League Member Les Monostory a National Finalist for Field & Stream's Heroes of Conservation (9/29/10)
GAITHERSBURG,
Maryland – Izaak Walton League member Les
Monostory (Fayetteville, New York) is one of
the six national finalists for Field &
Stream’s Heroes of Conservation Award.
Monostory will be honored on October 6 when
Field & Stream hosts its fifth
annual Heroes of Conservation Awards gala in
Washington, D.C.
Field &
Stream created this national program in
2005 to recognize sportsmen and women dedicated
to conserving fish, wildlife, and habitat. The
magazine has profiled the conservation efforts
of more than 50 men and women from across the
nation since introducing the Heroes of
Conservation program.
Les
Monostory has been working to reclaim New
York’s Onondaga watershed for more than 40
years. “I started fishing when I was 9 years
old and I never lost my interest and excitement
in fishing,” Monostory recalls. “That’s
part of what got me involved in protecting and
preserving streams and lakes.”
Located near Syracuse, New York
– a hub of chemical plants during the
industrial revolution – Onondaga Lake was
labeled one of the country’s most polluted
lakes in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. “When I got
involved with the lake cleanup, the lake was
off limits to fishing and boating,” Monostory
reports. “For years it had been used as a
dump for municipal and industrial waste.”
Monostory devoted himself to ridding Onondaga
Lake of industrial pollution. As part of that
effort, he helped create Project Watershed,
which engages students of all ages in cleaning
up local waterways and monitoring water
quality. Monostory and other project volunteers
are educating tomorrow’s conservation leaders
and working with them to solve today’s
conservation problems.
In 1991,
Les Monostory and fellow Izaak Walton League
members began monitoring the water quality in
Beartrap Creek – a tributary of Onondaga
Lake. When they documented a sharp decline in
the creek’s water quality, they alerted local
authorities. State scientists confirmed the
problem: The water was contaminated with large
quantities of ethylene glycol, an airplane
deicer. The chemical was traced to Syracuse’s
Hancock International Airport. Thanks to the
volunteers’ monitoring data and advocacy
efforts, the airport agreed to build a deicer
reclamation and treatment facility. This is
just one of the many small victories that have
brought Lake Onondaga back from the dead. By
2008, the Project Watershed stream survey team
found a significant concentration of crayfish
and darter minnows near the restored areas on
Beartrap Creek – an indication that
restoration efforts were improving water
quality.
“Undoing more than a
century’s worth of municipal and industrial
contamination is not an easy process,” says
Monostory. But that hasn’t kept him from
trying. According to one Project Watershed
volunteer, “The real legacy that Les leaves
behind isn’t the cleaner creek. It’s the
knowledge he gives to us and the dedication to
use it.”
“I'm certainly
honored to be nominated for the Field &
Stream Heroes of Conservation Award,”
Les Monostory says. “I'm also proud of the
accomplishments of the Izaak Walton League’s
Central New York Chapter and my fellow Ikes
that led to my nomination. If I'm a ‘hero,’
then we surely have a lot of them within the
Izaak Walton League!”
Watch
Field & Stream interviews with Les
Monostory and Project Watershed volunteers on
the Heroes of Conservation Web page at www.fieldandstreamextras.com/heroes/videos.php
(scroll down to click on Episodes 3 and 4).
Read the full story of Project Watershed’s
founding and successes at www.iwla.org/projectwatershed.pdf.
###
Founded in
1922, the Izaak Walton League of America
(www.iwla.org)
protects America's outdoors through education,
community-based conservation and promoting
outdoor recreation.
For more information and to
schedule an interview with Les Monostory,
please contact:
Dawn Merritt, Izaak Walton
League of America
(301) 548-0150 x 220
dmerritt@iwla.org