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Floods and building reconnected rivers
Jordan Fields recently connected with TU vice president for eastern conservation, Keith Curley, to talk about Fields’ work.
August 28, 2011, was a day that changed Jordan Fields’ life. That day, Tropical Storm Irene dumped more than 11 inches of rain on Fields’ hometown in Vermont in just a few hours. “It was a week before I started my senior year of high school,” remembers Fields. “I watched as my friends’ and neighbors’…
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Celebrating a dream come true in North Carolina
There was abundant sunshine, bluegrass, barbeque and 300 fly fishing enthusiasts that gathered to celebrate the grand opening of one of the nicest fly shops you’ll ever see—and the only one I’ve ever seen with a built-in bar—the new Brookings Fly Shop in Cashiers, N.C. If you’re reading this, then you are probably one of…
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FERC plans sells Kennebec’s endangered Atlantic salmon short
This week, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission released a Draft EIS affecting four hydroelectric dams on Maine’s Kennebec River. The FERC recommendations amount to incremental improvements over what is now a dire situation for Atlantic salmon in the Kennebec. We have tried the incremental approach before on rivers like the Connecticut, Merrimack, Saco, and Androscoggin.…
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Pipelines: With so much at stake, we have to get it right
Major energy development proposals have such enormous implications for our waters and fisheries that there must be a high bar for approval
Demise of eastern pipeline offers lessons for protecting streams amid energy development Now that the Atlantic Coast Pipeline has been scrapped, we’re left with an important question: What lessons can we learn and apply the next time a developer proposes to build a pipeline through trout country? The developers’ decision to cancel the ACP ends…
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Coldwater conservationists getting it done in the Granite State
By Keith Curley I left New Hampshire 16 years ago to come work for TU in Arlington, Va., but often return home to visit family and reconnect with the rivers, lakes and streams where I learned to fish. On one recent trip I had the good fortune of joining TU’s New Hampshire State Council for…
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TU getting things done in the Great Lakes region
I recently spoke about Trout Unlimited’s conservation work to a small gathering of anglers, most of whom had been Trout Unlimited members at some point but had drifted away and lost touch. They were surprised to learn that TU had grown to become an organization with 300,000 members and supporters who dedicate more than 700,000 volunteer hours annually, a…
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When ‘fishing ain’t what it used to be’ is a good thing
The fishing ain’t what it used to be. We’ve all heard that familiar lament, usually uttered by an angler trudging back to the parking lot after getting skunked. As conservationists, we know it’s too often true. The losses of trout and salmon fisheries relative to their historic distribution are well known to all of us. But this…
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