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GRASPING FOR SOLUTIONS - While many states are failing to protect rivers and watersheds from polluted runoff, some communities are taking matters into their own hands - diffuse pollution threatens American waterways

National Wildlife, April-May, 2001 by Joby Warrick

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Undoing the damage caused by nonpoint pollution is never as easy as closing a factory or turning a faucet. The modest recovery of the Clinch River and its mussels is the result of a decade of work by dozens of groups to neutralize, one by one, the many small problems that caused the river's water quality to worsen in the first place. Farmers in the area, for instance, with financial assistance from government agencies, have begun fencing in their pastures to keep livestock out of streams. The same sort of slow-but-sure approach is working to help prevent runoff in rivers elsewhere.

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In Boston, federal and local leaders have seen a turnaround in the polluted Charles River in the past five years, through the use of TMDL plans and a crackdown on communities with outdated stormwater systems. The Charles is one of the nation's most heavily used recreational rivers. Yet in 1995, authorities rated it too dirty for swimming 81 percent of the time.

An aggressive cleanup effort launched that same year took aim at illegal sewage hookups and storm runoff from more than 30 towns along the river's banks. A study of the Charles, initiated in 1994 by the Charles River Watershed Association (CRWA), proved conclusively that point-source pollution remained a serious problem in the river. As a result, the EPA ordered local governments to begin a comprehensive search for pollution sources, which discovered hundreds of them. "Over the years, with municipal budgets stretched, it's been easy to allow funds for sewer and storm-drain maintenance to disappear," says CRWA Executive Director Bob Zimmerman.

The payoff for such efforts came last summer, when the Charles fell short of federal swimming standards only 35 percent of the time and earned an above-average rating from the EPA. "Removal of point sources has made a difference," says Zimmerman. "Getting the river clean the rest of the way, however, is likely to be more difficult."

In northwestern Montana, residents along tiny Elk Creek were moved to action after the stream's renowned cutthroat trout began disappearing. The problem: The fish's spawning and feeding grounds were seriously damaged by runoff from nearby development and streambed erosion.

The Elk's fast waters run through mountain gorges and valleys that traditionally were blanketed with a dense covering of evergreens. The trees provided shade, organic matter and shelter for trout, whose size and numbers were legendary. But by the mid-1990s, developers, farmers and loggers had stripped many of the valleys of their trees. The Elk's denuded banks rapidly eroded, and the creek's famously clear water turned brown with sediment. As the fish became scarcer, watershed residents began looking for ways to restore the Elk.

Starting with only a few dozen volunteers, the stream's boosters planted thousands of trees and shored up miles of riverbanks with retention walls made of tree stumps. Today the trout are rebounding, and Elk Creek has become only the third waterway in state history to graduate from Montana's official list of "impaired" waterways.

GRASPING FOR SOLUTIONS - While many states are failing to protect rivers and watersheds from polluted runoff, some communities are taking matters into their own hands - diffuse pollution threatens American waterways

National Wildlife, April-May, 2001 by Joby Warrick

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