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About Us
PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE
President’s Message May 2008
Throughout our forty-five year history, the Officers, Board of Directors and the membership of TGF have worked diligently at preserving and protecting the cold water habitat of trout in New York and surrounding states, while concentrating on the watershed of the Catskill Mountains. We have carried out our work overwhelmingly through the use of litigation and have been quite successful: protecting the Beaverkill from too many bridge crossings with the building of the new Route 17; stopping a pumped storage project of the Power Authority State of New York (PASNY) that would impact the Schoharie Reservoir with constant movement and suspension of turbidity and ultimately having that turbidity flow into the Esopus Creek; and very recently winning a case against the City of New York for pollution of the Esopus Creek. These are all major examples of litigation that TGF has been involved with. There have been many other legal issues that this organization has also taken part in.
TGF has also carried out physical restoration projects too. Although these were quite needed and important, they were not as major as the lawsuits both in money and time expended. For example, almost every year a group of TGF volunteers works to open up the mouths of a number of important spawning tributaries, usually on the Beaverkill River. We have also planted willows for river bank stabilization, built and repaired Project Access paths and undertaken stream clean-ups.
This year, the TGF Board has voted to carry out the largest hands-on project in its history on the Horse Brook, a major spawning tributary to the Beaverkill. This is also the largest financial undertaking involving a physical project in our forty-five year history. It is a new direction for TGF in the field of conservation and because of this, it is also a great challenge. You can read about this project, TGF BEAVERKILL RESTORATION, in this Quill.
The Board and I are very excited to take on this project, and particularly excited that with its completion we will restore a significant stretch of spawning habitat for trout in the Beaverkill Watershed. We look forward to your support for the restoration of Horse Brook as a spawning tributary.
Respectfully,
Bert Darrow, President
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