Rural System's

The Rural River Runners

This is an organization of people with that all have great curiosity about and love of the rivers of western Virginia and seek new ways to enjoy them but also to protect and improve them. There are paid memberships. It's activities (none of which are political or advocacy; leaving that to individual members):

• Conducts tours of the rivers
• Maps and refines use-oriented maps for the rivers and its tributaries
• Develops a refined GIS database for the watersheds of the county and select areas
• Monitors and reports on landuse dynamics within the selected watersheds
• Develops a detailed evapotranspiration model of the watersheds
• Documents the wildlife along the rivers
• Conducts toxicity, turbidity, N, P, and chlorophylla surveys with The Lab
• Monitors fish flesh quality
• Publishes documents and notices about its findings to improve the rivers
• Creates a detailed cross-section at selected points and follows their dynamics
• Documents harmful activities
• Conducts lectures and conferences about the rivers
• Conducts Chesapeake Bay tours
• Conducts over-night float trips
• Conducts night tours with infra-red and night vision technology
• Conducts GPSence geocashing opportunities and contests
• Promotes special fishing tournaments for members (not in competition with existing tournaments)
• Sells books, maps, and other materials related to the rivers, their history, conditions, and uses
• Sponsors underwater explorations (boats, snorkel, and scuba)
• Sponsors bird-watching contests and "Best-Birder" competitions along river reaches (from boats)
• Studies a river-based Avi course.
• Describes the phenology (timing of biological events like leaf-fall or flowering) along the local waterways.

Perhaps its greatest challenge will be to sustain a database and information system about the waters of the region ... for many uses.

There may be attacks on the Clean Water Act. A proposed rulemaking could significantly weaken the Act's protections for wetlands, tributaries and seasonal streams.

We at American Rivers want you to know that we will work with you, and other members of the river and watershed movement, to fend off a rollback of this law that has protected rivers in our communities for the last 30 years. The rollback of the Clean Water Act has been initiated in the White House, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the Environmental Protection Agency.

It may benefit land developers, agribusiness, and coal mining interests. Up to 60 percent of our rivers, streams, and wetlands -- any body of water that is not "navigable" could lose protection under the Act. River systems may become more vulnerable to pollution and harmful alterations of all kinds. Water quality will further decline. And the watchdogs in Congress will be able to do little about it without strong and sustained activism by you and tens of thousands of others on the front lines of water protection. The majority of Americans still rank clean water and protection of native wildlife (which depends on healthy rivers) among their most important values.

Our biggest challenge will be proving that even minor changes in a law as fundamental as the Clean Water Act can have huge consequences for local communities, and nationwide.

As co-chair of both the Clean Water Network and the Corps Reform Network, and facilitator of the River Agenda initiative, we at American Rivers are preparing ourselves more than ever to tell your stories, show pictures, and bring home the local impacts -- congressional district by congressional district -- of any proposals that would harm rivers and fresh water. Renew your American Rivers membership.

If you have a compelling story about how the Clean Water Act has helped your local river, and what its rollback could do in your community, drop a line to American Rivers' Outreach Director Matt Sicchio at msicchio@americanrivers.org.

The Crescent Crew

The Crescent Crew is a part of this group and may become independent of it later. Its members study watershed of the county and delivers maps and analyses for the developing changes therein.

It has a voluntary membership that promotes an alternative form of watershed analysis. These people get out on the land, use GPS to make surveys and record data, and attempt to develop and maintain a precise disinterested, third-party data base about the watersheds. It tends to advocate an alternative analysis to river function, the Crescent approach.

It works locally but with contacts with the Conservation Management Institute at Virginia Tech

Corporate Research Center
1900 Kraft Drive, Suite 250
Moss Building (Mail Code 0534)
Blacksburg, VA 24061
Phone: 231-7348

and

Bill Card
Contours Geographic Information Services
P. O. Box 5373
Knoxville, Tennessee 37928
Telephone: 865.257.0258
E-mail: info@contoursgis.com

A specialized interest is to develop means to identify map units and their changes to which the several performance measures of the streams of the county are most sensitive.

Memberships include a news letter, access to specialized maps and annual conference in the vicinity. Sponsorship will be sought.This is a break-even activity with membership fees covering costs. Maps and items developed (e.g., CDs with software and images) will be sold by The Products Group.

See New River Ranging and notes related to the New River Roundtable.

Perhaps you will share ideas with me about some of the topic(s) above .

Home
Rural System
Glossary
Robert H. Giles, Jr.
July 3, 2005