Casperkill Watershed Oral History Project

The Casperkill Watershed Alliance on June 9, 2010

The Casperkill Watershed Alliance is a partnership between the Vassar Environmental Research Institute (ERI), Cornell Cooperative Extension Dutchess County (CCEDC) and Casperkill Watershed residents, civic officials, and other interested parties.  The alliance meets monthly and organizes various community watershed events such as streamside plantings, storm drain marking projects, creek cleanups, natural lawn care workshops, rain barrel workshops, bike rides, and more.

In the spring of 2006, student and faculty researchers from Vassar College’s Environmental Research Institute began monitoring the water quality of the Casperkill Watershed on a monthly basis.  After two years of conducting research on the health of the stream, researchers began to recognize that it was important to get information about these topics out to the general public.  After two public forums and feedback from a stakeholder survey, there was enough momentum to start a citizens group—the Casperkill Watershed Alliance (CWA)—in 2008.  The CWA is led by Vassar College’s ERI Collins Fellow; a position that changes every year and is filled by a recent Vassar graduate who majored in Environmental Studies or a related field.

This kind of relationship between an academic institution and the local watershed group is fairly unique, as most groups are affiliated with the local government.  And although there are many ways that a watershed group can be successful, this arrangement seems to be working well for both parties.  The CWA certainly benefits from having Vassar College as a parent institution: not only does this provide access to important contacts, but it also ensures that the CWA has a paid director—something that is becoming less and less common in these hard economic times.  To get a sense of how Vassar College benefits, Nadine and I spoke with Emily Vail, the current Collins Fellow, about why the creation of the CWA was so important for the Vassar College Environmental Research Institute. She emphasized that although Vassar researchers can conduct experiments and gather data to their heart’s content, it is ultimately community members who must “actually take steps to improve the water quality.”

Additionally, Vail discussed how leading the CWA has changed her own perception of watershed issues for the better.  “Looking at the creek as a researcher is completely different than looking at the creek as a citizen, or as a politician, or as a planner.  That’s one of the cool things about the Collins Fellow position.  At any one time you could be wearing all of these different hats.  It’s been a huge learning experience to know what motivates people.  Why do they care, why do they show up to this event, what can I teach them?  Maybe it’s just saying, ‘that drainage ditch is in fact the Casperkill creek.’”

Responding to citizen concerns has also led the ERI to take on science research projects that they might not have otherwise.  For example, Vail spent a summer doing research on bacteria in the creek.  “When you look at the stakeholder survey one of the things that people are most concerned about is sewage in the creek.  That’s something that community members really care about, but that’s something that’s not going to get published (because we already know the environmental consequences of high bacteria levels).  But in the Casperkill its important to know, OK, in this one location maybe someone has a leaky septic system because every time it rains it flushes something.  Or, maybe in this one section the city isn’t maintaining their sewer system properly; we should go in and check and make sure there isn’t a leak.  That has applications for municipalities, it has applications for landowners, but not in academic journals.”

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It is the small size of the watershed, combined with this emphasis on issues that are most important to homeowners—leaky septic tanks and erosion in particular—, that makes the Casperkill Watershed Alliance so distinctive among other watershed groups. Although the small size of the watershed makes it hard to get the word out that the Casperkill Watershed Alliance exists, it also gives the Alliance a very friendly, neighborhood feel.  According to Vail, many of the people who attend the meetings are “not your typical stream activist people…they don’t fit that stereotype.”  Instead, most of them are people worried about their property… They enjoy the ‘folksy,’ laid-back, social atmosphere of the meetings.”  This kind of atmosphere is even encapsulated in the Casperkill Mission Statement, which was decided on at a meeting last week: “The mission of the Casperkill Watershed Alliance is to promote awareness, foster appreciation, and work towards improving the ecological health of the watershed in our neighborhood.”

The Casperkill Watershed Alliance holds meetings and organizes events on a regular basis.  For Meeting Agendas, Minutes and Events, see the Casperkill Section of the dutchesswatersheds.org Community Forum.  To be added to the e-mail list or to attend a meeting, please contact Emily Vail at emvail@vassar.edu or Stuart Belli at belli@vassar.edu.