Rivers, Pollution and Sy Montgomery

• Rivers and surrounding lands are crucial habitats for plants and animals.
• Pollution can endanger wildlife and affect people using river water for drinking or recreation.
• Factories used to be a major source of river pollution.
• Laws passed in the 1970s led most factories to change waste elimination processes.
• Farm materials (fertilizer, animal waste) end up in rivers and lakes.
• Careless disposal of used car oil and paint into drains pollutes water.
• Urban runoff is rainwater flowing across human-made surfaces, picking up pollutants before entering rivers, lakes, and oceans.

Sy Montgomery: A Nature Writer

• Sy Montgomery is described as "part Indiana Jones and part Emily Dickinson”.
• She has been chased by a gorilla in Zaire, pursued by a tiger in India, and bitten by a vampire bat in Costa Rica while researching her stories
• Montgomery's award-winning books include "Journey of the Pink Dolphins" and "Search for the Golden Moon Bear".
• Sy Montgomery was born in 1958.

Literary Allusion

• Allusion is a reference to a character, place, or situation from history, music, art, or literature.
• Authors use allusions to advance a text's theme by making comparisons or describing something familiar.
• "The Eco-Canoeist” alludes to Clark Kent, a character from Superman comic books and movies.

Analysis of Author's Perspective

• An author's perspective is their unique way of viewing a subject.
• Authors can present the same subject from different perspectives.
• To understand an author's perspective, note how they present ideas and what they state directly versus imply.
• Concluding the author's perspective helps the reader think about why the author feels a certain way about a topic.
• To draw perspective conclusions, pay attention to the essay's thesis, word choice, purpose, and intended audience.

The Eco-Canoeist

• Dale Hatch has worked as a Jay Blanchard Park ranger in Orlando, Florida for 13 years.
• The park is gem-like with 412 acres, attracting 484,000 human visitors as well as diverse wildlife like herons and wood ducks.
• The tea-colored Econlohatchee River runs through the park.
• The health department advises against eating fish from the Little Econ due to mercury.
• There is mercury in Little Econ river.
• The Little Econ drains dozens of housing developments.
• Decade ago trash started disappearing from the water.
• Rangers found muddy garbage in park trash cans.
• A six-foot tall, muscular ex-Marine in fatigues was pulling the trash.
• The person recognized on the parks soccer field.

Steve Nordlinger: The Eco-Canoeist

• The ex-marine, Steve Nordlinger, is the Eco-Canoeist.
• Nordlinger spends his spare time cleaning Florida's waterways by hand.
• Sodden garbage is unwieldy and dangerous.
• Nordstrom removes refrigerators, car parts, wreckage, picnic tables, doghouses, and sofas.
• He removes ordinary rope that strangles manatees.
• He removes brittle, rusty cans, and the barbs of discarded fishing gear
• Conservatively he has removed 240 tons of fishing line from waterways.
• Nordlinger collects snails anchored inside the tin cans.
• Calls to mind Mother Teresa, Don Quixote and Superman.
• The work has attracted national radio, local press and county commissioner attention.
• Disney grant has recently provided three canoes bringing Steve's fleet to ten.
• Dedication of so large of a group of volunteers that there aren't enough canoes to hold them.