Average Guy Outdoors: Leave it better than you found it

When the band America sang “the ocean is a desert with its life underground and a perfect disguise above” in the song “A Horse with No Name” they were somewhat right about rivers.

Maybe. I’m not sure exactly what that means, but there’s a lot of life that goes unseen and disguised beneath the water’s surface. The reality is more connected and complicated. That hidden life underwater is directly impacted by many factors, including those under, around and especially “above.”

Water ecosystem

There’s a tendency to think about “the environment” in terrestrial ecosystems and simplistic terms. It makes sense because that’s where we live. Air, sunlight, rain, plants, insects, birds, mammals — we get that, or think that we do. We interact with and see that daily. We don’t think about it much. As essential as air and sunlight are, they get taken for granted.

When you start thinking about aquatic ecosystems, you have to consider all of that plus everything that happens underwater. There, things quickly get complicated.

Out of sight is out of mind, and it’s easy to ignore. There are no charismatic megafauna to draw attention. Aside from anglers and scientists, few feel a connection to many of our smaller but important waterways.

What’s happening

It should be generally agreed that water quality is important. For much of recorded history, rivers have just carried things away to be someone else’s problem. From logs to crops to waste, it all went in and it all went downstream somewhere else. But beginning with the smallest ditch or wetland, what happens in and around it matters.

On land

For starters, how fast rainfall enters the water system is impacted by the surrounding land. Historically, wetlands, grasslands and forest undergrowth would hold water and their roots would help carry it deep underground.

Parking lots and the agricultural equivalent, plowed fields, don’t effectively hold or slow water. That means the water enters the system rapidly, eroding the soil and often carrying with it whatever substances are present at the time. Where wetlands and grasslands used to exist but don’t now (Houston, Texas, for example), that can lead to massive flooding. In other places, it can result in unnatural flows and excessive particles in the water

In Ohio, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the State of Ohio have partnered to implement a voluntary Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program with incentives for landowners. The goal of the program is to add 67,000 acres in the Lake Erie watershed and 70,000 acres in the Scioto River watershed. While reducing the total suspended solid levels in the water, other goals include increasing the population of migratory birds, waterfowl, grassland birds and other wildlife on land enrolled in CREP by 50 percent, when compared to similar land managed for agricultural production. That’s a win.

In the water

While it’s nice to think that all our waterways are constantly being recorded and monitored by somebody for changes and pollutants, that’s not the case.

While there are some automated systems on larger waterways and near industrial centers, much of the reported data relies on teams of volunteers across Southwest Ohio.

Stream Quality Monitoring involves catching and counting “small aquatic organisms such as insect larvae, crayfish, and snails,” according to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. These macroinvertebrates are the canary in the coal mine for rivers. Because they all have different tolerance levels for pollution, they provide a scoreable indicator of stream health.

By surveying the same portion of the river three times a year, they create a cost-effective reference for any change in the water quality without a chemistry degree or expensive equipment. Obviously, measuring just three times a year doesn’t provide real-time information.

Because information is dependent on macroinvertabrate lifecycles, the lag time is even greater. That makes it critical that they happen on schedule.

The great news is that you can help. From SQM to general river sweeps, there are opportunities coming up to monitor or help clean your favorite waterways. It’s true that you can never step into the same river twice. Hopefully, each time we step into a river or stream, it’s better than the last visit and we leave it better than we found it. Check the resources and links below for more information on how you can participate.

Devin Meister is a local outdoors and wildlife enthusiast and has a blog called “Average Guy Outdoors.” He is an Ohio University graduate. Reach him at meister.devin@gmail.com.