Finger Lakes Group
Winter 2007 Newsletter
8th Annual Chemung River Float
by Kevin Hurley
The Chemung Basin River Trail Parnership's (CBRTP) 8th Annual River Float drew over a hundred participants. Just after 9am, on the Wood Road launch in Campbell, NY, over thirty boats hit the water for a ten mile, day long, all-you-could eat, journey down the Chemung. Well, not really "All-you-can-eat", but lunch was included!
The purpose of the float was to involve private citizens, groups, government agencies, and educators in an event that brings attention to the river, its tributaries, and the watershed. What a success it was!
The Sierra Club participated by distributing water-test kits and teaching participants how to both test the water and interpret the results.
Do you remember the "Must be this tall to ride" sign that cramped your style at the fair when you were ten? Or when you were fifteen, not knowing the clutch from the brake, but already having your new silver Ford Thunder bird picked out? Perhaps last June you wanted to jump into a canoe for the 8th Annual Float but you've never paddled a day in your life. Well, no problem: CBRTP put those participants with a "less than comfortable" level of experience into a canoe with more experienced individuals (the paddling work was still split 50/50). Not only did the event encourage those of us with no experience to attend, but also provided canoes for those of use without! Oh, and did I mention: Lunch was included?
Alright, here's my point: It's about the first-timers! By making an educational event like this all-inclusive, we're doing more than just preaching to the choir: We're involving newbies in a live situation that impresses upon them the importance of our resources by including them in the event. They experience, perhaps for the first time, the beauty of our natural environment from the river's vantage point, not the Bridge Street Bridge. They engage slow waters with effort, and fast waters with caution and adrenalin. They see wildlife from closer than ever before, and explore small over-grown lagoons from within their boats. The entire day becomes an eye opening experience full of new people, new ideas, and new scenery.
Undoubtedly, they also find themselves face-to-face with some of man's ability to destroy his natural environment. Who doesn't remember having seen old car tires dumped in a shallow inlet or a plastic Walmart bag with trash still in it wrapped around some brush poking up from a quickly moving stream?
For our first-timers, they get the full experience - the good, the bad, and the ugly.
I'm no expert on environmental policy. I work in communications. We all know advertising is nothing more than developing and distributing a clear and persuasive message to it's target audience. By that standard I believe that Jennifer Fais, Noel Sylvester, and all the organizers at the Chemung Basin River Trail Partnership are some of the environment's best ad agents! No television commercial, newsprint photograph, or billboard could ever rival the persuasive power of the real thing. Millions of dollars could be spent on the airing of a commercial with plastic bags stuck in a river, but a few hundred will buy a canoe and let the fresh minds see it for themselves, while enjoying an included lunch!
Congratulations to Ms. Fais, Mr Sylvester, and The Southern Tier Central Regional Planning and Development Board for their orchestration of a very real approach to very really improving our environment!