Back the Brookie/Eastern Brook Trout Joint Venture
Back the Brookie is a Trout Unlimited multi-state program comprising 17 states from Maine to Georgia. Our goal is to conserve, protect, and restore brook trout throughout their native range. Within each state volunteers are:
- Contacting elected officials in order to improve air and water quality, and reduce emissions that cause acid rain;
- Developing education programs to teach youth about the importance of clean water, clean air, and healthy watersheds;
- Conducting conservation projects to improve water quality and fish habitat, and to restore brook trout to their native streams.
TU is a partner in the Eastern Brook Trout Joint Venture (EBTJV); the nation's first pilot project under the National Fish Habitat Initiative, which directs locally-driven efforts that build private and public partnerships to improve fish habitat. The long-term goals of the EBTJV are to develop a comprehensive restoration and education strategy to improve aquatic habitat, to raise education awareness, and to raise federal, state and local funds for brook trout conservation.
For more information, click here.
Interstate 81 Coldwater Area Restoration Effort
In partnership with the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, the Virginia Council of Trout Unlimited has initiated a long-term campaign to conserve, protect, and restore coldwater streams in the valleys and mountains in the Interstate 81corridor which stretches from Bristol, Virginia/Tennessee 325 miles north to the West Virginia border above Winchester.
Called the Interstate-81 Coldwater Area Restoration Effort or 'I81 - CARE,' the campaign's goals are to reduce pollution and thus improve habitat for trout in the headwaters of five major rivers: Shenandoah, James, Roanoke, New, and Upper Tennessee. The Status and Threats report from the Eastern Brook Trout Joint Venture noted that the I - 81 corridor's streams once were prime habitat for brook trout, the state's fish, but that the land use practices of the 1900s caused the trout to retreat to the high mountain headwaters where they are only found today. I81 - CARE is the product of a series of stakeholder meetings begun in April, 2007. About the same time the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service transferred a full - time habitat specialist located in Wise, Va. to TU providing us with our first full-time position in the state. The employee, Ray Mullins, is focusing almost entirely on brook trout habitat.
Shenandoah Home Rivers Initiative
In addition, TU's Shenandoah Home Rivers Initiative is working for the restoration of brook and other trout species in the spring creeks and mountain headwaters. A new partnership with Orvis is developing a broad-scale conservation effort in the Roanoke River watershed and discussions are just beginning with Appalachian Power, a subsidiary of American Electric Power, concerning habitat restoration in the Virginia and West Virginia sections of the New River watershed.
For more information, click here.
Prioritizing Conservation Easements
VCTU sees conservation easements as the primary vehicle for ensuring long-term habitat health on private land. To that end, it is collaborating with the Virginia Outdoors Foundation (VOF) on the development of templates for conservation and recreational access easements.
Embrace-a-Stream
Embrace-A-Stream (EAS) is a matching grant program administered by the national office of TU that awards funds to TU chapters and councils for coldwater fisheries conservation. Since its inception in 1975, EAS has funded over 962 individual projects for a total of more than $3.8 million in direct cash grants. Local TU Chapters and Councils contributed an additional $12.5 million in cash and in-kind services.
For the 2011 funding cycle, TU chapters and councils are asked to submit proposals for projects that best address the needs of native and wild trout following TU’s Protect, Reconnect, Restore and Sustain conservation model. Click here to learn more about the application process.
For more information, click here.
Virginia Trout Stream Sensitivity Study
The VA Trout Stream Sensitivity Study (VTSSS), lead by scientists at the University of Virginia, is one of the most useful and fun things we do in TU. The purpose of the study is to track the level of pH in our streams. This is accomplished by periodic sampling of streams at designated sites. The first samplings were conducted more than 30 years ago, and TU volunteers and others have conducted followup samplings at the same sites every 10 years since. The last statewide sampling was in the spring of 2010.
To learn more about the longest-running acid rain study in the nation, visit http://swas.evsc.virginia.edu.
Marcellus shale exploration
The Marcellus shale is located in the Appalachian region of the US. It spans approximately 600 miles from the southern tier of New York through Pennsylvania and Ohio, and into West Virginia and parts of western Virginia. It is estimated to cover about 54,000 square miles, and it coincides with the location of many wild trout streams.
Exploration of natural gas deposits in Marcellus shale has the potential to cause serious negative impacts to coldwater streams and everything dependent upon them. Click here to learn more about how TU is tracking Marcellus shale development.
Click here to download a fact sheet published by the Virginia Chapter of the American Fisheries Society.