History

History

In 1993, several members of TU's Board of Trustees joined with other loyal supporters to create a scientific and economic research program for TU. The program's rationale was simple and straightforward: Despite TU's solid reputation for grassroots conservation work and its emerging presence as a national fisheries advocacy group, the organization badly needed a reliable source of technical expertise.

Where emotional appeals and rudimentary political organizing once sufficed to stop an ill-advised water project or reform fisheries management practices on a favorite river, by the early 1990s such techniques were no longer, by themselves, sufficient to influence management decisions. Our nation's environmental laws and natural resources policies had matured considerably since the 1970s. Important resource management decisions were turning increasingly on the vagaries of such disciplines as conservation biology and biostatistics and such techniques as computer-driven instream flow modeling.

In 1992, TU started on a new course. Thanks to a strategic reorganization that revitalized TU's capacity to serve as a national leader in coldwater fisheries conservation, for the first time TU was systematically seeking to influence major land, water and species management decisions throughout the range of coldwater fish habitat in the U.S. Concurrently, new challenges arose with the proposed Endangered Species Act listings of salmon and steelhead stocks and a wave of hydroelectric relicensing cases affecting rivers in the Northeast and Midwest.

But TU was at a crossroads. Without recourse to scientists and economists-and, indeed, without the funds to pay for their services-TU's impact would be marginal at best. If, however, it could secure steady access to technical expertise, TU could use its traditional strength-its grassroots network-to effect lasting changes in coldwater fisheries management.

In 1993, armed with a technical assistance budget of $50,000, which it had raised under the aegis of a new giving program called the "Coldwater Conservation Fund," TU's staff and volunteer activists began hiring experts to advise them. Since then, the CCF has supported TU's work on several fronts, including:

• Documenting the economic value of the Northwest's fishing industry to help change the region's land management debate from "owls versus jobs" to "jobs versus jobs."

• Securing fish-friendly conditions in hydropower relicensing cases on the Clyde River (VT), the Housatonic (CT), the Clark Fork (MT/ID), the Madison River (MT), the Kennebec River and the Rangeley Lakes (ME), the Deschutes (OR), and the Lower Snake River (ID/WA).

• A national whirling disease assessment, first issued in 1996 and updated in 1999, that provided a research blueprint and led to an ongoing, multi-million dollar federal research program.

• University of Virginia research to document the effects of acid deposition on the southern Appalachian Mountains and to predict the long-term impacts under current emission scenarios. In addition, the CCF funded the development of a grassroots water quality-monitoring network in North Carolina.

• The reintroduction of "coaster" brook trout into historic Great Lakes habitats.

• Comprehensive assessments of several state hatchery and fisheries management programs, including Wisconsin and Colorado. In part because of the CCF's report and TU's advocacy, the state of Colorado has since moved to a much more progressive policy emphasizing wild fisheries and habitat management.

The CCF is much more than a "think tank" for trout. Although much of its work involves peer-reviewed science, the CCF has a distinctly practical orientation. In fact, one of its major functions is to test projects that may later be good candidates for ongoing institutional support.

For example, the CCF has funded biophysical and economic research to develop a restoration plan for New York State's renowned Beaverkill-Willowemoc ("BeaMoc") trout fishery. The CCF's investment led to multi-million dollar private and public investment in, and a far brighter future for, the BeaMoc watershed. Modeled after the BeaMoc project, Home Rivers projects were subsequently launched on the Kickapoo River (WI), Kettle Creek (PA), Jefferson River (MT), and the South Fork of the Snake River (ID).

Since its inception, the CCF has grown from an annual budget of about $50,000 supporting a handful of small projects to almost $14 million and more than 20 projects today. Funds for the projects come from over 1300 individual CCF members and a host of institutional sponsors whose gifts support specific projects.