Representatives from the National Fish and Wildlife Service visited Dartmouth earlier this month to present their proposal for a new comprehensive fish and wildlife refuge on the Connecticut River and to seek help from students in environmental studies classes.
Larry Bandelin, a biologist; Norman Olson, a landscape architect; and Beth Goettel, a wildlife biologist, presented the Connecticut River Planning Project to students in Environmental Studies 50 and 73.
Students taking Environmental Studies 50, "Environmental Policy Formation," may be able to help in the establishment of the proposed refuge by collecting data, said Environmental Studies Professor Doug Bolger, who teaches the class this term.
The general topic for the course is defined by the professor, but the agenda is shaped by the interests of the enrolled students, Bolger said.
The Fish and Wildlife Service has been conducting an extensive public outreach project to share its plan with inhabitants of the Connecticut River basin and involve them in the process. The basin extends along New England's longest river, down the border of New Hampshire and Vermont, through Massachusetts and down to the Long Island Sound.
The brief stop at Dartmouth marked the service's 111th presentation. "We probably will do at least a hundred more before we're done," Olson said.
Though they have already collected important information about dozens of plant and wildlife species, Bandelin said they still need more data to complete their task.
"In this project, the philosophy of public outreach is more important than anything else," Bandelin said. "One of our failings is that we lacked a staff to do other important things. We had to prioritize."
Olson said he hopes this project will provide a model for the future of the 90 million acre National Wildlife Refuge system. "But there's no way we can do it alone," Olson warns. "The only way we can conduct this plan is with cooperation from all parties."
Goettel said she thinks students taking the Environmental Studies 50 class could provide valuable assistance by collecting data that representatives from the Fish and Wildlife Service could then process.
The project is a result of the Silvio Conte Act of 1991, which authorizes the Fish and Wildlife Service to look into creating a fish and wildlife refuge within the 11,000 square mile drainage basin of the Connecticut River.
The act is named for the late Massachusetts senator, a long-time proponent of other conservation legislation.
Bandelin said the project will have no immediate implications for people living within the proposed refuge, but that he foresees positive changes for the residents along the river in the future. "People tend to gravitate to natural areas," Bandelin said. "Refuges attract people."
He said he envisions no problems with residents' recreational use of the river in the future "as long as they are consistent with the purposes of the refuge."
"As for Dartmouth students," he joked, "we'd have to cut down on the noise pollution from those oars hitting the water down there."
