A county-community partnership

Laurie Seeman, Nisan Banin and Joanna Dickey look for juvenile eels at the neck of the fyke net at Minisceongo Creek in West Haverstraw. Photo courtesy Laurie Seeman

The Rockland County outpost of the American Eel project was the brainchild of NYS DEC’s Chris Bowser and two founding members of the SCWA. Laurie Seeman and Joanna Dickey (whose Strawtown Studio is a sponsor of this column) were attending a DEC educational event in 2009 when Bowser pulled them aside to pitch his project and the need for a site in Rockland.

What started as a short test in the Minisceongo Creek (on the grounds of the NRG-Bowline power plant in West Haverstraw, with their full cooperation) has become a long-term community science project. “Parents and their children have been coming back year after year,” said Seeman. “It’s exciting that families can do citizen science together here in Rockland. Click here to read the full article in Nyack News&VIews