Muskie guide Howard Wagner with a huge Allegheny River muskie he released earlier this fall. Wagner, who owns the Fish Education Center in Fombell, is strictly catch and release.
Friday, December 5, 2008
Williams Run Named to Top 10 List
Valerie Tarkowski of the South Sandy Creek Watershed Association pores over maps of Williams Run with project engineer Justin Griebel. The run is being restored to expand a population of brook trout. To hear the story on WYEP-fm radio, click here http://www.alleghenyfront.org/Thursday, November 27, 2008
Cheetah-like Cat Killed in PA
A PA Game Commission officer holds dead serval. The Pennsylvania Game Commission has confirmed that a Chester County farmer killed a serval---an exotic, African cat that resembles a small cheetah----Tuesday night because it was killing chickens in his coop. Under state law, a farmer has the authority to kill an animal to protect his livestock, according to the commission, which has opened an investigation regarding the lawful ownership of the animal.
The game commission regulates exotic species in Pennsylvania, many of whom are obtained and owned illegally as pets. Mountain lions, wolves and wolf hybrids are the most common. For an indepth look at exotics in PA, read the following story.
Exotic Pets are a Game Commission Problem
Eastern Mountain Lion, US Fish and Wildlife Service photo
The Pennsylvania Game Commission is called about hundreds of mountain lion and hybrid wolf sightings every year, but few lead to an animal’s capture.
“The animal’s there and then it isn’t,” said agency spokesman Gerry Feaser. “A lot are cases of mistaken identify, or a hoax, like that (alleged) cougar attack in Lancaster County last week.”
Other cases, though, may involve exotic pets, many of whom return to their owners, he said. “We had a case in York County where someone cut the padlock off a mountain lion’s cage. When we got there, the cat was sitting on the owner’s porch.”
Hybrid wolves and big cats are by far the most common exotics the commission regulates, but few species are off-limits if a potential owner can prove he has at least two years experience handling the kind of animal he wants to keep, and can provide for its care. Township ordinances take precedence, and vary across the state.
And while permitted exotics may number “in the hundreds if not thousands,” according to Jason DeCoskey, chief of the commission’s exotic permitting enforcement, there may be just as many illegally-possessed big cats, wolf hybrids and other species whose health status and origins are uncertain.
The Pennsylvania Game Commission is called about hundreds of mountain lion and hybrid wolf sightings every year, but few lead to an animal’s capture.
“The animal’s there and then it isn’t,” said agency spokesman Gerry Feaser. “A lot are cases of mistaken identify, or a hoax, like that (alleged) cougar attack in Lancaster County last week.”
Other cases, though, may involve exotic pets, many of whom return to their owners, he said. “We had a case in York County where someone cut the padlock off a mountain lion’s cage. When we got there, the cat was sitting on the owner’s porch.”
Hybrid wolves and big cats are by far the most common exotics the commission regulates, but few species are off-limits if a potential owner can prove he has at least two years experience handling the kind of animal he wants to keep, and can provide for its care. Township ordinances take precedence, and vary across the state.
And while permitted exotics may number “in the hundreds if not thousands,” according to Jason DeCoskey, chief of the commission’s exotic permitting enforcement, there may be just as many illegally-possessed big cats, wolf hybrids and other species whose health status and origins are uncertain.
Many are purchased in Ohio, where laws “are non-existent,” DeCoskey said. “You can buy anything and everything there. Go to the Mt. Hope auction some Sunday, and you can get a grizzly bear cub or lion cub for a couple of hundred dollars.”
Jill Herring of the privately-owned Woodland Zoo in Farmington agrees. She received some of her big cats from the US Department of Agriculture, which confiscated them from owners. They include a Siberian white tiger that had attacked its owner in Ohio, she said. “Big cats are a big problem. There are many, many cats without permits.”
Hybrid wolves also keep the game commission busy, and shelling out money it could be spending on other programs. “When we find out someone is selling wolf hybrid pups, we have to investigate,” DeCoskey said. “We have to get the pup DNA-tested, which costs about $800. Usually, we find it’s just a dog someone is trying to pass off for a lot more money. In most cases, they don’t have the proper permits.”
The game commission would rather not regulate non-domesticated, non-farm animals owned by hobbyists, dealers and small zoos, but has failed to convince state lawmakers to reassign the duty to the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture.
“You look at where our funding comes from---hunters and trappers-–yet our officers spend a good bit of their time processing paperwork for exotics, or conducting inspections. We’re almost like a pet industry when it comes to this stuff,” DeCoskey said. “We’d be happy if another agency took this over.”
Even deer in “high fence” hunting compounds which the agriculture department regulates become the game commission’s problem when they escape, or are released, into the wild.“We had to euthanize three Sika deer in the woods around Harrisburg last year after their owner opened their pen and set them free,” said Feaser. “We couldn’t have them mingling with native whitetails.”There is always the concern that “high fence” deer may have been illegally imported from other states and could carry chronic wasting disease they could spread in the wild, DeCoskey said. “It wouldn’t take much…a fence blowing down on a windy day.”
The commission is trying to tighten regulations on ownership of exotics. Effective January, new regulations will prohibit wildlife rehabilitators from obtaining new permits to possess multiple exotics, in an effort to prevent the spread of disease. “We’d like to extend that to taxidermists and others who handle animal fluids and parts,” said DeCoskey. “It’s all about protecting our native resources.”
And while the Game Code was amended this year to clarify the ban on primates, DeCoskey said legislators need to go further. “The list in the Code is too vague,” he said.Fines for illegal possession typically amount to a couple of hundred dollars, but finding unpermitted exotics is the real problem, DeCoskey admitted.
“Our officers have stumbled across drug dealers who keep big cats for protection. But, more often, it takes a tip from a disgruntled spouse or neighbor.”
And placing confiscated animals isn’t as easy as it once was, since many zoos now demand solid paper trails. “We have a network of wildlife rescue facilities we can go to,” DeCoskey said. “Thank God for that.”
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Local Anglers Wallop Big Walleyes
Andy Nguyen with one of his huge walleyes.
by Deborah Weisberg
For local river anglers, Thanksgiving is as much about walleyes as turkeys.
The fall holiday typically marks the start of the big walleye bite on the Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio rivers. This year, though, it may have begun a little sooner, with reports of several trophy-size ‘eyes taking the bait at the Highland Park Dam, lock three and other spots in recent weeks. One of the biggest was the 12-pound, 34-incher Andy Nguyen landed on a shiner in the white water of the Ohio River’s back channel dam Nov. 5.
“The bite may be a little early because water temperatures are a tad colder than normal,” said Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission biologist Rick Lorson.
Anglers also may be seeing walleyes from a couple of exceptional year classes in the mid-1990s, he said, and this is prime time for the cool water species to forage. Although 68 degrees is optimal for walleyes, they actively feed until the mercury dips to 50, and the baitfish they are preying on are bulking up for winter, too, Lorson said. “Gizzard shad and emerald shiners are more available now and they’re bigger, because they’re feeding heavily on insects and plankton.”
Because water below the dams and the mouths of creeks provides the abundance of food and oxygen fish need, anglers typically do well at these locations. And while one huge walleye is a coveted catch, anglers could hook into more. “Walleyes school pretty much all year,” Lorson said. “They even school during the spawn. So if you get one big walleye, it’s likely there will be others in the same area.”Ron Fulton of Spring Church, PA, caught two trophy-size walleyes on the Allegheny the same day, including a 31-inch, 10 ½-pounder, on creek chubs.
“This time of year, walleyes run right up to the locks, and shore fishermen seem to do best because they can get right up in the fast water,” said Mike Kalafut of Uniontown, and a die-hard river angler. “If you’re fishing from a boat, try to get up along the lock wall or find a hole or any break in current.”Kalafut typically fishes jigs and three-inch, chartreuse curly tails, often tipped with fathead minnows or shiners. “Let your bait go down to the bottom and jig slowly. The colder the water, the slower you should jig,” he said. “Keep as vertical as you can to avoid snags. The current will dictate the weight of the jig, which could be anything from 1/8th to 5/8ths of an ounce.”
Walleyes are among the earliest local gamefish to spawn, moving in late winter to gravelly areas near shore when water warms to 50 degrees and periods of daylight lengthen. “Walleyes are broadcast spawners,” Lorson said. “They don’t guard their nests because they lay so many eggs.”
In fact, the walleye population on all of the state’s rivers, including the Monongahela---the only river stocked locally----has been so robust, the commission stopped river plantings this year. Lorson suspects numbers are so high, anglers may be seeing fewer saugers, the walleye’s smaller cousin.
“I’ll have to go back and compare years of data, but I’m getting the impression that, overall, conditions are swinging toward walleyes,” Lorson said. “Walleyes prefer a little better water quality and may be out-competing saugers for habitat and food. The saugers, over time, simply won’t reproduce in pools dominated by walleyes.”
Although saugers are native to local rivers, there would be no effort to bolster their numbers with stockings, Lorson said.
If the rest of the fall and winter turns out to be as productive as the walleye fishing so far this month, anglers should seize the opportunity, he said.
“As a general rule, big walleyes occur every three years. It’s true for both lakes and rivers, but especially for rivers, and has to do with water flow and temperature, available forage, overwinter survival, and natural and fishing mortality.”
“Any predictions I make could easily get blown out of the water,” he said, “but if, in fact, we’re in one of those three year cycles with good fishing, anglers should take advantage of it.”
For local river anglers, Thanksgiving is as much about walleyes as turkeys.
The fall holiday typically marks the start of the big walleye bite on the Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio rivers. This year, though, it may have begun a little sooner, with reports of several trophy-size ‘eyes taking the bait at the Highland Park Dam, lock three and other spots in recent weeks. One of the biggest was the 12-pound, 34-incher Andy Nguyen landed on a shiner in the white water of the Ohio River’s back channel dam Nov. 5.
“The bite may be a little early because water temperatures are a tad colder than normal,” said Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission biologist Rick Lorson.
Anglers also may be seeing walleyes from a couple of exceptional year classes in the mid-1990s, he said, and this is prime time for the cool water species to forage. Although 68 degrees is optimal for walleyes, they actively feed until the mercury dips to 50, and the baitfish they are preying on are bulking up for winter, too, Lorson said. “Gizzard shad and emerald shiners are more available now and they’re bigger, because they’re feeding heavily on insects and plankton.”
Because water below the dams and the mouths of creeks provides the abundance of food and oxygen fish need, anglers typically do well at these locations. And while one huge walleye is a coveted catch, anglers could hook into more. “Walleyes school pretty much all year,” Lorson said. “They even school during the spawn. So if you get one big walleye, it’s likely there will be others in the same area.”Ron Fulton of Spring Church, PA, caught two trophy-size walleyes on the Allegheny the same day, including a 31-inch, 10 ½-pounder, on creek chubs.
“This time of year, walleyes run right up to the locks, and shore fishermen seem to do best because they can get right up in the fast water,” said Mike Kalafut of Uniontown, and a die-hard river angler. “If you’re fishing from a boat, try to get up along the lock wall or find a hole or any break in current.”Kalafut typically fishes jigs and three-inch, chartreuse curly tails, often tipped with fathead minnows or shiners. “Let your bait go down to the bottom and jig slowly. The colder the water, the slower you should jig,” he said. “Keep as vertical as you can to avoid snags. The current will dictate the weight of the jig, which could be anything from 1/8th to 5/8ths of an ounce.”
Walleyes are among the earliest local gamefish to spawn, moving in late winter to gravelly areas near shore when water warms to 50 degrees and periods of daylight lengthen. “Walleyes are broadcast spawners,” Lorson said. “They don’t guard their nests because they lay so many eggs.”
In fact, the walleye population on all of the state’s rivers, including the Monongahela---the only river stocked locally----has been so robust, the commission stopped river plantings this year. Lorson suspects numbers are so high, anglers may be seeing fewer saugers, the walleye’s smaller cousin.
“I’ll have to go back and compare years of data, but I’m getting the impression that, overall, conditions are swinging toward walleyes,” Lorson said. “Walleyes prefer a little better water quality and may be out-competing saugers for habitat and food. The saugers, over time, simply won’t reproduce in pools dominated by walleyes.”
Although saugers are native to local rivers, there would be no effort to bolster their numbers with stockings, Lorson said.
If the rest of the fall and winter turns out to be as productive as the walleye fishing so far this month, anglers should seize the opportunity, he said.
“As a general rule, big walleyes occur every three years. It’s true for both lakes and rivers, but especially for rivers, and has to do with water flow and temperature, available forage, overwinter survival, and natural and fishing mortality.”
“Any predictions I make could easily get blown out of the water,” he said, “but if, in fact, we’re in one of those three year cycles with good fishing, anglers should take advantage of it.”
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Neither rain nor sleet nor snow...
photo of Erie lake shore courtesy PA Fish and Boat CommissionHalf a foot of snow and near-freezing temperatures failed to keep steelheaders away from Erie Sunday. The good news, of course, is that the precip will eventually boost water in the tribs. Veteran steelheaders say late fall offers some of the best fishing of the season.
Erie Steelheading's Circle of Life
photo courtesy PA Fish and Boat CommissionState fish culturists at the Trout Run nursery waters are shown netting steelhead for the Fairview hatchery. Workers gently scoop up females---males have already been selected---for shipment to the hatchery where they will be fertilized and will eventually spawn. The breeders will be returned unharmed to Erie tribs as part of the "Circle of Life" Erie steelhead program.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Local Man Qualifies for Bassmaster Classic
photo of Ken Baumgardner (far left) courtesy BASSKen Baumgardner of Monongahela is headed for the 2009 Bassmaster Classic on Red River out of Shreveport-Bossier City, LA, Feb. 20 - 22.
A member of the Road Warriors Bassmasters, Baumgardner, 49, secured a spot in the $500,000 event by finishing first in the mid-Atlantic division at the BASS Federation Nation Championship out of Junction City, KS, Nov. 8.
His winning weight was 6 pounds 2 ounces during two days of windy, cold conditions.He will compete in the Classic as one of six amateur anglers among 51 professionals. Only one amateur has ever won the Classic in its 37-year history.
“This is the big time. I’m excited,” said Baumgardner, who out-fished close to 1700 other regional anglers over the past two years to secure the prestigious berth. “I don’t want to just fish the Classic. I want to win it.”
Emergency Dam Repairs Begin
photo courtesy US Army Corps of EngineersEmergency repairs began today on lock and dam No. 6 above Freeport---one of the hottest fishing spots on the Allegheny River. The US Army Corps of Engineers, which discovered the problem during a recent underwater inspection, said the badly eroded structure might not withstand a hard winter. The Freeport pool will be drawn down as part of the fix. Because the dam is a navigational and not a flood control structure, there is no threat to public safety, according to Col. Michael Crall, the Corps' district engineer for Pittsburgh, but failure would impact water supplies for homes and industries along the river, and could damage rare mussel beds and the nearby Cogleys Island wetlands. Crall has called the more than a dozen locks and dams on the Allegheny, Monongahela, Ohio and Youghiogheny rivers the most fatigued in the Corps' five-state inland waterways system. Hear Deborah's radio report about this at www.alleghenyfront.org.
Friday, November 14, 2008
Cold Water, Hot Catch
Howard Wagner's Allegheny River muskie
Howard Wagner photo
Muskie guide Howard Wagner of Fombell with a huge muskie he released on the Allegheny River earlier this month. Wagner's Moraine Musky Association meets the first Wednesday of every month in a church on the shores of Lake Arthur. The meetings give anglers a chance to rub elbows with muskie fishing experts. For more, visit http://www.morainemuskyassoc.info/
Muskie guide Howard Wagner of Fombell with a huge muskie he released on the Allegheny River earlier this month. Wagner's Moraine Musky Association meets the first Wednesday of every month in a church on the shores of Lake Arthur. The meetings give anglers a chance to rub elbows with muskie fishing experts. For more, visit http://www.morainemuskyassoc.info/
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Bald Eagle Released
Pa Game Commission bald eagle photo A rehabilitated bald eagle is back in the wild on State Game Land 143 in Warren County. The Pennsylvania Game Commission released the eagle Friday in an event that was closed to the public. The four-year-old, 13.5-pound female was found injured in late January and underwent extensive treatment---including splinting a fractured wingbone and physical therapy---at Tamarack Wildlife Rehabilitation and Education Center in Crawford County. Bald eagles are listed as threatened in Pennsylvania. For more on bald eagles, visit www.pgc.state.pa.us. A video of the eagle's release can be seen on www.youtube.com
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Exploring Sycamore Island near Pittsburgh
by Deborah WeisbergSycamore Isalnd photo by Deborah Weisberg
Sycamore Island is the last privately-owned wilderness island on the Allegheny River. Allegheny Land Trust bought Sycamore last year and is about to conduct an inventory of the plants and animals who live there. For a audio visit to the island, click here: http://www.alleghenyfront.org/
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Rare Mussel Alters River Dredging
A part of the Allegheny River was declared off-limits to dredgers today because a rare type of mussel was discovered. The Department of Environmental Protection amended the permit of Hanson Aggregates, prohibiting the company from dredging within South Buffalo and Gilpin townships in Armstrong County because two live salamander mussels were discovered there. The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission is considering adding the salamander mussel to the state threatened or endangered species list. If this doesn't happen, Hanson can appeal the dredging restriction. Dredgers have been removing sand and gravel from the Allegheny and Ohio rivers for more than a century, but have drawn increasing criticism from environmentalists in recent years over concerns about their impact on fish and mussel habitat.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Game Commission Moves on Crossbows
At its recent quarterly meeting in Washington County, the Pennsylvania Board of Game Commissioners gave preliminary approval to expand the use of crossbows to include archery deer and bear seasons. Another public meeting would be needed for final approval, so the change would be not be made in time for the 2008-09 seasons. In other action, the commission gave final approval to adding coyotes to the list of species youths under 12 can hunt in the supervised mentor program. For more board action, visit http://www.pgc.state.pa.us/
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Deer Dispersing Differently Now
New Penn State Study Releasedby Deborah Weisberg
photo by James William Shirey
Jim Shirey was surprised to learn the 11-point buck he bagged Oct. 12 had traveled 12 miles beyond its home range.
Yet, the 2 ½-year old with the 18 ¼-inch inside spread was wearing a radio telemetry collar that allowed Penn State University researchers to track its movements and conclude it was a long way from where it had been born.
“I used to figure deer move about a mile,” said Shirey, who shot the deer with a bow near his Clearfield County home Oct. 15. “But the coordinates tell the story. It makes me think about how I’ll hunt in the future. I won’t hunt an area where someone has taken a big buck. I’ll go further out.”
In fact, bucks will move more than 25 miles to find a new home with good cover, according to a just-released Penn State study on the impact of antler restrictions on deer dispersal in the state. By tracking more than 500 deer that originated in Armstrong and Centre counties, researchers confirmed that seven of 10 young bucks are still leaving their natal range---the same as before antler restrictions were implemented in 2002----but more are dispersing in fall than in spring. Dispersal is defined as a one-way, permanent migration, and not just movement within a buck’s normal one-mile home range.
Penn State biologist Duane Diefenbach said his research shows buck density is up slightly, too---an assessment the Pennsylvania Game Commission’s deer management chief Chris Rosenberry would not corroborate. “Getting into population counts is a slippery slope,” said Rosenberry, whose agency helped fund the study, which was conducted January through April in 2002, 2003 and 2004.
“The number of males has increased because yearlings are protected from harvest and older bucks are escaping hunters who often need more time to judge the number of points (on the rack),” said Diefenbach. “At the same time, the number of does has decreased, so we now have a better female-to-antlered buck ratio.”
That has gone from 10 to one to four to one, Diefenbach said, and has generated new behavior.
Older bucks are forcing greater dispersal of yearlings just before the rut in fall. However, deer who survive hunting season and the rigors of winter are likely to be in the same place in spring, because there are fewer does to chase them away, Diefenbach said. “Females kick males out of the areas where they give birth, as a means of controlling in-breeding and preserving the gene pool. With fewer does around, more males are staying in place.”
For hunters, the bottom line is mixed.
“It’s a disappointment for people who think not shooting a button buck will preserve the gene pool, since 70 percent of yearlings will be gone and new ones will come in, anyway,” said Rosenberry, who helped with the study. “The silver lining is, once adult deer disperse and establish a new range, they are unlikely to leave. So the four-point you see in fall---if he survives hunting season and winter----will probably be there in the spring.”
Shirey’s big buck represents a class of 2 ½-year olds now proliferating in Penn’s Woods.
“Prior to antler restrictions, 80 percent of legal bucks were yearlings, 10 to 15 percent were 2 ½ years old, and fewer than 10 percent were 3 and a half or older,” Diefenbach said. “Today, we’re seeing a much greater percentage of 2 ½ year old or older bucks because of antler restrictions.”
And while Rosenberry said game commission surveys indicate most hunters support antler restrictions, some are clearly skeptical.
“I don’t care what the game commission says, the deer aren’t there,” insisted Ken Jones, of Bill's Field and Stream, a Mercer County archery and tackle shop. “We’re in a big deer-hunting area and we’re not seeing the tracks or the rubs and that’s a bad omen. Guys up in the mountains aren’t seeing them either. They’re saying, ‘What’s going on?’”
“The game commission’s got to stop the doe onslaught,” Jones said. “Even farmers don’t want the does shot anymore.”
Mike Maranche, chair of the game committee for the Allegheny County Sportsmen’s League, said he hears both negatives and positives from members. “Some hunters are finding deer. Some aren’t. There’s a lot of criticism of doe tags.”
But Rosenberry said higher doe kills in some areas are needed to control deer numbers, and statistics show the current regulations are putting more, older bucks into hunters’ sights.
“From 2002 to 2004, about 60,000 2 ½-year old whitetails were killed each year. That’s twice as many as hunters were averaging in the five or so years leading up to antler restrictions,” he said.
“The intent of antler restrictions was to protect yearlings from harvest and that has happened. Instead of 10 to 20 percent of yearling bucks surviving, now half are surviving. It used to be the minority of deer were 2 ½ year olds. Now half the harvest is 2 ½ year olds.”
“We have no intention of changing our deer management program,” Rosenberry said, “because it’s working.”>
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Williams Run: A Water to Watch
Makes Top 10 in America List
by Deborah Weisberg
South Sandy Creek Watershed Association vice president Valerie Tarkowski shows PA Association of Conservation District's Justin Griebel plans for Williams Run
photo by Deborah Weisberg
(Irwin Township) Williams Run wends through State Gamelands 39 in Venango County---a densely-wooded tract that blazes with the rich colors of autumn.Hunters who venture into this forested valley would never guess that Williams Run is practically dead---the consequence of old strip mines that ravaged nearby farmland.
That is about to change, though, as work nears completion on a $1 million project to backfill the mine and sweeten Williams Run through limestone beds and settling ponds at its headwaters. Restoring Williams will allow a population of wild brook trout now isolated on an unnamed tributary to expand into Williams, which has the cold water brookies need to survive. The run feeds South Sandy Creek, which merges with Sandy Creek, a stocked trout destination on the Allegheny River.
“Williams is the only problem in a generally good watershed,” says Valerie Tarkowski, of the South Sandy Creek Watershed Association.“Once we clean up Williams, it will benefit everything the water feeds, from fish to aquatic insects. It will release the trout on a trib we call East Branch to at least the lower reaches of Williams. That will push the trout, which are already at the westernmost part of their native range, a little further west.”
Anglers could eventually see brook trout on South Sandy, too, according to Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission biologist Al Woomer. "South Sandy already has a low level of wild trout. An improved Williams should populate it more," he says. "The main stem of Sandy is a little too warm, so the brook trout probably wouldn;t go that far. We'll just continue to stock it." To read complete story, click here: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08293/920843-358.stm
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
MUSSEL POWER ON FRENCH CREEK
by Deborah Weisberg
Darran Crabtree "noodling" for mussels on French Creek
photo by Deborah Weisberg
(VENANGO TOWNSHIP) - “Noodling” for mussels with Darran Crabtree on French Creek means never seeing a stream bed the same way again.
Though the state’s most ecologically diverse waterway offers some of the best angling in Pennsylvania, its mussel-power is almost hidden. Yet the millions of mollusks---almost indistinguishable from the millions of rocks----are living filters that keep habitat clean.
“They’re fascinating,” says Crabtree, a Meadville-based biologist with the Nature Conservancy, who went wading for mollusks on a recent rainy morning. “A lot of what they do we take for granted.”Crabtree reaches into the water and gently extracts a Kidneyshell from the substrate.
“Many things live on mussels besides algae,” he says. “What we have here is a Caddisfly. Mussels accumulate organic matter and don’t digest it all, so there’s usually a little hot spot…a concentration... of food near its siphon that Caddisflies and other (insects) collect on and benefit from.” A healthy bed of mussels supports a lot of other creatures, he says. “The stream bottom is three-dimensional, with layer after layer of life deep within.” To read complete story, click here: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08265/913825-113.stm
by Deborah Weisberg
Darran Crabtree "noodling" for mussels on French Creek
photo by Deborah Weisberg
(VENANGO TOWNSHIP) - “Noodling” for mussels with Darran Crabtree on French Creek means never seeing a stream bed the same way again.
Though the state’s most ecologically diverse waterway offers some of the best angling in Pennsylvania, its mussel-power is almost hidden. Yet the millions of mollusks---almost indistinguishable from the millions of rocks----are living filters that keep habitat clean.
“They’re fascinating,” says Crabtree, a Meadville-based biologist with the Nature Conservancy, who went wading for mollusks on a recent rainy morning. “A lot of what they do we take for granted.”Crabtree reaches into the water and gently extracts a Kidneyshell from the substrate.
“Many things live on mussels besides algae,” he says. “What we have here is a Caddisfly. Mussels accumulate organic matter and don’t digest it all, so there’s usually a little hot spot…a concentration... of food near its siphon that Caddisflies and other (insects) collect on and benefit from.” A healthy bed of mussels supports a lot of other creatures, he says. “The stream bottom is three-dimensional, with layer after layer of life deep within.” To read complete story, click here: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08265/913825-113.stm
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
DAMS DISMANTLED ON EXCEPTIONAL STREAMA team of conservationists remove two dams by hand on Bear Run near Fallingwater. To hear the story, click here! www.alleghenyfront.org
Monday, September 1, 2008
TROUBLED WATERS: THE PUBLIC-PRIVATE DEBATE
Fly Fisherman magazine Feb. 2008
by Deborah Weisberg
by Deborah Weisberg
photo of Little Juniata River at Spruce Creek
by Deborah Weisberg
(Spruce Creek) Dairy farmer Terry Allison is too busy to fish, but has always enjoyed watching anglers on the Little Juniata River, a blue ribbon trout stream that runs through his Central Pennsylvania land.
”I like seeing kids fishing with their families,” said Allison, the father of five children, ages 12 to 20. “We’ve never had a problem with fishermen.”
So, when Donny Beaver, his upstream neighbor and operator of the exclusive Spring Ridge Club, repeatedly approached him, wanting to pay him to deny public access to the river, Allison said no. “He offered me something like $6000 a year if I’d let just his club members through,” recalled Allison. “He said there’d be more if the lawsuit came out in his favor. He told me my neighbors were signing on with him, so I might as well, too. But then you talk to your neighbors and find out that isn’t true.”
Last year, Beaver lost his battle over the river itself with three Commonwealth agencies, including the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission, and a local fishing guide, when Huntingdon County Common Pleas Court Judge Stewart Kurtz ruled that the “Little J” is navigable. Kurtz’s 57-page opinion came seven months after a one-week non-jury trial in which historians for the Commonwealth-----the plaintiff in the case----proved the river was used for commerce by early pioneers, which ensures its status as navigable, and, thus, held in trust for the public, today. Kurtz subsequently ordered Beaver not to advertise a 1.3-mile stretch of the Little J near Spruce Creek as private, not to post or hang signs on the river, and not to “threaten, harass or otherwise attempt to exclude” the public from wading, floating or fishing there. Beaver, who would not comment for this story, is appealing the ruling. (Beaver earlier this year dropped his appeal.)
In the months following Kurtz’s order, which states that a public easement exists between the low and high water marks, Beaver also found himself in hot water with Norfolk Southern Corp., which demanded that he remove No Trespassing signs and barbed wire he had snaked through dense brush on railroad turf on the opposite side of the river. They were similar to signs and orange-capped metal posts Beaver had staked in and along the riverbed in what Pittsburgh-based attorney Stanley M. Stein characterized as “petty, mean-spirited, and a reckless endangerment to the public.”
An avid fly angler, Stein represents Spruce Creek fishing guide Allan Bright, the lone individual plaintiff in the case, who is seeking damages caused by years of Beaver’s efforts to privatize the river. “There’s the loss of business, which can be measured by Donny Beaver and the club’s profits,” said Stein. “And there’s the psychological impact of what Beaver has done, the anxiety he’s caused Allan, the pressure Beaver has put him under for years. It’s difficult to put a value on that kind of aggravation." Conflicts such as this one are not unique to the Little J, as a public-private tug of war---whether over water, submerged land, riparian land, or all three---gets played out on fisheries, nationwide.
Sometimes, opponents of free access try to get state laws changed. In recent years, Oregon property owners backed a bill that would have restricted water rights for anglers and boaters. A group of Ohioans also tried the legislative route in their quest to control the Lake Erie shoreline. Failing that, they filed a class action suit against the Buckeye state that could ultimately keep the public off Erie beaches. Coastal regions, including the Great Lakes, have shown an increase in recreational fishing in recent years, as well as struggles for shoreline access. But inland lakes and waterways are also under siege by those seeking exclusive use of, and in many cases a chance to make money from, natural resources.
Although Spring Ridge Club members no longer have sole use of the Little J at Spruce Creek, their $75,000 membership fee and $6000 more in annual dues entitle them to undisputed use of dozens of smaller streams. Undaunted by the court decision, Beaver continues to lease waterways in Pennsylvania and neighboring states, including Ohio. To the outrage of anglers, Beaver is renting water on Conneaut Creek, which Ohio state fisheries managers have spent decades-----and millions of dollars in public funds----cultivating into a world-class steelhead stream. Unlike Pennsylvania, Ohio allows for private ownership of some navigable waterways.
When it comes to water wars, BASS---the tournament group with a conservation ethic----has characterized public access as one of the top environmental crises facing anglers, on a par with loss of habitat and invasive weeds. Gated communities are turning public lakes into personal playgrounds, destroying vegetation that interferes with Jet Skis, and chasing anglers from docks, according to BASS conservation director Chris Horton. “If you squeeze off access, it doesn’t much matter if a lake is public or not.”
The public-private debate is an ancient one, said John D. Echeverria, executive director of the Georgetown Environmental Law & Policy Institute. What he characterized as elitist attitudes about property control can be traced to the king of England, with references to deeds to the crown surfacing in court cases from Maryland to New York. “The US has a pretty strong tradition of the right to exclude people from private land, of posting and barring trespassers,” he said. “Look at the robber barons of the early 19th Century locking up tens of thousands of acres in the Adirondacks for their own use.”
But there has been an equally strong tradition of neighbors granting free access, and a presumption in most states that land is open unless you post it, he said. That heritage is fading, as developers subdivide farmlands into housing plans and shopping malls, and neighbors become unfamiliar, he said. While access to waterways has gotten tighter and more complicated, rights on the water itself have triggered a flood of new conflicts. “In legal terms,” Echeverria said, “the difference between water and land use is the difference between night and day.”
New Jersey Deputy Public Advocate Brian Weeks, an attorney, agreed. “You can own land entirely, but, with water the first issue is, who has rights to it, regardless of ownership. There are legally regulated actions for virtually everything having to do with water…damming, diverting, stocking, fishing, floating, wading, etc. There are even rights for the fish.”
To compound matters, the common law regarding water and submerged land varies from region to region, and legislative enactments from state to state. “The Dakotas are wide open. You go to the Northern Rockies and Montana and they’ve got very aggressive programs of creating public fishing points,” said Echeverria. “Go to Wyoming and you will have a helluva time finding a public fishing point to access. The public access tradition is much longer and stronger in Montana. Wyoming was always less progressive----never very big on the rights of the public when it comes to fishing.”
But even where laws favor the public’s right to fish, access is being thwarted in other ways, said Weeks. “Part of the problem in Montana is the scope. You’ve got rich folks who can buy land the size of New Jersey-----whole valleys with rivers running through them. That makes access not so much a legal issue as a practical one, where a fisherman can’t just jump into his car and find somewhere else to go.”
Such is the case on the Ruby River, which flows through the 4000-acre ranch of media magnate James Cox Kennedy. Elsewhere in Montana, rocker Huey Lewis, discount broker Charles Schwab and other ranchers are trying to end public fishing on the Mitchell Slough by contending that it is an irrigation ditch and not a fork of the Bitterroot River.
Although the gap between those making more than $350,000 a year and everyone else is the widest since the Great Depression, Echeverria said the public-private debate is as much about philosophy and values as it is economics. “Some people think of enjoying a natural resource as a social experience. We meet people on the stream, have encounters, share fishing lore,” he said. “Others see streams as trophies. The private stream is a rich person’s toy, like a yacht or an antique car. It’s a luxury good you can brag about.””It’s the issue that divides the lunch pail fisherman from the Orvis angler.”And it appears the lunch pail faction-----or as Beaver, a director of the Pennsylvania Landowners Association, calls it, “the free lunch crowd”----- is losing ground, according to the latest census data from the US Fish and Wildlife Service, which began tracking private ownership of fishing lands a decade ago. While the number of anglers declined by four percent from 1991 to 2001, property purchases for fishing more than tripled, with people paying $500 million for riparian land — an increase of 17 percent. More people paid to access private water through fees or leases and they spent 27 percent more for the privilege.
Recreational land is such a hot commodity that even Cabela’s, the global outfitter, now leases or sells “trophy” properties through the same catalogues that offer tackle and clothing, to the dismay of traditional sportsmen. “You open the page expecting to see shotguns and there’s your favorite fishing hole,” said Hal Harper, chief policy advisor to Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer. “These lands go for very high prices and are being bought sight unseen by people in other states…to the point it’s forcing young agricultural couples out of business. The first thing that happens is the No Fishing, No Hunting signs go up, and more land is taken out of play for the normal hunter and angler.”
That is precisely what advocates of privatization applaud.
”I support profiting from natural resources,” said Terry L. Anderson, an economist who runs the Bozeman-based Property and Environment Research Center, which touts market solutions to conservation problems and includes among its directors Leigh Perkins, chairman of The Orvis Company. Perkins declined to comment for this article.“We as fishers, hunters, and sportsmen and women have to decide, is it the resource---the fish and habitat---that matters, or is it access that matters?” he said. “I read Aldo Leopold and he cared mostly about the resource. If well-managed, access to the public was a secondary view.”
You can seldom have both, said Anderson, who sees “enviropreneurship” as a backlash to poor resource management by governments. “Their approach is to increase access and stock more fish. But increased pressure on fishing resources has caused the experience to deteriorate, and, therefore, make people more willing to pay to fish privately managed streams.”Profitability fosters good stewardship, he said. ”If it pays, it stays.”The appeal for some is elitism but more put a premium on fishing in a peaceful place, he said. “I think people simply are tired of the elbow-to-elbow bumper boat fishing experience. If I had to choose between catching small fish in solitude or big fish on a crowded stream, I’d take the small fish any day.”
The concept of capitalizing on nature has been slow to catch on in the US, but is growing, Anderson said. ”It’s a staunchly American ideal that the king ought not to own the fish, and that has made marketing of fisheries more difficult. It’s hard to keep a good market down, however, especially as the pressure on natural resources gets higher.”He likens waterways to other recreational venues. “No one says skiing should be free…or golf. Maintaining a stream is not something that God or Mother Nature somehow taps with a magic wand and leaves that way. These are lands with houses around them and septic tanks nearby, and all of that requires management, especially with increasing pressure from other demands on resources,” he said.
And while some streams are cost prohibitive to all but a wealthy few, others are affordable, he said. “You might be able to purchase a BMW, and I might only be able to afford a KIA. Some streams are $75 a day to fish. They’re the KIA------nice, but not like the $80,000 BMW. That’s the kind of evolution of markets that is happening in the US now.”
But champions of free access also are turning to the private sector, where they are marketing easements, tax incentives, and the transfer of development rights.
“Terry’s right about private sector stewardship, but not to the point of ownership,” said Michael Warburton of the Public Trust Alliance, a San Francisco-based project aimed at protecting public interests. “Communities should never give up their trust interest in shared resources.”
Although states are the legal guardians of natural resources, they are often victims of political pressures that can trump the best interests of the public, he said. “That’s why trust alliances have to emerge from the non-profit sector.” Scores of organizations, such as the Trust for Public Land, are spending billions of dollars buying and conveying property to public agencies on some of the most prized fisheries in America, including the Madison River, west of Yellowstone National Park in Montana.
The American Canoe Association created a 740-mile testament to the public trust when it created the Northern Forest Canoe Trail through painstaking negotiations with state officials and private landowners from New York to Maine. “They looked at local laws in excruciating detail and figured where you’d have to portage and made arrangements so it would all be legal,” said Weeks. “They even looked at when the salmon would be running on some streams for those who wanted assurance that they could float and fish. It took years, but it’s a great example of how well partnerships can work.”But private-public partnerships also can be fraught with conflicts of interest and other problems, Warburton said. “The Nature Conservancy has been known to develop portions of properties they were supposed to have acquired for the public trust, and have engaged in economic arrangements that benefit officers and directors.””In some cases, trusts use public funds to buy resources that should be public anyway---for astonishing sums----and then transfer the money to private interests. With regard to easements, they’re supposed to run with the land in perpetuity, but are new deed holders doing other things with the property?”
Vigilance by state agencies and well-informed citizens is critical to preserving the public trust, when it has never been more threatened, Warburton said. “Some things cannot be owned outright. Some things are so fundamental to civic function they can’t be treated as ordinary property. Water, as it flows, is one of them.”
by Deborah Weisberg
(Spruce Creek) Dairy farmer Terry Allison is too busy to fish, but has always enjoyed watching anglers on the Little Juniata River, a blue ribbon trout stream that runs through his Central Pennsylvania land.
”I like seeing kids fishing with their families,” said Allison, the father of five children, ages 12 to 20. “We’ve never had a problem with fishermen.”
So, when Donny Beaver, his upstream neighbor and operator of the exclusive Spring Ridge Club, repeatedly approached him, wanting to pay him to deny public access to the river, Allison said no. “He offered me something like $6000 a year if I’d let just his club members through,” recalled Allison. “He said there’d be more if the lawsuit came out in his favor. He told me my neighbors were signing on with him, so I might as well, too. But then you talk to your neighbors and find out that isn’t true.”
Last year, Beaver lost his battle over the river itself with three Commonwealth agencies, including the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission, and a local fishing guide, when Huntingdon County Common Pleas Court Judge Stewart Kurtz ruled that the “Little J” is navigable. Kurtz’s 57-page opinion came seven months after a one-week non-jury trial in which historians for the Commonwealth-----the plaintiff in the case----proved the river was used for commerce by early pioneers, which ensures its status as navigable, and, thus, held in trust for the public, today. Kurtz subsequently ordered Beaver not to advertise a 1.3-mile stretch of the Little J near Spruce Creek as private, not to post or hang signs on the river, and not to “threaten, harass or otherwise attempt to exclude” the public from wading, floating or fishing there. Beaver, who would not comment for this story, is appealing the ruling. (Beaver earlier this year dropped his appeal.)
In the months following Kurtz’s order, which states that a public easement exists between the low and high water marks, Beaver also found himself in hot water with Norfolk Southern Corp., which demanded that he remove No Trespassing signs and barbed wire he had snaked through dense brush on railroad turf on the opposite side of the river. They were similar to signs and orange-capped metal posts Beaver had staked in and along the riverbed in what Pittsburgh-based attorney Stanley M. Stein characterized as “petty, mean-spirited, and a reckless endangerment to the public.”
An avid fly angler, Stein represents Spruce Creek fishing guide Allan Bright, the lone individual plaintiff in the case, who is seeking damages caused by years of Beaver’s efforts to privatize the river. “There’s the loss of business, which can be measured by Donny Beaver and the club’s profits,” said Stein. “And there’s the psychological impact of what Beaver has done, the anxiety he’s caused Allan, the pressure Beaver has put him under for years. It’s difficult to put a value on that kind of aggravation." Conflicts such as this one are not unique to the Little J, as a public-private tug of war---whether over water, submerged land, riparian land, or all three---gets played out on fisheries, nationwide.
Sometimes, opponents of free access try to get state laws changed. In recent years, Oregon property owners backed a bill that would have restricted water rights for anglers and boaters. A group of Ohioans also tried the legislative route in their quest to control the Lake Erie shoreline. Failing that, they filed a class action suit against the Buckeye state that could ultimately keep the public off Erie beaches. Coastal regions, including the Great Lakes, have shown an increase in recreational fishing in recent years, as well as struggles for shoreline access. But inland lakes and waterways are also under siege by those seeking exclusive use of, and in many cases a chance to make money from, natural resources.
Although Spring Ridge Club members no longer have sole use of the Little J at Spruce Creek, their $75,000 membership fee and $6000 more in annual dues entitle them to undisputed use of dozens of smaller streams. Undaunted by the court decision, Beaver continues to lease waterways in Pennsylvania and neighboring states, including Ohio. To the outrage of anglers, Beaver is renting water on Conneaut Creek, which Ohio state fisheries managers have spent decades-----and millions of dollars in public funds----cultivating into a world-class steelhead stream. Unlike Pennsylvania, Ohio allows for private ownership of some navigable waterways.
When it comes to water wars, BASS---the tournament group with a conservation ethic----has characterized public access as one of the top environmental crises facing anglers, on a par with loss of habitat and invasive weeds. Gated communities are turning public lakes into personal playgrounds, destroying vegetation that interferes with Jet Skis, and chasing anglers from docks, according to BASS conservation director Chris Horton. “If you squeeze off access, it doesn’t much matter if a lake is public or not.”
The public-private debate is an ancient one, said John D. Echeverria, executive director of the Georgetown Environmental Law & Policy Institute. What he characterized as elitist attitudes about property control can be traced to the king of England, with references to deeds to the crown surfacing in court cases from Maryland to New York. “The US has a pretty strong tradition of the right to exclude people from private land, of posting and barring trespassers,” he said. “Look at the robber barons of the early 19th Century locking up tens of thousands of acres in the Adirondacks for their own use.”
But there has been an equally strong tradition of neighbors granting free access, and a presumption in most states that land is open unless you post it, he said. That heritage is fading, as developers subdivide farmlands into housing plans and shopping malls, and neighbors become unfamiliar, he said. While access to waterways has gotten tighter and more complicated, rights on the water itself have triggered a flood of new conflicts. “In legal terms,” Echeverria said, “the difference between water and land use is the difference between night and day.”
New Jersey Deputy Public Advocate Brian Weeks, an attorney, agreed. “You can own land entirely, but, with water the first issue is, who has rights to it, regardless of ownership. There are legally regulated actions for virtually everything having to do with water…damming, diverting, stocking, fishing, floating, wading, etc. There are even rights for the fish.”
To compound matters, the common law regarding water and submerged land varies from region to region, and legislative enactments from state to state. “The Dakotas are wide open. You go to the Northern Rockies and Montana and they’ve got very aggressive programs of creating public fishing points,” said Echeverria. “Go to Wyoming and you will have a helluva time finding a public fishing point to access. The public access tradition is much longer and stronger in Montana. Wyoming was always less progressive----never very big on the rights of the public when it comes to fishing.”
But even where laws favor the public’s right to fish, access is being thwarted in other ways, said Weeks. “Part of the problem in Montana is the scope. You’ve got rich folks who can buy land the size of New Jersey-----whole valleys with rivers running through them. That makes access not so much a legal issue as a practical one, where a fisherman can’t just jump into his car and find somewhere else to go.”
Such is the case on the Ruby River, which flows through the 4000-acre ranch of media magnate James Cox Kennedy. Elsewhere in Montana, rocker Huey Lewis, discount broker Charles Schwab and other ranchers are trying to end public fishing on the Mitchell Slough by contending that it is an irrigation ditch and not a fork of the Bitterroot River.
Although the gap between those making more than $350,000 a year and everyone else is the widest since the Great Depression, Echeverria said the public-private debate is as much about philosophy and values as it is economics. “Some people think of enjoying a natural resource as a social experience. We meet people on the stream, have encounters, share fishing lore,” he said. “Others see streams as trophies. The private stream is a rich person’s toy, like a yacht or an antique car. It’s a luxury good you can brag about.””It’s the issue that divides the lunch pail fisherman from the Orvis angler.”And it appears the lunch pail faction-----or as Beaver, a director of the Pennsylvania Landowners Association, calls it, “the free lunch crowd”----- is losing ground, according to the latest census data from the US Fish and Wildlife Service, which began tracking private ownership of fishing lands a decade ago. While the number of anglers declined by four percent from 1991 to 2001, property purchases for fishing more than tripled, with people paying $500 million for riparian land — an increase of 17 percent. More people paid to access private water through fees or leases and they spent 27 percent more for the privilege.
Recreational land is such a hot commodity that even Cabela’s, the global outfitter, now leases or sells “trophy” properties through the same catalogues that offer tackle and clothing, to the dismay of traditional sportsmen. “You open the page expecting to see shotguns and there’s your favorite fishing hole,” said Hal Harper, chief policy advisor to Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer. “These lands go for very high prices and are being bought sight unseen by people in other states…to the point it’s forcing young agricultural couples out of business. The first thing that happens is the No Fishing, No Hunting signs go up, and more land is taken out of play for the normal hunter and angler.”
That is precisely what advocates of privatization applaud.
”I support profiting from natural resources,” said Terry L. Anderson, an economist who runs the Bozeman-based Property and Environment Research Center, which touts market solutions to conservation problems and includes among its directors Leigh Perkins, chairman of The Orvis Company. Perkins declined to comment for this article.“We as fishers, hunters, and sportsmen and women have to decide, is it the resource---the fish and habitat---that matters, or is it access that matters?” he said. “I read Aldo Leopold and he cared mostly about the resource. If well-managed, access to the public was a secondary view.”
You can seldom have both, said Anderson, who sees “enviropreneurship” as a backlash to poor resource management by governments. “Their approach is to increase access and stock more fish. But increased pressure on fishing resources has caused the experience to deteriorate, and, therefore, make people more willing to pay to fish privately managed streams.”Profitability fosters good stewardship, he said. ”If it pays, it stays.”The appeal for some is elitism but more put a premium on fishing in a peaceful place, he said. “I think people simply are tired of the elbow-to-elbow bumper boat fishing experience. If I had to choose between catching small fish in solitude or big fish on a crowded stream, I’d take the small fish any day.”
The concept of capitalizing on nature has been slow to catch on in the US, but is growing, Anderson said. ”It’s a staunchly American ideal that the king ought not to own the fish, and that has made marketing of fisheries more difficult. It’s hard to keep a good market down, however, especially as the pressure on natural resources gets higher.”He likens waterways to other recreational venues. “No one says skiing should be free…or golf. Maintaining a stream is not something that God or Mother Nature somehow taps with a magic wand and leaves that way. These are lands with houses around them and septic tanks nearby, and all of that requires management, especially with increasing pressure from other demands on resources,” he said.
And while some streams are cost prohibitive to all but a wealthy few, others are affordable, he said. “You might be able to purchase a BMW, and I might only be able to afford a KIA. Some streams are $75 a day to fish. They’re the KIA------nice, but not like the $80,000 BMW. That’s the kind of evolution of markets that is happening in the US now.”
But champions of free access also are turning to the private sector, where they are marketing easements, tax incentives, and the transfer of development rights.
“Terry’s right about private sector stewardship, but not to the point of ownership,” said Michael Warburton of the Public Trust Alliance, a San Francisco-based project aimed at protecting public interests. “Communities should never give up their trust interest in shared resources.”
Although states are the legal guardians of natural resources, they are often victims of political pressures that can trump the best interests of the public, he said. “That’s why trust alliances have to emerge from the non-profit sector.” Scores of organizations, such as the Trust for Public Land, are spending billions of dollars buying and conveying property to public agencies on some of the most prized fisheries in America, including the Madison River, west of Yellowstone National Park in Montana.
The American Canoe Association created a 740-mile testament to the public trust when it created the Northern Forest Canoe Trail through painstaking negotiations with state officials and private landowners from New York to Maine. “They looked at local laws in excruciating detail and figured where you’d have to portage and made arrangements so it would all be legal,” said Weeks. “They even looked at when the salmon would be running on some streams for those who wanted assurance that they could float and fish. It took years, but it’s a great example of how well partnerships can work.”But private-public partnerships also can be fraught with conflicts of interest and other problems, Warburton said. “The Nature Conservancy has been known to develop portions of properties they were supposed to have acquired for the public trust, and have engaged in economic arrangements that benefit officers and directors.””In some cases, trusts use public funds to buy resources that should be public anyway---for astonishing sums----and then transfer the money to private interests. With regard to easements, they’re supposed to run with the land in perpetuity, but are new deed holders doing other things with the property?”
Vigilance by state agencies and well-informed citizens is critical to preserving the public trust, when it has never been more threatened, Warburton said. “Some things cannot be owned outright. Some things are so fundamental to civic function they can’t be treated as ordinary property. Water, as it flows, is one of them.”
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
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