As a unique way to showcase a special theme for 2024, the Middle Susquehanna Riverkeeper Association ​is using the following poem to encourage people to use their various talents and abilities to give a voice to the vulnerable across the greater watershed.

It could be via poetry or artwork, anywhere from the classroom to the courtroom, the workplace to the home, everyone has a chance to make a difference in their own social circles.

Who speaks for the hellbender on the bed of the creek?

Unassuming, nocturnal, alone and unique

Lurking beneath boulders, a crayfish regulator.

And where present in our streams, a clean-water indicator.

And yet …

Because this native species breathes water through her skin

She absorbs all our pollutants, she’s highly sensitive

Our eroding streambanks entomb her in her lair

We devastate her habitat but no protection we declare?

We name her our state amphibian, put her on a license plate

But then protect, even promote, those that accelerate her fallen state?

Endangered? Threatened? It should be such a simple choice!

Together, we must give the vulnerable a voice.

Who speaks for the eagle perched high upon her nest?

Patriotic, majestic even on maternal house arrest

Rebounding as a species from near DDT deleting

A conservation success story that bears glorious repeating.

And yet …

Highways and housing projects threaten her habitat

Microplastic fibers spew out from the nearby laundromat

They and other pollutants lace the meat she feeds her family

We worked so hard to save her, then allow this new tragedy?

We should blacklist PFAS and other chemicals like we did DDT,

Instead, industry injects its cocktail in the ground and keeps the mix a mystery?

A dangerous double standard, so much it could destroy

Unless we all unite and give the vulnerable a voice.

Who speaks for the frog eggs in the Vernal pool?

Moments before they receive a tire tread tattoo?

Who speaks for the family fanning flames in their kitchen sink?

Methane flows from a faucet where once they took a drink!

Who speaks for the bass with blotchy skin?

With intersexed parts and a disrupted endocrine?

Who speaks for those near newly proposed plants

Built with no track record and less-than transparent plans?

Who speaks for those with orange water caused by AMD?

And heavy metals and sediment from our coal mine legacy?

Who speaks for those with poisoned groundwater?

With unfiltered wastewater?

With impaired freshwater?

With no water at all?

The riverkeeper, his staff, his board, his volunteers

And still, with such a huge watershed, a need for bigger cheers …

So, for the hellbender with habitat unbearable

For the family with water undrinkable

For the tiniest tadpole, blotchiest bass and earnest eagle

We must step up, as one, as the voice for the vulnerable.

Again, you can help use your talents to give a voice to the vulnerable … regardless if it is as a photographer or tech guru or attorney or just someone who wants to share links on social media or bring up the subject at the office water cooler or Scout troop meeting.

The Middle Susquehanna Riverkeeper Association serves an 11,000-square-mile watershed of the Susquehanna River, including Sullivan, Lycoming, Clinton, Union and Northumberland counties. Read more at www.middlesusquehannariverkeeper.org.