scholarly journals The Wild and Scenic Rivers Act at 50: Overlooked Watershed Protection

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael C. Blumm ◽  
Max Yoklic
Keyword(s):  
Watershed Protection ◽  
Wild And Scenic Rivers

scholarly journals The Wild and Scenic Rivers Act at 50: Overlooked Watershed Protection

2020 ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Michael Blumm ◽  
Max Yoklic
Keyword(s):  
Pollution Control ◽  
National Environmental Policy Act ◽  
Half Century ◽  
Federal Lands ◽  
Watershed Protection ◽  
Wild And Scenic Rivers ◽  
Wilderness Act ◽  
Restoration Potential ◽  
National Environmental ◽  
River Corridors

The Wild and Scenic Rivers Act (WSRA) marked its fiftieth anniversary in 2018 without much fanfare. The WSRA has been somewhat overshadowed by the Wilderness Act, which preceded it by four years, and by the National Environmental Policy Act and the pollution control statutes which followed in the 1970s. But the WSRA was a significant conservation achievement, has now extended its protections to over 200 rivers, and has the potential to provide watershed protection to many more in the future. This article explains the statute and its implementation over the last half-century as well as a number of challenges to fulfilling its laudable goals of protecting free-flowing rivers, their water quality, and their “outstandingly remarkable values.” We make a number of suggestions to the managing agencies and to Congress if the WSRA’s achievements over the next half-century are to match the last fifty years, including reviving congressional interest in study rivers, updating managing agencies’ river plans to focus on non-federal lands within river corridors, and ensuring that those river plans provide the watershed protection Congress envisioned when it included a significant amount of riparian land within WSRA river corridors. We also call for a new emphasis on rivers that should be studied for their restoration potential and for more states to take advantage of the statute’s unusual pathway for state-designated rivers to gain WSRA protections. A postscript briefly explains a recent congressional proposal to expand the WSRA system, and an appendix catalogues all 226 WSRA river segments designated during the statute’s first fifty years.

Water Quality Management – A Total Catchment Management Approach

1989 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 281-288 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. J. Hawkins ◽  
D. A. Geering
Keyword(s):  
Water Quality ◽  
Quality Management ◽  
Water Quality Management ◽  
Management Approach ◽  
Catchment Management ◽  
Know How ◽  
Wild And Scenic Rivers ◽  
Resource Managers ◽  
Resource Protection ◽  
Development Resource

Water quality standards set in the past have not helped resource managers in the decisions that they face in seeking sustainable development. Resource managers are looking for meaningful information on water quality so as to evaluate the resource, set priorities for action, and to monitor progress. Resource managers need to know how water quality affects, and is affected by, catchment uses and activities. Examples of three wild and scenic rivers, the Nymboida, Murrumbidgee, and Hawkesbury/Nepean River systems, demonstrate how a ‘Total Catchment Management' approach to resource use and resource protection has advantages for water quality management.

scholarly journals Picking Up Where the TMDL Leaves Off: Using the Partnership Wild and Scenic River Framework for Collaborative River Restoration

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 1878
Author(s):  
Alan R. Hunt ◽  
Meiyin Wu ◽  
Tsung-Ta David Hsu ◽  
Nancy Roberts-Lawler ◽  
Jessica Miller ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Water Quality ◽  
Environmental Protection Agency ◽  
Bacterial Contamination ◽  
Resource Constraints ◽  
Clean Water Act ◽  
The United States ◽  
Clean Water ◽  
Private Land ◽  
The Public ◽  
Wild And Scenic Rivers

The National Wild and Scenic Rivers Act protects less than ¼ of a percent of the United States’ river miles, focusing on free-flowing rivers of good water quality with outstandingly remarkable values for recreation, scenery, and other unique river attributes. It predates the enactment of the Clean Water Act, yet includes a clear anti-degradation principle, that pollution should be reduced and eliminated on designated rivers, in cooperation with the federal Environmental Protection Agency and state pollution control agencies. However, the federal Clean Water Act lacks a clear management framework for implementing restoration activities to reduce non-point source pollution, of which bacterial contamination impacts nearly 40% of the Wild and Scenic Rivers. A case study of the Musconetcong River, in rural mountainous New Jersey, indicates that the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act can be utilized to mobilize and align non-governmental, governmental, philanthropic, and private land-owner resources for restoring river water quality. For example, coordinated restoration efforts on one tributary reduced bacterial contamination by 95%, surpassing the TMDL goal of a 93% reduction. Stakeholder interviews and focus groups indicated widespread knowledge and motivation to improve water quality, but resource constraints limited the scale and scope of restoration efforts. The authors postulate that the Partnership framework, enabled in the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, facilitated neo-endogenous rural development through improving water quality for recreational usage, whereby bottom-up restoration activities were catalyzed via federal designation and resource provision. However, further efforts to address water quality via voluntary participatory frameworks were ultimately limited by the public sector’s inadequate funding and inaction with regard to water and wildlife resources in the public trust.

scholarly journals Collaborative governance and watershed management in biosphere reserves in Brazil and Canada

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Maria Inês Paes Ferreira ◽  
Pamela Shaw ◽  
Graham Kenneth Sakaki ◽  
Taylor Alexander ◽  
Jade Golzio Barqueta Donnini ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Collaborative Governance ◽  
Biosphere Reserves ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
Watershed Protection ◽  
Regulatory Frameworks ◽  
Watershed Governance ◽  
Methodological Approaches ◽  
Depth Interviews ◽  
Participatory Observation ◽  
Multiple Jurisdictions

Water management within vulnerable ecosystems managed by multiple jurisdictions can be very complex. This study compares regulatory environments and deconstructs the approaches used for watershed governance and environmental management inside two UNESCO’s Biosphere Reserves to identify possible transferability between the two management entities. Three methodological approaches were applied: participatory observation, in-depth interviews of key informants, and document research. We concluded that while there are differences between the regulatory frameworks and localized practices, at a foundational level the goals and desired outcomes relating to environmental protection are not dependent on location, but mainly on the integration and the establishment of common objectives among the diverse social actors involved in the management and from the interaction between different organisms of social control. Additionally, there are elements in the application of regulations and practices in both locales that could be transferred to other jurisdictions interested in addressing watershed protection in vulnerable ecosystems governed by multiple jurisdictions.

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