"I can't believe that you guys can fall for it." Fall for what, exactly? Using current state-of-the-science methods, they basically did a biological census. The EPA's study is based on the overall health of the entire aquatic community - NOT the health of a few choice fish species and CERTAINLY NOT bird populations. Based on your statements, you appear to be as adept at being a field biologist as I am at knitting. If you actually looked at the study, you'd realize that their ratings are "based on a robust, commonly used index that combines different measures of the condition of aquatic benthic macroinvertebrates."

It is far and away the most common method used to determine whether a stream is impacted. You look at the number of species present - the more diversity (i.e. more species present), the better the water quality. If there's not enough oxygen in the water, oxygen-sensitive species will be absent. If there's too much metal contamination, metal-sensitive species will be absent. Based on those measurements - which have absolutely nothing to do with fish eating birds or trophy fish potential - they rate the waterways.

Can you please explain how the presence of a few trophy sized fish or bald eagle or osprey is better evidence of overall waterway health than looking at the entire community? What you're arguing is the same as a doctor concluding that you are cancer free and at low risk of heart disease after only taking your temperature. It makes no sense

And therein lies the problem, as illustrated by lab's Obama/2a comment. When backed into a corner with little left to say with any sort of merit, your true colors
show.

Some people just can't separate conservation issues from party politics. This article has nothing to do with the President or the 2nd Amendment. It couldn't be more obvious that your repeated dismissals of environmental concerns are politically-motivated and based on partisanship, not science or reality.

Any genuine concern you have for our natural resources takes a back seat to your political convictions. And if you feel threatened or you see an opportunity to advance your political agenda, you share your misleading and worthless insight, like many others do on this blog.

In your very narrow mind, an attack on the EPA is an attack against the Democratic Party. Environmental advocacy and the protection of our natural resources empowers liberals. Denying and stonewalling science advances the GOP. No matter what the issue is; it's deeply rooted in partisanship. Pick your issue: fossil fuel subsidies, energy development, emission standards, privatization of public resources, renewable energy, climate change, Clean Water Act and so on. We already know where you stand and why. You live in a sad world.

What am I being ignorant about? The correct method was used. The study was appropriate. The findings are only absurd and incorrect if you cherry pick the results you want and ignore most of it, which is exactly what you're doing. That's not how real science is done. It's not what they did in this study.

Let me remind you that you've never answered any of my legitimate questions.

Pardon my "youthful ignorance", but it seems as if you're a biologist, you've got no experience with anything other than bald eagles and osprey. The quote "if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail" seems to fit your mentality.

All I see is more and more bubbly green algae in what used to be clear water streams, springs, and lakes. Miles from ag runoff and other sources of nutrient pollution. Where on earth is that coming from? The air?
This is in country north of the Adirondack park.

What is a better indicator of the health of a waterway - an organism who does not live in the water but who gets a portion of its diet from fish or looking at the actual inhabitants that live within that water?

HINT: Bald eagles regularly nest near Grand Lake St. Mary's in western Ohio. If that's not an example of poor water quality, I don't know what is.

Again, have you ever heard of an index of biological index?

"Was I around in the early 70's?" Nope, wasn't even born.

"Why did bald eagles hold on in the Rocky Mtn States and Ak, and Northwestern Canada?" Because they never sprayed DDT there as much as everywhere else!

"DDT was present, penguins in Antarctica had a dose as DDT was distributed world wide by the atmosphere."

Via global distillation, DDT and other Persistent Organic Pollutants accumulate in the poles. This is why we have PCB and Mercury issues more in the poles than near the equator.

"This study divides the US into thirds. This EPA study claims only 17% of eastern highlands as good, and 16% of plains. 42% of the west makes the grade. This study came to an absurd conclusion."

If you read through the rest of the report, you'll see it further broken down to much smaller, local areas. It breaks it down into the types of pollution seen in various areas. Given what they were trying to do, they did a pretty fair job I think.

"They did a biological census, and they did a damn poor job of it."

What was so poor about it?? They used the most appropriate methods possible, within their budget.

Your reply is about what I expected. You didn't answer the question and you did make an azz of yourself.
.
No, you're not a wildlife biologist, never were one. Yer a tv cowboy with no hat.

Labradoodle: Until you back that card you played about being a professional biologist, by stating your name, your degree, and whom your employer was, you have nothing. You don't even have at this point the leeway of presumptive reasonable knowledge.

"Field & Stream, do tell: you seem not to like drilling for oil, given the impact that has on hunting land, and fishing water."

Field and Stream is dedicated to hunting, fishing, and the outdoors. If you think natural resource extraction doesn't impact our hunting, fishing, and outdoor recreation, I'd invite you to come to my most cherished hunting location in southeastern Ohio. The exact location where I shot my first deer from a treestand is gone. My dad watched me shoot it with a bow from another tree about 70 yards away. Imagine our surprise when two seasons later, we showed up on a dark morning in early November and the entire hill was literally gone. The entire hill has been removed and quarried out for coal and will never be the same.

The Deepwater horizon oil spill most assuredly affected fishing in the Gulf. Countless prairie potholes marshes and CRP land have recently been plowed under to grow more crops, and that has reduced the habitat for ducks. Natural gas extraction is negatively affecting mule deer populations and habitat in the West.

Field and Stream most certainly has an agenda, and it is similar to those of Ducks Unlimited, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, and Trout Unlimited. F&S is not an oil and gas company, a firearms manufacturer, nor is job creation its focus. It's dedicated to preserving our outdoors heritage. As such, issues affecting outdoors recreation are important and SHOULD be an important focus of the magazine. Oftentimes that butts heads with economic development. You can't always have both.

If the game populations dwindle due to habitat loss, hunters and fishermen and women will find other forms of recreation. As soon as that happens, groups like PETA will achieve their goal of outlawing the "blood sports".

"The recovery of the bald eagle is due to the recovery of the rivers, streams and lakes of North America."

The overwhelming reason bald eagles in the lower 48 were endangered is due to DDT - that's it. You're basing your entire claim about waterways being fine, due to one chemical? Also, Carp aren't high in PCBs or Mercury due to their low trophic level. In regards to bald eagles, the invasive Carp has been great for them.

Being a "field biologist", surely you've heard of an index of biological integrity?

Hermit crab & Rock Rat, that isn't a cop out Big Ag is by far the largest polluter in the USA. Read this.

www.westernwatersheds.org/watmess/watmess_2002/2002html_summer/article6....

What exactly did you do as a wildlife biologist?

I've used birds as indicator species multiple times in various ecological assessments before, but they're not appropriate for this kind of task. The word "bird" is mentioned exactly two times in the 140 page document this blog post was written about. Neither "eagle", "peregrine" nor "osprey" were mentioned once.

Here's a few quotes from EPA's Monitoring and Assessment website on using Birds as indicator species:

"The effects of [nutrient] enrichment on overall community structure of birds are poorly documented in wetlands, and indicator assemblages of "most sensitive species" remain mostly speculative for this stressor."

"...the effects of pesticides, heavy metals, and other contaminants on overall structure of wetland bird communities are poorly documented in wetlands, and indicator assemblages of "most sensitive species" remain mostly speculative for these stressors"

"Wetland bird species that prefer soft-bottomed wetlands can be defined, but probably with insufficient precision to warrant their use as indicators of excessive sedimentation."

Let me dumb that down for you Labbie: Birds MAY be used, but they are a poor indicator of nutrient enrichment, pesticides, heavy metals, other contaminants, and sedimentation.

I guess the joke's on me. You know what they say about arguing with an idiot, they'll bring you down to their level and beat you with their 30 years worth of armchair biologist experience.

Seeing as how this can o' worms is mostly empty now, let me throw another log onto the fire:

Saying water quality is good because bald eagles are present is about as appropriate as saying wolves are bad for the environment because they decrease elk populations.

labrador12,
How many Eagles and Ospreys were in the area when the Cuyahoga river caught fire spurring the creation of our EPA?
You're a one trick pony, go count some birds.

there is no way labrador is a biologist.

+1 to realgoodman. the fact of the matter is that many people have been brainwashed by party politics

Dcast - I agree with you 100% about agriculture. It is harder to pinpoint problems due to the relatively non-point source nature of agriculture, but realistically that's a cop out. Grand Lake St. Mary's in your neck of the woods is certainly a prime example of it.

Jay - with a few important local exceptions, nation-wide, you're right on the money.

Sorry to say, from past experience lab is a one trick pony. Birds, birds, birds, seems like that's his only measuring stick.
Another flat earther.

And do we think that the EPA is not a "green" group? And do we think they do not have a political agenda? Don't be silly. Field & Stream, do tell: you seem not to like drilling for oil, given the impact that has on hunting land, and fishing water. And based on a March 13 article, "Biofuel Growth is Decimating Wildlife Habitat in Corn Belt", not a big fan of alternate energy sources either. Now, Big Ag is once again painted as Evil in this article.

Ironic, since I suspect a significant percentage of the Field & Stream readership consumes an above-average share of fossil fuels, given ownership of sport utility vehicles (see F&S's review of the 2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee on 3/25) and boats. (This comment box in which I'm typing is immediately below an ad for Toyota Tundra, so I suspect the auto manufacturers have figured that out too).

Please, if you'd like to continue to opine on environmental issues this way, be consistent, and start sharing articles on riding bikes to work, and how to grow gardens. To not do that is to join the loathesome ranks of our politicians (on both sides), who ignore the difficult choices needing to be made.

As a former field biologist that travels from NY to Ak on a fairly regular basis by road, 24 trips since 1970, I doubt this data. There is no way on God's green earth that that % of our waterways could be that polluted and maintain the bald eagle and osprey population that we currently have. No way. The EPA is fabricating evidence for political reasons. Anyone with the ability to reason and observe can refute this data. Field and Stream should be on the side of objective reality not in the pocket of big government and the hugely profitable special interests in the green movement.

DDT was one of many chemicals that was responsible for the loss of bald eagles, osprey and peregrines. Water clarity is another huge and I believe underappreciated factor. Bald eagles haven't been this plentiful in much of the country since the early 1800s. The increase in water clarity since the passage of the clean water act in the 70s is remarkable. In Alberta the primary food fish for Bald eagles during the nesting season in the Oil Sands area during the mid 1970s was northern pike.

So the reader photos which show fish are fake? The articles in the mag and website which talk about fishing around the country are fake? Is Lake Erie dead? The study doesn't say that conditions for trophy fish are not ideal in 55% of the streams and rivers in the country. The study claims that conditions for aquatic life are poor for 55% of streams and rivers. Government experts warn you about the dangers of weapons of war on our streets too. This study is aimed at the people who think food comes from grocery stores. I can't believe that you guys can fall for it.

Interesting. When checking the EPA site their assessment includes birds in the list of biological indicators, who knew eh hermit? Just because a bird like the osprey has a diet that is composed of up to 99% fish is no reason to consider them part a aquatic habitat eh Mikey? I post about birds in the environment because that is my area of expertise. Osprey are native to North America as are peregrines, in case some readers might be ignorant of which species are or are not native.

I doubt that any 50 year period of Field and Streams existence has seen the increase in the quality of the environment in North America as the last 50 years. Increases in the population and distribution of whitetail deer, wild turkeys, Canadian geese, pacific salmon and steelhead transplants to the east, to name a few of our successes, have been successful in making the outdoor experience of today richer and more rewarding than that of the middle of the last century. The reforestation of the east, the increase in water clarity, and a new appreciation of the outdoors has lead to a new outdoor ethic more widely shared than ever. Hawks and eagles aren't routinely shot as competitors and pests. Oil spills are news instead of routine facts of life. I think that it would be appropriate for F&S to report on the recovery of some of the ecosystems that we have seen. I look at the readers photos and can't help thinking that there is good news on the environmental front as well as possible battles to be fought.

"Driving between Syracuse NY and Oberlin using the interstate highways" excuse the typo.

Well little Mikey, do you see evidence that 55% of the US has "poor conditions for aquatic life". Remember, peregrines are native and pigeons are not.

ditto that labrador

Hermit I suspected that your ignorance was rooted in your youth. I suspect that biology professors that you might have had didn't even mention the role of an indicator species like the bald eagle because of its scarcity in the lower 48 for more than a half century. My father was born in 1920 and was a hunter, a trapper, and a fisherman. I asked him about bald eagles and he claimed that they were a uncommon bird. He further remarked that people would not even see one every year. No one noticed when they became extinct because of there rarity. Today that is not the case. I just returned from a 4 mile walk down the road by my farm during which I observed a pair of adult eagles copulating in a dead tree standing in a still frozen large beaver pond. Bald eagles, because of their nesting biology, their preponderance of aquatic food sources as their diet, particularly during the nestling phase, and there size and distinctiveness make them a quick and easy indicator of watershed quality. Increasing populations of bald eagles and osprey indicate a healthy watershed, decreasing populations the reverse. If a more in depth sampling indicates that the relationship isn't holding than you might want to check your sampling methodology.