POLLUTED STREAMS BEING DOCUMENTED FROM ALL OVER US

 

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 lo-cal 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 pre-serve 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, sup-port 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, Case-beau 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?