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Keepers Hope Journey Will Benefit Neuse River: Pair Paddling Toward Oriental

Posted on: Monday, 10 April 2006, 06:00 CDT

By Javier Serna, The News & Observer, Raleigh, N.C.

Apr. 10--If paddling 280 miles in kayaks will bring attention back to the Neuse River, then it'll be worth the effort for Riverkeepers Larry Baldwin and Dean Naujoks.

Their journey began Friday -- Naujoks on the Flat River, Baldwin on the Eno River. They met up where the two streams join and Falls Lake begins.

The trip should end a couple of Saturdays from now in Oriental on the Pamlico Sound.

Both men got off to a rough start on their respective Neuse tributaries when they had to drag their kayaks for miles because of low river levels.

"When we planned this thing in December, we were counting on spring flows to carry us to the Pamlico," Naujoks said.

They spent the weekend paddling across Falls Lake, where they camped out at Shinleaf State Park. They'll be camping out along the way on most nights but will have the assistance of volunteers to help shuttle them to campsites.

Along the way, they'll meet with city and town officials and speak to schoolchildren. They invite anybody who makes a pledge to the cause to join them for a stretch.

The point of their odyssey, they say, is to bring awareness back to the river.

They're also raising funds through pledges for the Neuse River Foundation, the nonprofit water protection advocacy group that sponsors the riverkeeper program.

An online journal will be kept, documenting their observations and highlighting people living along the river who have stood up for water quality.

State and local laws governing the Neuse River Basin were tightened after massive fish kills in the Neuse estuary in 1990s.

Polluters were put on notice, enforcement was increased and stream buffers were established, limiting development. The state Environmental Management Commission adopted rules aimed at reducing the amount of nitrogen reaching the river by 30 percent in five years -- a milestone claimed to have been reached in 2003.

Now the riverkeepers think the state has begun to turn its back on the river, and a recently published peer-reviewed scientific study claims the state never met its goal.

"It's been gradual," Naujoks said. "The fact that there have been improvements, it makes it easier for the state to say: 'Job done.' "

JoAnn Burkholder, director of the Center for Applied Aquatic Ecology at N.C. State University and co-author of a study published in the scientific journal Limnology and Oceanography, said the 30 percent nitrogen reduction was more a product of a 100-year drought that occurred during the last three years of the state study.

"Mother Nature turned off the faucet," Burkholder said.

With very little rain, pollution on the ground and in the air -- not the kind that's piped directly to the stream -- didn't make it to the river. Her study focused on the 10 years leading up to 2003.

"When we removed the drought period, there's no change," she said.

Fish kills continue

The 30 percent reduction goal, Naujoks said, was a result of public outcry after the fish kills. But as public awareness has waned, he said, so have the state's efforts and resources in battling the pollution.

Baldwin said, for example, large schools of Atlantic menhaden no longer run up the Neuse and its tributary, the Trent River, where hog waste is a continual problem. About 77 miles of the Trent River are on the state's list of impaired streams because of hog farming and agriculture.

Fish kills on the Neuse estuary, where the duo will complete their trip, now occur every summer.

"We're losing millions at a time," said Baldwin.

The two take little comfort in the fish kills being smaller than they were in 1991, when a billion fish were estimated dead.

"Part of this trip is the historical perspective," said Naujoks. "It's easy to forget."

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Source: The News & Observer

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