What Do We Do with YOUR Data?!?!?!

Good Afternoon Riverwatch Captains,

In case you were wondering just what we do with the data that you collect for us please check out the website!!! I have just completed updating all the e. coli and water quality data, that you supply for us on a monthly basis or more, into brand spanking new charts... So be sure to check out just what has been going on at your site from month to month!!!

http://www.bnriverkeeper.org/programs/riverwatch/Water_Monitoring/water_monitoring.htm

http://bnriverkeeper.org/programs/riverwatch/e.coli.htm

Underwater Fish Habitat Enhancement in the Upper Niagara River!

The New York Power Authority has announced that work has been completed on placing four artificial reefs between the Grand Island and Tonawanda shorelines. The projects are located upstream and downstream of the south Grand Island bridges, off the west shore of Motor Island and off Gratwick Park in North Tonawanda. They are outside of commercial shipping channels and will be monitored with underwater cameras. Populations of various species of fish, including muskellunge, walleye, northern pike and large-and small-mouth bass, are expected to be able to use the structures as areas for safe rest and to forage. This attempt to enhance the Niagara River's ecosystem is the result of terms within the power authoritie's recent 50-year re-license agreement which requires the authority to provide money to local not-for-profits and governments for various greenway projects. Other planned habitat improvement projects include restoration of Strawberry Island and wetlands restoration at Beaver Island State Park.

2008 Fall Beach Sweep

Hardworking volunteers from across Western New York partnered with the Buffalo Niagara RIVERKEEPER to participate in the annual Fall Beach Sweep on Saturday morning, September 20, 2008 and helped clean up the shoreline along Scajaquada Creek, Ellicott Creek, Buffalo and Niagara Rivers and many other tributaries.

Cleanup crews picked up trash that included clothing, drinking bottles, shopping carts, mattresses, and car parts. An exciting find was a canine skull at Amherst State Park. The ambitious volunteers went an extra step further by painting over graffiti under the elevated portion of the highway and whacking back weeds that are invading the natural habitat along the creek. 600 Participants from local neighborhoods joined students from McKinley High School, South Park High School Green Team, Houghton College, Canisus College, and Buffalo State College in making a difference in their community.

Following the cleanup, hundreds of participants attended the Volunteer Appreciation party at the American Legion Post 1041 on Amherst Street that was sponsored by the Grant Amherst Business Association and Buffalo Niagara RIVERKEEPER.

The event was made possible by sponsorships from the M & T Charitable Foundation, Teva, Mark Kubiniec and the Grant Amherst Business Association, Commander Tom O’Connell and the Niagara Frontier American Legion Post l041, Wegmans, Tops, Wal Mart, and Target.

The Newly Launched Pipewatch Program

Riverkeeper is pleased to announce the creation of yet another program to help clean up our waterways!

Have you ever been paddling in, or walking along, a waterway and noticed pipes along the banks that seem to be draining directly into the water? Those outfalls are point sources of pollution and it is imperative that we locate them and find out what is being dumped into our streams.

The Pipewatch Program aims to locate, inspect, and monitor all of the outfalls in the Niagara River Watershed. We are in the first stage of the program where we need to locate all of the outfalls. Once the outfalls have been located we will begin to test the water that is being discharged in order to determine their potential for harming our waterways.

Our dedicated volunteers began paddling our waterways in early June and we have already begun to receive information about the outfalls. As outfalls are discovered and inspected, we will be mapping them so that you can see their locations. This link will take you to our googlemaps page < http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=111647279894937938118.000451841c66d5cfe5511>. Each “balloon” represents one outfall and clicking on the “balloon” will allow you to view a photograph of the outfall.

While our volunteers have been working diligently since the program began, we are still looking to recruit new volunteers. There are thousands of miles of streams in the watershed and the more volunteers we have out there, the faster we will be able to identify the points of potential pollution. If you are interested in becoming a volunteer, please contact Robbyn Drake at rdrake@bnriverkeeper.org or by calling (716)852-7483. New volunteers will need to take a short introductory course to familiarize themselves with the program.

Niagara River Duck Lunation

Lunation: Diving Ducks Muster on the River
(March 2, 2008)

Sunday afternoon, high overcast, about 30 degrees, no wind: My son Taylor and I walk the breakwall from Squaw Island out well past the Peace Bridge to a point where the ice build up blocks our progress. Great slabs of ice have piled up along both sides of the breakwall and out into the upper Niagara rapids, making islands and protected pools where thousands of ducks and gulls are resting or fishing.

Stretching across the river all the way to Canada, whole colonies have sorted themselves by species into separate cold water countries defined by harbor walls and ice spits. They are mainly members of the large and various family of diving ducks, well suited to the deep, fast waters of Niagara.

Scaup, the males as black and white as saddle shoes, are the most common and the most active. They seem to be paired up already and they ride the river like a carnival ride, roller coasting backwards downstream, then flying back up to where they started: a continuing elliptical movement with a bit of diving in between. A brown-backed female is paused on the water, a fish tail wiggling in her bill. At last she stretches her neck and swallows it whole.

Canvasbacks, their big reddish-brown heads wing-tucked, rest in a backwater in one long line, as evenly spaced as beads on a string. They seem to share an exact sense of personal space.

Common goldeneye are present as are the small but beautiful buffleheads, the males mostly white with their great round heads sporting patches of mallard purple and green.

They remind me of the hooded merganser we saw three weeks ago on a sub-zero February day farther down river at the mouth of Tonawanda Creek. He was diving with two red-crested females around the old turnstile bridge pilings. They were so shy they flew off as soon as they saw us, but not before we got a good look at the male’s fully raised circular crest, a yin-yang mandala of black and white feathers half the size of his black and fox-brown body. Vat a duck! First herald of the circus that’s come to town.

Amazing to think this scene has been repeated for millennia at this place where lake meets river and the river turns north, the same way most of these ducks are heading in their annual spring migration.