“We’ve been growing, and very active about going out soliciting new members,” Karwatowski said of the watershed chapter, now at 130 members. “And to think that this all started in Michigan, with a few people trying to protect their local streams, to the conservation of their natural resources.”
Started in 1959 by 16 fishermen in Traverse City, Michigan who wanted to protect their local river, TU defined itself as “the largest and oldest coldwater conservation organization in America” while growing to its current size of 140,000 members in 400 local chapters throughout the country.
“TU has been instrumental in restoring more than 10,000 miles of rivers and streams around the country and has been a force in protecting habitat for trout and salmon from Alaska to Maine,” the organization’s CEO, Charles Gauvin, announced at the start of the current birthday year. “As it marks its 50th birthday, Trout Unlimited can take great pride in its accomplishments as a steward of and advocate for America’s trout and salmon and their watersheds.”
Karwatowski, who headed the Kingston-based Catskills Mountain Chapter of the organization before moving to West Shokan 20 years back, said that more than membership numbers, TU’s importance, as well as the local chapters’ role in the larger whole, have come from the many tangible contributions they’ve made, from significant reforms to state and federal water laws to careful looks into dam removals, minimum flow standards, and other modern-day policies accepted by all.
“We are undeniably the group that has had the most impact on our water policies, outside of the government,” he noted. “Here in New York State and the Catskills, our importance has had as much to do with the financial support fishermen from the city have given the organization, as well as the number of key figures who have emerged around flyfishing along our local streams.”
Karwatowski said that although originally from the Schenectady area, and used to lake fishing throughout the nearby Adirondacks, he didn’t get the trout, or Catskills Mountain fishing bug until he moved to the area for work with IBM, where he is still employed to this day.
“I just happened into some folks tying flies at a sports show at the Armory in Kingston,” he recalls. “I had never thought of trying to catch fish that way. Now, looking back, all I can think of is all the trout I’ve landed…”
When he joined TU in the 1980s, its Catskills Mountains chapter was fresh from a battle preventing the building of a Prattsville water power system that many felt would decimate the Schoharie Creek’s trout population.
Eventually, from that single chapter, from which Karwatowski became regional TU vice president, then the state’s Council Chair, new ones spawned in Greene County, Sullivan County, the southeastern Catskills, and for a while in Delaware County… as well as within the Ashokan Pepacton Watershed corridor whose members now meet the fourth Wednesday of every month at the Boiceville Inn.
“It’s been an organic growth,” he said. “Issues change, river to river, and distances get too long to travel.”
In addition, Karwatowski noted the numbers of people who have moved into the region over the years, carrying with them conservation awareness and a love for Catskills streams, and those streams’ long history.
On that latter note, he talks for a bit about how there were four fishing-oriented shops in Phoenicia when he moved to the area. As well as about all the fishing legends to have come from the Catskills, from flyfishing’s ancestral godfather, Theodore Gordon, to its scientist, Art Flick, and homey local characters, including the Dettes, Woodstock’s Frank Mele, and the Wulffs of nearby Hardenburgh.
“Inevitably, there will be bits of conflict. It’s a club with members holding many different opinions,” Karwatowski added, speaking of things from the Prattsville fight to lengthy court processes over Hunter Mountain water diversions to more recent internal policy battles over the Belleayre Resort, stream releases, and general development pressures throughout the area. “This is not a bad thing; collaboration, in the end, is really the thing we’re after.”
In the final round, the organization has found itself returning over and over again, at least on a larger basis (withstanding its membership’s individual opinions), to what its local chapter president calls “the TU mantra.”
“We only make comments on our areas of expertise,” Karwatowski said. “And it’s not like a chapter ever stands alone. We pool our resources for research purposes, for backing.”
He paused, thinking back over folks who had left the fold over the years because of single issues, only to come back later… even if in new chapters.
“The reality is you have to be in it for the long haul,” he added. “From development to sewage treatment plans… there’s lots of lots of issues always coming up. No one issue can ever be a ‘make it or break’ it one. That’s how we’ve made it fifty years.”
So are their Boiceville Inn meetings all political business? Or is there an element of fish tales being told?
And what about other activities?
Karwatowski spoke about the regular meetings being fun… but often boisterous and lively in their discussion elements.
There were also a host of special events the Ashokan Pepacton Watershed Chapter of Trout Unlimited were sponsoring on a regular basis, from a regular mentoring relationship with cadets from the West Point military academy, who’ll be coming up this coming weekend to fish, to the support of ten fish tanks as part of the regional Trout in the Classrooms project, regular stream clean up days, flytying workshops each winter and spring, and a regular series of guest speakers that have included state and New York City environmental officials, leading scientists, and various authors.
“The only pronlem,” Karwatowski quipped, “is that some of us end up spending more time in meetings now than actually fishing.”
And yet it’s all added up to a busy and productive fifty years on a national basis, built chapter by chapter, that gives TU’s local members a strong feeling of comraderie with similar trout fisherfolk in Montana and Wyoming, Connecticut and New Mexico. As well as a continuing sense of purpose, and connectness to the local worlds they all inhabit.
“We now have tools,” he said, after noting how some who have grown up in the area tell him how happy they are trout has finally become a key element in local school life. “We’re passing on a better awareness of what the environment means for all of us, as well as some of the ways we need to show stewardship for it.”
On a national basis, Trout Unlimited will be celebrating this year’s big birthday by having its quarterly magazine, Trout, publish a special 50th anniversary issue in June and its weekly television Outdoor Channel program, On the Rise, focus on key conservation efforts throughout the year.
“As TU celebrates its 50 years of conservation, we must bear in mind that it is TU volunteers who have made the organization what it is today,” said Bryan Moore, Vice President for Volunteer Operations and Watersheds. “TU members are the backbone that keeps the organization growing and moving forward in everything from on-the-ground restoration of rivers and streams to involving young people in conservation. The 50th anniversary celebration is really a celebration of our 140,000 members around the country.”
Meaning, of course, our local folk, as well.
For more on the bigger celebrations, visit www.TU50.org.
For more on the local Ashokan Pepacton Watershed Chapter of TU, including upcoming scheduled events, visit www.apwctu.org.

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School Board Vote

On May 5, the board of education held a hearing on the $49.8 million budget it adopted for the 2009-2010 school year. That figure represents a 3.5 percent budget increase over current year spending, with a projected levy increase of 6.65 percent.
When the budget was adopted April 22 at a board meeting at the Phoenicia School, trustee Laurie Osmond was the only dissenting vote at Wednesday night’s April 22 meeting at Phoenicia elementary saying that although she hoped voters would support the spending plan, she didn’t feel right approving some of its cuts.
“I think the public should go out and support our budget. I think that getting the budget in, under contingency was a good thing,” she said of the fact that the budget falls below the 3.97 percent contingent budget of $50.1 million that would be implemented should it fail to pass muster with voters. “But there are elements to this that I cannot with good conscience support. You’ve all heard things I’ve said in the last several weeks and I am torn.”
Osmond, one of the three candidates on the ballot May 19, vehemently opposed the removal of the INDIE program, FACETS mental health program and one district social worker.
In a last ditch effort on April 22, Trustee Dan Spencer, also on the upcoming ballot, attempted to reinstate at least one (out of two) FACETS social workers.
But Director of Pupil Personnel Joyce Long said, “My understanding with speaking to Corey Cavallaro (president of the teacher’s union) is that if we hire an outside agency above a union member than you also have to reinstate the union member, so we couldn’t bring in FACETS without replacing a (in-house) Social Worker.”
Assistant Superintendent for Business Victoria McLaren said if the presented budget were rejected, the district would not seek a contingent budget that could raise the budget to 3.97 percent.
“No matter what, if the voters do not approve the budget, the budget will not increase,” she said.
According to law, school equipment items would have to be removed under a contingent budget. For the proposed budget, that totals $144,109.
The top two candidates elected May 19 will serve three year terms starting July 1, while the third-place winner will fill the unexpired term of Ralph Legnini, commencing the evening of the vote
and expiring on June 30, 2011.
Osmond, a Woodstock resident with a child at Phoenicia elementary, is a media production company owner who attended Brown University and graduated San Francisco State University with a Bachelor of Arts in Broadcast Communication Arts. Spencer, a Mt. Tremper resident and project manager at AMETEK Rotron, was picked to fill out Legnini’s term in February based on his appearance of neutrality. The third candidate, Mt. Tremper resident Tony Fletcher, is an author and music journalist who moved to the area so his son could attend Phoenicia Elementary.
The special propositions are for bonding to purchase one 65 seater school bus and two smaller buses for the district, and to shift up to $350,000 from a capital fund balance to cover final costs on the auditorium, whose bids came in higher than originally budgeted.
In other recent business, it was announced that the district’s Communications Committee is putting together next year’s school calendar and are asking for the public to submit photographs of local interest. The Chair of the committee, Abbe Aronson said that the theme is, “Many towns, one district.” They are asking for Jpeg photographs and/or email compositions to be submitted to the website no later than May 26. A link can be found on the district website (Onteora.k12.ny.us). She added that if people do not have access to a computer they could send in written submissions or photographs to their local school’s PTA.

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Wreaking Rural Havoc

After weeks of fending questions on both sides of the aisle about the uproar these bills have drawn from a public that has widely perceived them as a foundational battle in an oncoming food crisis which could shadow today’s banking horrors, the bills’ sponsors have called out the troops to dampen the glowing cinders.
One document that has appeared on a number of websites supporting HR 875, which has drawn most of the attention among the bills thusfar, aims to stop a “misinformation campaign” and “outrageous myths” against the bill using slickly deceptive means to that end. It chooses six points from an abundance of criticism directed at the bill to dispute as “myths” and dismisses the far from frivolous concerns being widely expressed by small farmers, gardeners, local marketers and consumers around the country.
The posting boasts that the commonly trusted Organic Consumers Association has asserted the selected myths were without substance, falsely implying that OCA supports the bill and says the same for the Canadian-based North American Organic Trade Association, a group which has been accused of being a big business front designed to discredit the organic foods movement. Disturbingly, its short list of “major consumer and food safety groups” supporting the bill is fleshed out with the kind of industry-supported “false green” organizations termed “astroturf” outfits by John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton in the “Poisoning the Grassroots” chapter of their popular 1995 book Toxic Sludge Is Good For You!: Lies, Damn Lies & the Public Relations Industry. On the surface the entries appear respectable but most would not know, for example, that the Pew Charitable Trusts, which they list as a supporter, has been deeply involved in the promotion of genetically engineered foods (gmos) and even hired Monsanto attorney Michael Taylor to aid the “cause.” Food poisoning victim groups are an obvious cherry for a dubious grouping in the eyes of 875’s critics.
No one is disputing an obvious need for “safe food” and a dependable system for distributing it, but opinions swiftly diverge when you start to read below the headlines. Small farmers and local growers point to the toxically corporate value system of factory farms as the overwhelming source of food-borne illness and protest that applying industrial-sized provisions to smaller operations presents the kind of business-crippling burdens that only agricultural behemoths could applaud. Synthetic pesticides, herbicides, antibiotics, organophosphates and other chemicals applied in industrial farming; CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) and hellishly close confinements of livestock are at the root of the problems, they say, not small producers.
One of the “myths” attacked in the posting is that the bill was “written by Monsanto and other large agribusiness companies” but, instead of identifying its unknown authors, the release points to several congressmen with progressive records on farm issues who support the bill. An unconfirmed report that a former vice president of the massive Cargill corporation was its primary author is left unaddressed. Monsanto, whose record of aggressive litigation against small farmers and frequently decried efforts to gain control of the world’s food supply has done little for its reputation, also denies any direct involvement with the bill. Characterizations of the company’s legal division as a pack of mad, snarling dogs is clearly unfair to a calculating and highly organized team of wolverines but, if they choose to be honest about it, they could hardly deny that the fallout from HR 875, enacted as is, would be far more beneficial to the big guys than the rest of us.
As far back as 1999, Monsanto was linked to proposed legislation to police rural communities and intimidate seed-savers, imposing complex state-level regulations on growers and seed cleaners. A recently installed federal-to-state-to-local communications network under the Homeland Security system could simplify surveillance of rural agricultural activity beyond the limitations of cutback FDA staffing and coverage. In HR 875, food is divided from drugs under the FDA umbrella of the Department of Health & Human Services and grouped with the Department of Commerce’s National Marine Fisheries Service into the newly created Food Safety Administration (FSA). There are few complaints about dividing the food and drug sections of the FDA, certainly as compared with grievances against their methods of operation. Under the FSA, a “food czar” would be appointed and is designated in the bill as “the Administrator” who would exercise an expanded federal power over food production and commerce, embracing aspects of authority usually reserved to different branches of government, legislative, judicial and executive, similar to the Administrative Procedures Act. Unannounced spot inspections are mandated and the czar, under Section 103 of the bill, can be selected from corporate officials, industry lobbyists or other food “expects.” Speculation has it that Michael Taylor will be a natural consideration...
Another “myth” is addressed in the release by accurately stating that “(t)here is no language in the bill that would regulate, penalize, or shut down backyard gardens.” Correct. There is no explicit language to that effect but neither is there any language which specifically exempts such gardens from the provisions of the bill and that’s what all the commotion is about. As pointed out in the Appomattox Area News,, a “food production facility” in the bill “means any farm, ranch, orchard, vineyard, aquaculture facility...confined animal-feeding operation (or) small commercial farmer who eats his own food.”
Although the bill defines its terms repeatedly, it is rarely in an unambiguous fashion. A “Food Establishment,” for instance, means any slaughterhouse (except those regulated under the Federal Meat Inspection Act or Poultry Products Inspection Act), factory, warehouse or facility owned or operated by a person located in any State that processes food or a facility that holds, stores or transports food or food ingredients.” Food establishments are further broken down into categories which seem to embrace “anyone not currently subject to inspection” including anyone who “processes”... “fresh produce in ready-to-eat raw form.” Excluded from mandatory registration are restaurants and other retail or nonprofit food establishments where food is served directly to the consumer. The word “commercial” in the definitions of “process” or “processing” presumably spares others who prepare or package food in a not-for-profit manner but not with the certainty critics desire.
Violations can incur civil penalties of up to a million dollars per day for each violation with criminal sanctions resulting from food-caused illness or injury of up to five years and, as the Farm To Consumer Legal Defense Fund stresses there is “every incentive for FSA to levy fines” because they can then use the funds to carry out enforcement activities- including the provision of assistance to States for inspection and enforcement, thus giving States a reason to support the bill.
A reference in Section 210 to the “National Animal Identification System as authorized by the Animal Health Protection Act of 2002” raises the question, since this Act is not currently law, of when this bill was written. NAIS was still being discussed in the legislature in March. One of the “myths” is “debunked” in the press release with the observation that NAIS, which calls for implants in domestic animals, is under the jurisdiction of the USDA rather than FDA and, so, not relevant to 875 but Deborah Stockton, executive director of the National Independent Consumers and Farmers Association believes that if any of the current bills pass “it would ratify NAIS, and strengthen USDA’s ability to make it mandatory for all livestock, including your flock of backyard chickens.”
Another troublesome section sets standards for minimums and types of fertilizer use, raising fears that certain chemical fertilizers will be required that would conflict with organic practices which don’t meet the industry standard.
Record-keeping requirements are a large concern, especially given that the word “modernization” in the bill’s title suggests electronic trace-back systems like those mandated in the even more worrisome FDA Globalization Act of 2009, HR 759. As the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association points out “the Food and Drug Administration has shown a marked inability to find solutions that work for small farmers without expensive and product-changing technology.”
There are many other troubling details of this bill and the others which are further examined in the full version of this article (which is available on our website) but the national fuss raised since the first part of this article was published has not gone unnoticed and now signs of retreat among the lawmakers have become evident. Jeff Lieberson, a spokesman for Congressman Maurice Hinchey, a co-sponsor whose website features the “Myth” vs. “Fact” release quoted here, has stated that the bill’s original sponsor Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and Hinchey have a good relationship and “we’ve had extensive conversations with Ms. DeLauro’s office. We’ve also received assurances from her office that, if there were any legitimate concerns that came forward, they’ll adjust and amend the bill. We feel confident that there’s no problems with it but if there are some that come up, we’re confident she’ll adjust them. The Congressman would not support a bill that would be detrimental to local small farmers.”
“The focus of this legislation...is to improve the system so that the product that Americans put on their plates is safe for them to consume,” Lieberson continued. “Our office is actually taking a closer look at the organic system and regulations to try to see if we can straighten things.”
As further evidence of an impact from the hullabaloo, Rep. DeLauro’s office has indicated that there have been recent meetings with organic farmers in an effort to acquire suggestions for amending and improving the bill. Some quite succinct suggestions were offered last month by syndicated food columnist Ari LeVaux: “So lawmakers, if you’re listening and you want these protestors, ballistic and level-headed alike, to chill out, here is how to get them off your backs: exempt local food systems from the current bills. Include specific language ..that will guarantee that small family farms, backyard gardens, personal livestock, farmers markets and all forms of food self-sufficiency and farmer-direct purchasing are protected. Because the right to buy milk from your neighbor or grow your own food is as inalienable as the right to bear arms. And if you threaten to take away this right, you’re going to face a backlash that will make the NRA seem like a bunch of flower-waving Hare Krishnas.”

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The Esopus Is Dying

After years of worries about the effects of climate change and development on stream temperatures, it turns out that an invasive algae has accomplished what generations have been fighting to keep from happening.
No matter which term one uses for it – the scientific Didymosphenia geminata, common usage didymo or much more prosaic “rock snot,” the invasive species of streambed algae that U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer came to Boiceville to loudly request federal funding to fight earlier this month is now actually IN the same Esopus Creek waterway he was standing by on April 8.
As well as in the East and West branches of the nearby Upper Delaware river, two other renowned destinations for trout fishermen around the globe.
That new invasion raises a number of key questions, now, about how to contain it and keep the Didymo from spreading out of its current locations in the major stem of the creek and into its tributaries and, just as importantly, prevent its movement to other waterways within the region.
There are currently no known ways of clearing streams of the algae, which has closed down whole sections of trout fishing areas in Arkansas, Tennessee and New Zealand to date.
Didymo harms trout habitat by competing for existing fish feed along a stream’s bottom, as well as by making it difficult to find footing for fishermen and women among its slippery weeds.
In fact, streams where it first appeared in New Zealand are now basically dead to all living organisms, according to reports.
Meanwhile, the timing of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation press release announcing its findings on April 27, has led at least one local river watcher – who actually began posting his own streamwatch signs warning of invasive algae before the April 1 start of trout season a month back – to question who knew what when. And ask why, if there were even suspicions of rock snot in the Esopus, the DEC went ahead with its annual trout stocking activities along the stream a couple of weeks back.
“DEC collected samples and confirmed the presence of didymo in the vicinity of several public access sites along a 12-mile stretch of the Esopus from the ‘Shandaken Portal,’ which transfers water to the Esopus from Schoharie Reservoir, to New York City’s Ashokan Reservoir,” the DEC release read.
Previously, the algae had been confirmed near the Vermont border, as well as in the East and West branches of the Delaware River.
Rock snot, as those who know Didymo best like to call it, grows on the bottom of both flowing and still waters and is characterized by the development of thick, gooey mat-like growths which can last for months even in fast flowing streams. Didymo mats look like brown or white fiberglass insulation or tissue paper and although appearing to be slimy and stringy, actually feels rough and fibrous to the touch, similar to wet wool. It does not fall apart when handled.
In addition to making footing difficult, the DEC has pointed out that rock snot can impede fishing by limiting the abundance of bottom dwelling organisms that trout and other species of fish feed on. They add that there are “currently no known methods for controlling or eradicating didymo once it infests a water body.”
The purpose of their recent press releases has been to promote a new, statewide policy of “Check, Clean and Dry” for all who enter and leave the Esopus, as well as other waterways within the state. Since the microscopic algae can cling, unseen, and “remain viable” for several weeks even in seemingly dry conditions, they are particularly instructive when it comes to cleaning all one has worn while in a waterway.
For non-absorbent items, the DEC suggests washing with dishwashing detergent, bleach, hot water and/or salt. Longer soaking times of at least half an hour in very hot water and detergents are suggested for absorbent materials, as well as considerable drying times, Last but not least, they suggest not using anything one’s worn into the Esopus or its tributaries into other waterways.
“We have been in contact with the Ulster County Executive, Senator Schumer’s office, USGS, DEC and DEP on this issue. At this point there is nothing we can do on this stretch of the Esopus,” noted Ashokan Pepacton Watershed Chapter of Trout Unlimited President Chet Karwatowski of the situation this week. “We must do our best to inform the public and try to prevent the spread of Didymo further upstream of the portal, into the tribs and other river systems that people frequent when they leave the Esopus (Neversink, Roundout, Deleware, Schoharie, Beaverkill Willowemoc, etc.) We must get the word out to tubers, kayakers and other recreational users of the Esopus who may unknowingly transport Didymo elsewhere. The same goes for highway crews, or anyone working in the waters of the Esopus.9”
As for that prescient streamwatcher, Jim Littlefoot, he notes a series of thwarted attempts to get both the state DEC and TU to do something about the stream throughout recent months, and eventually putting up his own signs along the banks of the Esopus in March, before the April 1 opening of trout season.
He pointed out that per his announcements, everyone was aware of the dangers by April 2, a full week before Schumer’s press op below the Five Arches Bridge in Boiceville. Furthermore, he felt news of the algae’s presence in nearby waters should have been more widespread prior to the opening of trout season
And stocking, he added, still went ahead as usual on April 15.
“Could this have been prevented a year and a half ago, when I first started alerting people? Probably not,,” Littlefoot said. “But the whole area would have knowledge of Didymo and fisherman and others could have been informed how to prevent it. Now it is all catch up.”
“It feels like there’s been some collusion here,” said Littlefoot, who promised letters to local papers and more signs. “I would have just shut down the entire stream. I know other states are doing that.”
He pointed out websites for the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency and New Zealand’s environmental agency. Both showed, graphically, why the innocuously-named Didymosphenia geminata and more seriously monikered didymo is now known as “rock snot.”
“The threat of Rock Snot has been around for the last few years. Major manufacturers of fishing equipment have already redesigned their products to help prevent the spread of these types of invasives, said Karwatowski in answer to Littlefoot’s charges. “There is also a Catskill Regional Invasive Species Partenship (http://www.catskillcenter.org/programs/land/crisp.html). The question of who knew what, on what date, is a red herring; the issue is now that we have Rock Snot in the Esopus, what should we be doing about it and how do we prevent the continued spread of it.”
Littlefoot added that he has been recently meeting with Ulster County officials about utilizing county prisoners to help put up more warning signs along creek banks where the algae already exists, and begun placing signs along the Rondout and other fabled trout streams in the area.
He added that he has also met with Town Tinker’s Harry Jameson, who is very concerned and said he’d work with the Catskill Mountain Railroad to place more signs around.
“This is likely to change the way we fish our streams,” said Bill Rudge, Natural Resources Supervisor for the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation, during a recent presentation on the scourge.