Flight Sturgeon
Waterkeepers Take To the Air
By Fred Tutman, Patuxant Riverkeeper

From an aerial vantage point, Waterkeepers can better view factory farms, stormwater outflows, excavations, mines and other sites that are less accessible from the land. The view can be quite stunning from the air, providing a unique way of visualizing the relationships between land and water. Flying, when coupled with guerrilla–style photographic tactics, can also produce compelling visuals for use in advocacy.

Jeff Turner at the Blackwater/Nottoway Riverkeeper in Virginia has used a helicopter to patrol his 85-mile watershed. From the air he has located polluting paper mills and hog lagoons that were red with live bacteria and located only 100 yards from his river. Jeff remembers a blustery day in a chopper fighting 30 mph winds and updrafts that plummeted him through the air as much as 20 feet at a time. Jeff now considers Dramamine a standard part of his flying kit, but nonetheless considers flight time a valued tool in his work.

South Riverkeeper Drew Koslow uses an airplane to survey for endangered mute swan nests, observe oyster reefs and to document the impacts of large-scale development near Annapolis, Maryland. In a comical or surreal twist, on one of his survey missions Drew observed a 24-foot boat running at top speed in circles with a ring of onlooking boats around it. Apparently the operator of the boat had fallen overboard while at full throttle. Onlookers were trying to figure out how to retrieve the craft. Eventually, a plucky bystander threw a rope into the path of the boat, snagging and stalling the propeller.

Heather Jacobs at North Carolina’s Pamlico-Tar Riverkeeper Program uses airplanes four or five times a year to pinpoint areas that she will later inspect on the ground or from her patrol boat. For Heather, flying is a diagnostic tool for identifying the sources of problems and identifying new ones. She has observed hog farmers spraying waste illegally and sedimentation from forestry activities where new “cuts” are being made in protected buffer areas. Heather is strategic about her flights; these are rarely “fishing” expeditions. She carefully reviews maps of her 5,500 square mile watershed and pinpoints areas of concern. For Heather, the flyovers and the public awareness of them is a great deterrent, putting violators on notice that the Waterkeeper is vigilant.

Gordon Hensley the San Luis Obispo Coastkeeper in California uses an airplane supplied by a friendly attorney and relies on flyovers as a core part of his monitoring work. Gordon points out that it would be impossible for him to keep an eye on his large patrol area without a plane. The ability to fly over private property that is inaccessible or illegal from the ground provides a powerful avenue for identifying enforcement issues.

Jay Charland the Assateague Coastkeeper on Maryland’s eastern shore uses airplanes on occasion and is sold on the practicality of being able to see deeper into private property than is possible solely with water patrols. He believes that making it publicly known in your watershed that you conduct air patrols intensifies the public perception that the Waterkeeper is vigilant and watchful. Perhaps it discourages pollution too – as flying is a technique rarely used by governmental enforcers and polluters rarely hide their activities from an observer above.

Jim Holland, Georgia’s Altamaha Riverkeeper tries to take to the skies at least two to three times per year. Using a Cessna provided by a nearby non-profit charter service, Jim has observed ditching and draining of wetlands, unorthodox logging practices and chicken farms with lagoons right next to his river. He reports sewage treatment plants and other point sources such as pipes and foaming colored discharges that would be hard for him to see through the ordinary water-based patrols. Jim has a patrol area of some 14,000 square miles. On a flight earlier this year he tracked nearly 75 miles up his watershed to Lake Jackson following churning waters rich with dark colored mud. Nearly all the sediment flowed from a single new housing development site on the river.