Speech from National Water Monitoring Day, October 18, 2002

From: Michael R Helfrich
Time Stamp 10/23/2002 12:19:53 PM



Good Afternoon, and welcome to our National Water Monitoring Day Event. My name’s Michael Helfrich and I’m with the Codorus Creek Improvement Partnership. I’d like to thank our speakers for coming out. I’d also like to thank all you interested citizens for joining us in learning more about our main waterway, the Codorus Creek.

For those that don’t know, today is also the thirtieth anniversary of the Clean Water Act. Pennsylvania and its citizens have had a major influence on the protection of our environment and public health from the beginning. William Penn, founder of our state, wrote the first conservation law 300 years ago, requiring the preservation of one acre of land out of every five acres. Gifford Pinchot worked against railroad barrens, lumber companies and mining companies to help institute a system of National Parks, areas preserved for the education and recreation of all. Rachel Carson stood up in the middle of the “better living through chemistry” revolution and said look at what uncontrolled use of your chemicals are doing to our future. She was slandered, then vindicated through scientific evidence, and is now celebrated as the voice of the environmental protection movement. All three of these citizens of Pennsylvania made their decisions by looking to the future, and acting for the long-term good of the average citizen.

National Water Monitoring Day is a chance for us to become a small part of this tradition. As citizens, it is up to us to know what’s going on in our community. We can’t always rely on overburdened government organizations to monitor and protect the many aspects of our communities. By monitoring our waterways we can understand our community’s impact on our environment, protect ourselves, and help our government agencies and officials.

America’s rivers are in trouble. Fifty Percent of America’s tap water comes from rivers, and forty percent of our rivers, lakes and estuaries are unsuitable for such basic uses as fishing and swimming. Most Americans still believe that big-pipe industrial polluters are the main cause of river pollution- but we know the story is more complex. Precipitation run-off from farm fields, roads, parking lots, and lawns has now become the leading cause of water pollution in America today and is expected to increase in magnitude.
Americans care about these issues and stand ready to act. But they don’t know where to begin. Although Americans routinely identify clean and safe water as a top environmental and health priority, many do not realize that their daily activities have a substantial impact on water quality. The lack of understanding about the major causes of water pollution - particularly, the role of individuals and small businesses - stands as an impediment to community-based action and clean water.

I recently received two short articles, and I would like to share some of this information. The first article is a press release from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.

State of the Bay Report 2002
Nitrogen Pollution Prevents Bay Improvements

Despite decades of specific government promises to clean up the Bay, the Chesapeake Bay's health remains in critical condition and showed no net progress in 2002, according to our fifth annual State of the Bay Report. On a scale of 0 to 100, the Bay's health scores only a 27, the same as in 2001.

More than any other single factor, nitrogen pollution is the main reason the Bay's health showed no overall improvement. Each year, roughly 300 million pounds of nitrogen from farmland runoff, airborne and land-based sources (power plants, vehicles, and septic tanks), urban and suburban runoff, and outdated sewage treatment plants overload the Bay's waters. Upgrading the watershed's large sewage treatment plants is the single most cost-effective step we can take right now to clean the Bay's water, and it is the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's top priority. We need your help to build support for our Chesapeake Clean Water Campaign! Please forward this e-mail to your friends and family and ask them to join our online Action Network.

The State of the Bay Report tells us how far we have fallen from Captain John Smith's pristine Bay and how great our challenge is to create a "saved" Bay. With your help, and commitment from our political leaders, we will see a Bay that reaches a score of 40 by 2010 and 70 by 2050.

The next article I would like to refer to is from a National Geographic River survey.

Nearly all Americans, 94%, said that environmental issues are important, with nearly two-thirds saying that they are very important. The health of our nation’s rivers is clearly considered a very important environmental issue.

Nearly two in three Americans said they were interested in getting personally involved in conserving and protecting rivers.

44% of Americans can’t define the term watershed, and 65% of Americans believe a wetland and a watershed are the same thing.

Although non-point source pollution- which occurs when water runs over land or through the ground and picks up pollutants and deposits them in rivers- is the largest source of river pollution, 86% of Americans are completely unfamiliar with the term.

So you see from these two sources that people really want to help, but first we all must learn what we must do to remedy our condition. It’s up to us to learn and share with those that want to, and need to know.

We hope you learn a lot today. Please enjoy our speakers and then we’ll do some monitoring of our Codorus Creek.