insert and photos © Robert A. Crimmins, Felton, Delaware, USA

Eleven “environmental indicators” are described in this sixteen page newspaper insert. These “indicators” are activities and conditions that illustrate whether or not the quality of the water in Delaware’s Inland Bays is improving. I came to put the isert together in a roundabout way. Our home is across the street from Killens Pond State Park in Felton, Delaware. I love the place so when John Tazelaar, a neighbor, contacted me and a few others to form a friends group for the park I joined. Our first president was Marvin Brown, my next door neighbor, and I was elected to the post the second year. One evening a young woman who worked for DNREC, the Delaware Natural Resources and Environmental Control agency, came to our meeting and asked if any of us would be interested in working on a “Tributary Action Team”. Once she explained what that was I decided to attend the meetings. Tributary Action Teams are a way to have people who live in a given area get involved with, and even write, pollution control strategies for their watershed. It turned out to be a difficult and time consuming but interesting activity. Soon I met other volunteers on other Delaware Trib Teams and professionals who were working on various pollution control and nature preservation projects. One of them was Ed Lewandowski with the Center For The Inland Bays, a well funded organization that studies and promotes the conservation and preservation of Delaware’s Inland Bays. Ed needed help writing and publishing the newspaper insert and hired me to do most of the writing and photography and all the design and layout.