Endangered Rivers
By DANA DUGAN
Express Staff Writer
Max Casebeau
and his Center of Environmental Education and Information (CEEI), which is
based in Sun Valley, are changing the way schools teach science and how the
country looks at the status of its natural water.
Established in 1993, this local foundation is ambitiously
documenting all the 21,309 polluted streams in the U.S. and the pollutants
found in them. In 1992 U.S. Congress ordered a survey of all named rivers and
streams in the U.S. This survey determined the endangered streams.
Over 400 hits a day are being received on
CEEI’s official website (www.apsrs.org),
said Casebeau, where the names of the streams are posted. With this
site, CEEI hopes to familiarize concerned citizens of our "mutual
responsibility to preserve the integrity of the natural
environment," the website says.
Casebeau, who
is retired and treats this pursuit and his fiction writing
as his full time job,
welcomes letters to the editor regarding the situation and the site.
"I stay neutral, " he said, "I let the numbers speak for
themselves."
A transplant
from California’s Silicon Valley, where he worked on two industry-type
newspapers, Casebeau’s interest in the subject of polluted streams, began in
1992.
Congress
ordered a survey of all named rivers and streams in the U.S. It was the last
time such an extensive a survey was done, though states conduct their own spot
checks on streams, which are sent every two years to the EPA.
The criteria
for a clean stream is based on water which is both swimable and which fish can
reproduce in. This statute is known as
the 303d of the Clean Water Act (CWA).
Listed, for
Idaho in 1992, were 962 streams with below water quality standards. This list
included the Bigwood River, Silver Creek and Warm Springs.
"If
Idaho has that many polluted streams what about the other states?"
Casebeau said.
His
foundation has received some financial backing, support and aide from such
environmentally involved groups as the Global Environment Project Institute,
the University of Idaho with whom he shares pertinent files on the web, Idaho
Rivers United, Trout Unlimited and the Silver Creek Alternative School, whose
students will be building pages for his website, for computer class credits.
CEEI reports
on not only on river use and river pollution, but also on forestry practices,
nuclear waste storage, mining, ranching, shepherding, and each of these
pursuits effects on water use and water pollution.
Within the
next few years CEEI’s intention is to list all endangered and extinct species
as well, including animals, and plants. "Again," Casebeau said,
"it’s a classroom lesson."
At a CEEI
fund raising gathering recently, given by Casebeau at the home of Ken and
Kathleen Fait in Ketchum, Gary Alexander, Education Professor at the University
of Idaho (Boise) called CEEI’s site, educationally, the most important
environment site on the web since every state is represented.
"Its about
our water" he said. "That’s what Max’s website is about. One percent
of earth’s fresh water is consumable---water and streams in the U.S. and what
is happening to them. We want to inform
the teachers, and
through the teachers, the students."
In an further attempt to reach out
educationally CEEI held a contest for the best paper that dealt with the 303d
Clean Water Act lists.
CEEI awarded
University of Massachusetts undergraduate student Lisa Dangutis $1000 for the
best assessment paper about the Clean Water Act and its status in
Massachusetts. Another contest will be held early in 2001.
"The
most important use of this information is in education and academic access to
it by students everywhere," Casebeau said.
"Max
gets passionate about [the issue], and seeks out the real players in the
game," local artist, musician and activist Will Caldwell, who is VP of
Organization of CEEI said.
"I’m
pretty excited that the next stage is to present all the endangered species,
said Caldwell. "It’s daunting job."
The next big
fund-raiser for CEEI will be held next spring and sometime-local entertainer
Carole King is the possible headliner of the event, Casebeau said.
CEEI is also
pressing for another nationwide CWA
survey of all U.S. streams, and is encouraging sponsorships of each state on
the CEEI site. For instance, Idaho costs a mere $29 to sponsor a month.
"We
still have the ability to turn on our taps and have drinking water come
out," Gary Alexander said, but in China, for instance, they have been
boiling their water for decades.
Is that to be our future?