Ripples

Southern California Giant Kelp Restoration
Giant kelp forests, which provide habitat for approximately 800 species of marine life, once grew thickly off the Southern California coast. But over-harvesting and other threats have degraded these forests by nearly 80 percent over the past 100 years. California Coastkeeper Alliance and Southern California Waterkeepers recently completed a six-year long Giant Kelp Restoration Project to restore these historic kelp forests. Coastkeeper and Waterkeepers trained hundreds of volunteer divers, restored 18,500 square meters of kelp and educated more than 700,000 southern California schoolchildren about the kelp forests.

MTV features Waterkeepers
Black Warrior Riverkeeper founder David Whiteside produced two videos for MTV on Turkey Creekkeeper’s efforts to address recovery needs on the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast, and on Atchafalaya Basinkeeper's and Black Warrior Riverkeeper’s fight to stop illegal cypress logging in Louisiana.

Visit www.blackwarriorriver.org/Waterkeeper_videos.html to see!

SPRING CLEANING

$600 found at Neuse River Clean Up
More than 260 volunteers gathered for the Neuse River Spring Clean Up, covering 70 miles of the Neuse River and Crabtree Creek. The experience was particularly rewarding for one volunteer who found $600 in a trashed beer bottle!

South Riverkeeper Stream Cleanups
In April, South Riverkeeper and 60 volunteers removed nearly 500 tires from an old illegal tire dump and hauled large debris half a mile through the woods to clean up Maryland’s local streams.

French Broad Riverkeeper Adopt-A-Stream
French Broad Riverkeeper’s Adopt-A-Stream program beat records in March. More than 150 volunteers removed 201 bags of trash and 50 tires from the French Broad River and its tributaries, an all-time high.

Blackwater Nottoway Clean Rivers Day
This spring, 110 volunteers gathered with Blackwater Nottoway Riverkeeper for Clean Rivers Day, pulling a whopping 3.28 tons of trash and debris from the two Virginia rivers.

Buffalo Niagara Spring Shoreline Sweep
Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper organized a Spring Shoreline Sweep to celebrate Earth Day weekend in April. About 1,000 volunteers pitched in at 31 sites in Western New York.

Waterkeeper and Starlight Runner Release Ganymede Film
Polluters of our waterways, beware! This May, Waterkeeper Alliance and Starlight Runner Entertainment released the new animated film Ganymede the Waterkeeper. The film stars Waterkeeper Celeste Swan who encounters a hideous industrial monster while testing her waterway. Superhero Ganymede emerges from the water to vanquish the beast. But Swan knows it takes smart, fearless advocacy to strike the heart of the pollution problem. Search for Ganymede the Waterkeeper on YouTube.com and tell your friends!

HONORS

Waterkeeper Alliance Receives USC Award
On Earth Day, the University of Southern California honored Waterkeeper Alliance with their first Sustainability Champion Award. Waterkeeper Alliance was recognized for their “steadfast activism and successful litigation against the nation’s most egregious polluters.”

Kansas Riverkeeper Wins Award
Laura Calwell, Kansas Riverkeeper, received the 2008 Stream Monitor of the Year award from the Kansas Wildlife Federation for her hard work in defending Kansas streams.

Black Warrior Riverkeeper Named Honorary Citizen
Warrior, Alabama’s mayor, police chief and fire chief all recognized Nelson Brooke, the Black Warrior Riverkeeper, as an Honorary Warrior Citizen for his tireless fight in protecting the river for the citizens of Warrior.

Construction Runoff
Runoff from construction sites is one of the leading causes of water pollution nationwide.

This runoff carries dirt, debris and chemicals into our waterways, endangering the health of our communities and our environment. But Waterkeepers are putting an end to this. In Georgia, Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper took action to force developer Winmark Homes to restore a stream and pay $48,000 after the company drained and filled 1,800 feet of a stream and violated stormwater laws. In Maryland, South Riverkeeper forced Greenberg Gibbons Commercial Corp. and the Annapolis Towne Center to pay $120,000 to remedy Church Creek after the developer failed to protect the creek from construction runoff.

Sen. Boxer, Coastkeeper Protect Our Oceans
United States Senator Barbara Boxer joined San Diego Coastkeeper at a reception in March to support their marine conservation program. Coastkeeper highlighted their efforts to protect the ocean ecosystem through the creation of marine protected areas. Senator Boxer, who was honored with an Environmental Champion Award at the event, spoke about federal efforts to protect the coast and lauded Coastkeeper’s work. The event was sponsored by the League of Conservation Voters San Diego and the San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council.

Landmark Victory for Farm Area Residents
On April 25, a federal district court judge denied a petition challenging mandatory pesticide emission reductions in Ventura County, Calif. Pesticides rank among the largest contributors to California’s toxic air quality. Two years ago, a lawsuit brought by Ventura Coastkeeper and Wishtoyo Foundation, in coalition with community-based environmental justice groups, forced five California counties to comply with an order to reduce smog-forming pesticide emissions by 20 percent. But the Ventura County Agricultural Commissioner later filed a petition with the court claiming that the reductions would result in more environmental harm by converting agricultural land to urban and industrial use. The court denied the Commissioner’s claim and maintained that the 20 percent reductions shall remain in effect. This is a landmark victory for residents of farm areas that endure yearly toxic emissions from aerial pesticide applications.

Wabash Riverkeeper Testifies
Wabash Riverkeeper Rae Schnapp testified before the Indiana General Assembly in support of legislation that would provide environmental and health officials information on how manure is spread on Indiana’s factory farms. The Indiana Department of Agriculture is promoting factory farms as a tool for economic development, but environmental and social costs are being ignored. Manure often contains excess phosphorus and disease organisms that can pollute streams. Phosphorus from Midwestern agriculture has contributed to a Dead Zone in the Gulf
of Mexico.

An Ecological Marvel Protected
Horseshoe crabs serve an irreplaceable role in the ecological web of life. For more than a century, however, overharvesting of horseshoe crab eggs has put crab populations in great jeopardy, along with migratory birds that depend on the eggs for food and nourishment.
Now, after two decades, Delaware Riverkeeper, American Littoral Society, New Jersey Audubon Society, Delaware Chapter of the Audubon Society and others succeeded in receiving protections for the horseshoe crab and the birds that depend on them. On March 25, New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine signed into law a moratorium on the harvesting of horseshoe crabs for bait until migratory birds populations are restored.

Each spring, migratory birds fly 3,000 to 4,000 miles non-stop from Central and South America to the shores of Delaware Bay where they gorge themselves on the energy rich horseshoe crab eggs. They then fly another 3,000 miles to their breeding grounds in the arctic. This precise ecological timing — the arrival of the birds timed to coincide with the spawning of the crabs — results in a spectacular display. Hundreds of thousands of migrating shorebirds can be seen on the bay shore at one time.

Unfortunately, for more than a century, the crabs were overharvested for use as fertilizer. From the 1970s on, horseshoe crabs were used as bait for eel and conch, inevitably causing the horseshoe crab population to decline. While some data shows that there are still enough eggs to sustain the crab population, studies show that since 1985 there has been a 75 percent decline in this Red Knot population. In the past year alone, the population of Red Knots has declined 15 percent and is in real danger of becoming extinct as soon as 2010. Evidence also shows that other birds have stepped on the same path as the Red Knot as a result of the decline in the availability of the horseshoe crab eggs, including the Semi Palmated Sandpiper and the Ruddy Turnstone.

In an effort to save the crabs and the birds and this dramatic ecological marvel between them, the Delaware Riverkeeper has been working for decades to secure a moratorium on the bait harvest of the horseshoe crab. On March 17, the New Jersey Senate unanimously passed a moratorium on the harvesting of horseshoe crabs after government reports indicated that the Red Knot was in peril, and a large out-pour of concerned citizens called and emailed in support of the moratorium. The following week, Governor Jon Corzine signed the moratorium into law, placing a $10,000 to $25,000 fine on the harvesting of horseshoe crabs for bait.

The threat to the Red Knot is still imminent, as is the threat to the other migratory birds that rely on the horseshoe crabs of Delaware Bay. But with this new legislation, there is hope that the birds will receive the nutrition they need to survive, hope that the horseshoe crabs can once again rebound, and a chance that one day soon the Red Knot will again thrive so they can continue to grace our shores with their magnificent spring arrival. w