Blog 5- Restoring Rivers

Life on Earth is dependent on water. Life on land requires clean, fresh water.

Nowadays controversial fights over water rights are happening in courtrooms and on battlefields.

In this selection, Margaret A. Palmer, and J. David Allen argue that rivers must be restored because they perform essential ecological and social functions such as mitigating floods, providing clean drinking water, removing excess nutrients, and supports fisheries and oceans. The present efforts are not sufficient or equal to the human dependence on these natural systems.

Restoration of waterways is not a luxury it is a national plea. A time where water shortages are becoming more common even in eastern states, when there used to be an abundance of this resource. Aquatic wildlife is going extinct at a much higher rate than terrestrial organisms.

The National River Restoration Science Synthesis does not include evaluation or assessment of actions being taken.

Since people have always chosen to live and work near water, dilution used to be the solution to pollution.

Damming, cutting down riparian forests and filling in wetlands have all been done to ease transportation on water.

The primary reason why rivers and streams are still being degraded today are poor stewardship, human activities and alterations of the landscapes. When land is cleard and replaced with pavement the water now is moved primarily by runoff and taking longer to soak into the soil. This causes many flash floods.

Urbanization and agriculture, two primary issues with runoff contaminents, are tougher to enforce and fix since they are not point source discharges.

The problem is that there are no policies to support restoration standards, to promote the use of proven methods, or to provide basic data for planning restoration.

The solution to pollution is to reform federal, state, and local policies.

There needs to be a method of tracking restoration projects to learn from past mistakes.

There needs to be a national study to evaluate which restoration projects are effective. This is important to make sure projects are doing what they are set to do and that money is well spent.

Existing funding needs to be more effective, replacing and supplementing current funds. There is a large restoration project that is effective, but since the cumulative cost of smaller projects is higher, better coordination needs to happen.

Along with better funding planning and effectiveness, current funding is not enough compared to the benefits that clean, fresh water provides for the ecosystems.

With this said, rivers and streams can once again flow clear and clean.