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Creating online communities for real-time stories

Posted on June 29, 2007 | Filed Under Technology

Chas Offutt, Director of Internet Strategy
Technology & Rivers

I haven’t been reading my RSS feeds lately, and they’ve been piling up, but sometimes you just need a break. To fill the void, I’ve actually been reading more newspapers. Yes, the hard copy kind too.

There will always be something very real about manually flipping through the news, hill gossip and sports. For me, I connect a lot easier to stories, people and issues when I can control the flow by holding something between my fingers. Maybe it’s because I grew up in a print dominated world, who knows, but it’s probably the same reason I also enjoy slow cooking and train travel in a culture often measured by speed. I guess I like the feeling of involvement.

Recharged a bit, I’ve hopped back in the left lane this morning and opened myself up to the slue of online chatter (could it be the iPhone hype?). With my RSS feeds, I’m back to less depth, but greater reach of news.

Where is all of this going? Well, I’ve been struggling with the how-to of combining the online reach with the offline depth. Basically, how do we tell our story and encourage others to participate in a larger river story? A story movement of sort.

Though stories are not dead as SpeakeasyDC proclaims (great video and cool campaign), they are missing in the advocacy world. They’re probably just hiding behind the facts.

I found this video on Katya’s blog and thought it spoke volumes to the need of communicating-with as opposed to communicating-to to achieve online depth.

Times are changing and our constituents are demanding (okay, asking) that they participate in our story. And this is a good thing as becoming a member of any organization these days should mean more than financial support. As conservation efforts evolve, so will our ability to create a real-time river story.

And though I’m glad to be reading my RSS feeds again, I hope to learn how others are creating more online depth through greater public participation of personal narratives.

Anything else you’re interested in is not going to happen… — Carl Sagan

Posted on June 29, 2007 | Filed Under Quotes

Lindsay Martin, Web Editor
River Quotes: Your Daily Escape

“Anything else you’re interested in is not going to happen if you can’t breathe the air and drink the water. Don’t sit this one out. Do something. You are by accident of fate alive at an absolutely critical moment in the history of our planet.”– Carl Sagan

* When it comes to sewage, what you know can hurt you. Ask Congress to pass legislation that requires sewage treatment plant operators to notify the public of sewage spills and overflows into our waters. Act now

River Quotes are posted weekday mornings. Want to see your favorite river quote here? Email it to lmartin@AmericanRivers.org.

In a mucked up lovely river… — Greg Brown

Posted on June 28, 2007 | Filed Under Quotes

Lindsay Martin, Web Editor
River Quotes: Your Daily Escape

“In a mucked up lovely river, I cast my little fly…Oh to clean our dirty planet, now there’s a noble wish, and I’m puttin’ my shoulder to the wheel because I wanna catch some fish.” — Greg Brown

*Feel like trash talkin’? Thousands of volunteers pitched in to clean up rivers across the country as part of National River Cleanup Week. Now we want to hear the trash stories. Read more

River Quotes are posted weekday mornings. Want to see your favorite river quote here? Email it to lmartin@AmericanRivers.org.

Lies, Damn Lies, and the 100-Year Flood, Part III

Posted on June 27, 2007 | Filed Under Flood Protection, River Renewal

Joyce Wu, Program Associate
Natural Flood Protection

There are a couple reasons why “100-year flood” is a terrible name. Here’s why:

Picture a bag of 99 blue marbles and 1 black marble, which represents a 100-year flood event.

If I shake the bag, pick a marble, and throw it back in again, I have a 1% chance of picking the black marble (Part I). If I repeat this exercise 30 times, I still have a 1% chance each time of picking the black marble, but I have a 26% chance of picking the marble once over 30 picks (Part II).

However, it’s entirely possible that I wouldn’t pick the black marble at all. It’s also entirely possible that I could pick the black marble a couple times in a row.

The term “100-year flood” under-represents the danger of these flood events because it suggests a cyclical pattern of a wet year followed by 99 dry years, when in fact “100-year floods” are completely unpredictable. The term 100-year flood, since it has become the standard for federal flood protection policies and regulations, also lulls people into the belief that they are safe from flooding outside of the 100-year floodplain. However, the 100-year floodplain is only a sliver of a river’s actual floodplain, and in fact nearly half of all flood damages occur to homes outside the “100-year floodplain.”

Second, floodplains are dynamic systems. As land development occurs, and levees and floodwalls are built along rivers, not only is the floodplain changing, but more and more water is draining into existing waterways and raising flood levels. Consequently, houses that used to be safe from flooding may experience increasingly worse flooding over time.

Furthermore, while the term “100-year flood” is correlated with size, it is actually a measure of frequency. As the frequency of “the 100-year flood” increases, it logically devolves into, for example, a 50-year event, which has a 2% probability each year of occurring.

So, that’s it on the 100-year flood. Basically:
1) Floods are unpredictable–both in terms of timing and magnitude,
2) You are much more likely to experience flooding than any other kind of disaster, and
3) Intensifying land use will increase the frequency and size of floods.

Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers… — John Lubbock

Posted on June 27, 2007 | Filed Under Quotes

Lindsay Martin, Web Editor
River Quotes: Your Daily Escape

“Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountains and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books.” — John Lubbock

* What better way to learn about your community’s tap water than to go to the source? Twelve students are about to take a three-week journey along the path of NYC’s water — from the Catskill Mountains to the city. Read more

River Quotes are posted weekday mornings. Want to see your favorite river quote here? Email it to lmartin@AmericanRivers.org.

Boundaries don’t protect rivers, people do. — Brad Arrowsmith

Posted on June 26, 2007 | Filed Under Quotes

Lindsay Martin, Web Editor
River Quotes: Your Daily Escape

“Boundaries don’t protect rivers, people do.” — Brad Arrowsmith

American Rivers has a staff of more than fifty people. These experts are dedicated to protecting and promoting rivers as valuable assets that are vital to the health, safety and quality of life of America’s communities. Find an expert

River Quotes are posted weekday mornings. Want to see your favorite river quote here? Email it to lmartin@AmericanRivers.org.

Act Now for Your Right-to-Know

Posted on June 25, 2007 | Filed Under Alerts, Clean Water, Sewage

Lindsay Martin, Web Editor
River Alert

When it comes to sewage pollution, what you don’t know can hurt you. Every year, more than 850 billion gallons of raw or partially-treated sewage is dumped into the waters where we fish, swim and play. As a result, millions of people become ill each year from unnecessary contact with disease causing pathogens found in sewage.

Astonishingly, there is no nationwide requirement for sewage treatment plants to notify the public when these sewage spills and overflows occur, placing people and their families at risk. Knowledge is a powerful first line of defense, and we all deserve to know when our favorite streams and rivers are unfit for playing and paddling.

You can help fix this problem by asking Congress to pass legislation that requires plant operators to notify the public of sewage spills and overflows. Urge your Representative to cosponsor the Raw Sewage Overflow Community Right to Know Act today.

The Following Representatives have already cosponsored the bill: Lead co-sponsor Rep. Tim Bishop [NY-1], Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett [MD-6], Rep. Madeleine Z. Bordallo [GU], Rep. Peter A. DeFazio [OR-4], Rep. Raul M. Grijalva [AZ-7], Rep. Tom Lantos [CA-12], Rep. Frank LoBiondo [NJ-2], Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney [NY-14], Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, [NY-4], Rep. Jerrold Nadler [NY-8], Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton [DC], Rep. Jim Saxton [NJ-3], Rep. Donald M. Payne [NJ-10], Rep. Maurice D. Hinchey [NY-22], Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich [OH-10] and Rep. Christopher H. Smith [NJ-4]

Following New York City’s water

Posted on June 25, 2007 | Filed Under Events, Northeast, Outreach

Chelsea Lane-Miller, Associate Director of Outreach
Outreach Events and Activities

Ever wondered where the water that flows out of your tap comes from? Twelve students in New York are about to find out exactly that. They’re going to take a three week journey that parallels the journey of New York City’s water.

The event, called Mountaintop to Tap organized by the Stroud Water Research Center, runs from July 7-28. During this time, the students will travel from the Catskill Mountains to New York City. Along the journey, students will measure water quality (how clean the streams are), talk with public officials, and even host press conferences to share their findings with the public. Sounds like a pretty cool adventure, and makes me wonder what path the water takes to get to my tap in Washington, DC.

Do you know where your water comes from?

If our salmon runs are not healthy…” — John Kitzhaber

Posted on June 25, 2007 | Filed Under Quotes

Lindsay Martin, Web Editor
River Quotes: Your Daily Escape

“If our salmon are not healthy, then our watersheds are not healthy — and if our watersheds our not healthy, then we have truly squandered our heritage and mortgaged our future.” — John Kitzhaber.

* The Bush administration’s policy of counting hatchery salmon and steelhead as wild, to downgrade the status of the species under the Endangered Species Act, was ruled illegal by a federal court last week. Read more

River Quotes are posted weekday mornings. Want to see your favorite river quote here? Email it to lmartin@AmericanRivers.org.

River cleanup stories

Posted on June 22, 2007 | Filed Under Cleanup, Great Lakes, Mid-Atlantic, Outreach, Stories

Chelsea Lane-Miller, Associate Director of Outreach
Outreach Events and Activities

People from across the country have been sharing stories, photos and videos from their trash cleanups organized as part of National River Cleanup Week. Here are a few we’ve heard about:

The Cowpasture River Preservation Association, in Millboro, Virginia, organized cleanups on three sections of the Cowpasture River. Altogether, 42 volunteers collected 47 bags of trash along with five tires, two chairs, various articles of clothing, inner tubes, road signs, scrap metal, and cinder blocks. A washer and dryer were also spotted. Sounds like someone had an interesting idea about how to wash clothes in the river.

You can watch a video of a cleanup on the Gunpowder River, near Baltimore, Maryland, where several local citizens collected 4 tires and filled 25 bags of garbage. They also saw a water snake attached to a brown trout, and promise to have a video on that soon, so stay tuned!

Indiana Outfitters posted a trip report with great photos of the cleanup on the Wildcat Creek and Wabash River in Lafayette, Indiana.

Here, too, is a photo from the cleanup on the Iowa Falls section of the Iowa River. That is a bike on top of the kayak, in case you weren’t sure. Good to see that people are still working to make a difference on the Iowa, one of America’s Most Endangered Rivers of 2007.

Keep sending us your stories, or post them yourself on our National River Cleanup Blog.

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