triggered these types of sweeping changes in such a short period of time. For the first time in the country’s history, strict limits were placed on the direct discharge of pollutants from factories and sewage plants into our waterways. As importantly, the Act created mechanisms to control the destructive impacts of explosive and poorly planned land development that destroyed wetlands and streams and sent massive loads of sediment and nutrient pollution into waterways choking out critical fish spawning habitat, depleting oxygen content to lethal levels for many aquatic species, and threatening the nation’s public drinking water supplies. Beyond that, the Act was also truly visionary.

Before it was fully understood in public policy circles and among many in the scientific community that addressing pollution concerns in rivers and streams required a comprehensive and holistic approach, the Act provided opportunities to control all sources of pollution at a watershed level. This is an experiment that is now unfolding in the Chesapeake Bay and possibly the only approach that will save one of this country’s most treasured great waters.  Decades of implementation of the Act’s key provisions has lead to new and innovative approaches and smarter thinking about ways to address water pollution and has spurred a national discourse about the economic benefits of clean water.

Study after study now reveals what most of us intuitively knew for many years, clean water plays a vital role in economic health, a lesson that could not be timelier in these days of dire fiscal challenges.  For these reasons the Clean Water Act, forty years later, continues to be a shining example of brilliant public policy that protects people, communities, wildlife, and the economy. And when I find fish these days, I’m thinking about a lot more than just catching them.

If you care about clean water and would like future generations to have fishable, swimmable and drinkable waters, take action and help restore clean water today! Also, please participate in our social media actions TODAY.

Author after a great day on Lake Erie

This bill leaves Lake Erie, its rivers and world-class steelhead and walleye fisheries vulnerable.

Governor Kasich and the Ohio state legislature are not living up to their obligations under the Compact. As Ohio’s neighbors take steps to implement water protections, Ohio has gone in the other direction.

What is really troubling with this new law:  if the Ohio Department of Natural Resources issues a permit that would cause significant harm to a river or stream, hunters and anglers and the public have no say and cant challenge this decision.  Only if you own property along the Lake and/or river, or have a direct economic interest, can you appeal a decision. 

This is a step back to the midieval European method of conservation, where people had no voice and all fish and wildlife belonged to the King – and no one hunted or fished without the King’s permission.

The battle for Lake Erie is not over.  We are currently assessing our next steps to ensure that Lake Erie is protected for future generations and provides a sustainable source of fresh water not only for people and wildlife, but the businesses and industries that rely upon it.

courtesy justmytruth.com

The Obama Administration’s recent announcement that the Environmental Protection Agency will not strengthen the ozone or smog standard is of little consolation to parents who have to rush their asthmatic kids to the hospital emergency room on dirty air days or the runner who wants to reach his top performance on the track on hot summer days. While the rule is being delayed, ozone is not. Ozone has not gone away. Contrary to polluter claims that ozone pollution helps the economy, NWF has found that allergies and asthma, which are worsened by ozone, already cost nearly $33 billion a year in health care services and lost productivity.

All of this has wildlife lovers wondering if  halting the ozone rule is a precedent for other anti-pollution efforts in the works that impact BOTH people and nature.

For a while now, EPA has been gearing up to tackle climate change through a rule that would reduce carbon pollution from coal plants and other stationary sources. There will likely be a massive polluter campaign to smear the rule as economically harmful.

In 2009, EPA found that carbon dioxide and five other gases endanger peoples’ health and the environment, a conclusion that acknowledges the need to act. This finding was backed by most scientists and confirmed that human activities like burning coal are creating unacceptably high levels of pollution that are warming and changing the planet’s climate.

Delays Put Wildlife on the Line

via Tollers/Flickr

The longer we delay curbing greenhouse gas emissions, the more we threaten wildlife and the planet’s biological health. The evidence is mounting up. As Arctic ice disappears, polar bear habitat and feeding areas vanish. Shrinking sea ice is the single biggest threat to polar bears, say experts. Polar bears hunt, breed and in some cases, den on sea ice. Without ice, polar bears cannot reach their prey.

“Climate Change May Doom Wisconsin Fish” read an August 22 headline when University of Wisconsin scientists estimated that the cisco, a cold water fish and important food source for many of Wisconsin’s game fish, could disappear from most of the state’s lakes by 2100 because of warming. Warmer streams also put trout at risk. (See NWFs excellent “Game Changers” report for more on this).

And some species could face extinction, especially those that have very specialized habitats, like birds that live at high elevations or moose that thrive in cool climates. They’ll have no place to go.

Global warming is a threat to waterfowl, a 2007 National Wildlife Federation study reported, because prairie pothole breeding areas could dry up, and some will find less shallow-water habitat in their traditional breeding areas because of sea level rise.

Some animals and plants cannot adapt fast enough to survive in warmer temperatures.

Extreme Weather, Extremely Bad for Business

via Meironke/Flickr

Greenhouse gas concentrations are one of the triggers of more extreme weather, most authorities maintain, like some of the weather we’ve seen this year — tornadoes, hurricanes, droughts, flooding, heat waves and heavy precipitation. “Global warming is driving increased frequency of extreme wet or dry summer weather in southeast, so droughts and deluges are likely to get worse,” reported a 2010 Duke University study. An NWF report earlier this year also sounded the alarm. Weather-related disruptions cost the country $17 billion a year on average from 1960-2005.

Major weather-related power outages have increased by a factor of 10 to 20 since the early 1990s. Hurricanes can leave millions of people without power. Oil, gas and other energy infrastructure is at risk during big weather events. Power disruptions are not just inconvenient; they can cost businesses, government and people big bucks.

Moving to a clean energy economy would not only help curb greenhouse gases, it could create millions of new jobs in our anemic economy. Appeasing the polluter lobby and the Congressional skeptics will not bring the political, environment or economic solutions we all need. Let’s hope the Administration does not cave again.

For more information, fact sheets and to take action, visit NWF’s clean air page.

The Seattle Times reports:

“The veteran fishery biologist for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife was reviewing the daily count of steelhead passing Bonneville Dam. Tuesday’s figure didn’t seem right: 18,671.

Because that was a full 10,000 more than the day before, Hymer figured someone must have inadvertently punched in an extra digit on the calculator. He had good reason to believe so. In the 71 years since fish counting began at Bonneville, the previous record for the daily steelhead count amounted to 14,432.  Then came Wednesday’s count: 28,314. On Thursday, the number spiked at 34,054.

The incredible steelhead counts weren’t typos. At the dam, fish counters recorded as many as 1,700 silvery flashes zipping past in a single hour on Thursday a rate that equates to a new fish every couple of seconds. … Biologists attribute this week’s bulging daily counts at Bonneville largely to the searing heat wave two weeks ago. Several days of triple-digit heat warmed the river to as high as 75 degrees at Bonneville, well above the comfort level for cold-water fish.

‘When you get up to 74, 75 degrees, fish just don’t move,’ Hymer said. ‘In sport fisheries below Bonneville, we saw steelhead duck into tributaries like the Cowlitz, Lewis, even to some degree the Kalama. Fish are trying to cool off as much as possible.’”  See full article.

Associated Press reports:

“As a lightning-sparked fire charred thousands of acres in southwestern New Mexico, biologists and firefighters used helicopters and trucks for an unusual evacuation. They captured 250 Gila trout — a threatened species — from a creek in southwestern New Mexico and are moving them to a hatchery in the opposite corner of the state. Biologists rode to the creek on horseback, then used electroshocking devices to temporarily stun the trout so they could quickly scoop them into a net.

See full article >>

The hearing also presented some startling previews of how rising sea levels will impact Virginia’s Hampton Roads area. When it comes to hurricanes and flooding, Hampton Roads is already one of America’s most vulnerable places. Higher water and stronger storms brought on by global warming will only make things worse.

You can view the slides from Dr. Inkley’s presentation below or here (2.7MB PDF) or read the National Wildlife Federation’s recent report on sea level rise and the Chesapeake Bay.

View “Impacts on Fisheries and Wildlife’ on SlideShare” >>