A summer in the much-loved Battenkill River watershed

A biologist measures stream depth on a tributary of the Battenkill River.

By Jacob A. Fetterman  When I decided to change my major toward the end of my freshman year at Lock Haven University, I had no idea about the journey to follow. I was looking for a career that would allow me to positively impact the natural world I grew up admiring.   Five-and-a-half years later, it is safe to say that I am well…

The Amazon forest isn’t the only one in peril

Editor’s note: This first appeared in the Los Angeles Times. By Mike Dombeck and Chris Wood In the faraway Amazon, politics and commercial exploitation are fueling fires that threaten the world’s largest tropical rainforest. Closer to home, in Alaska, the Tongass National Forest, which represents the largest intact temperate rainforest, is facing a serious threat…

TU plants trees to restore Michigan trout streams

Trout Unlimited has received funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service through the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative to plant nearly 17,000 trees along coldwater streams in Michigan. The project, “Reducing Runoff in the Rogue River Watershed,” aims to address stormwater runoff that pollutes, erodes and warms the important West Michigan trout fishery by…

Congressmen rally behind abandoned mine cleanup

Photo above: Congressman Dan Meuser (white shirt) and Earth Conservancy president/CEO Mike Dziak (speaking) during a tour of an abandoned mine reclamation site in Luzerne County, Pa. Earth Conservancy photo. There are moonscapes outside Wilkes-Barre, Pa.—piles of black culm left behind from coal mining operations before the dawn of regulation four decades ago. A local…

New York chapter documenting heritage brook trout strain in Catskills

By Ed Ostapczuk  Science of genetics and DNA continues to evolve, and a New York chapter of Trout Unlimited is using such science to study wild brook trout in a small stream in the Catskills.  The Ashokan-Pepacton Watershed Chapter is conducting a Catskill heritage brook trout study, in partnership with the Ashokan Watershed Stream Management Program (AWSMP).     Late this past…

Out of sight, out of mine?

An abandoned mine overlooks Lion Creek drainage near Empire, Colorado By Randy Scholfield We are bouncing along in four-wheel drive vehicles, high in the Clear Creek watershed west of Denver, overlooking beautiful forest vistas and steep hillsides laced with snowmelt creeks. We are here with a group of reporters to show them a dark secret…