Pollution story in pictures

Nature photographers will fan out across Pennsylvania and the other Chesapeake Bay states in August to document water quality problems along the watershed.

Nature photographers will fan out across Pennsylvania and the other Chesapeake Bay states in August to document water quality problems along the watershed.

The effort is called a RAVE — a Rapid Assessment Visual Expedition. It’s a political tool to push for change.

Kelly Donaldson is a spokeswoman for The Chesapeake Bay Foundation. Her group wants federal money to support tougher clean water rules, and supports the Chesapeake Clean Water Act. She’s hoping the pictures will speak as loud as the group’s lobbying efforts.

Donaldson: We visited the Wyoming Valley, we were up in Wilkes Barre, we were experiencing the impact of historical coal mining and what that has done to thousands of miles of streams in Pennsylvania.

Conservation photographers will follow the Susquehanna River and kayak near Harrisburg to show how storm water and agricultural pollution eventually flow to the Chesapeake.

Justin Black leads the International League of Conservation Photographers.

He says Pennsylvania’s rivers and streams are part of the Bay’s ecosystem.

Black: It’s not just a matter of protecting the Bay within its boundaries it’s about protecting the watershed and there’s a whole range of impacts that play into the health of the Bay, it supports a massive a economy in terms of fisheries and tourism.

Black says a similar photo project helped halt mining in the Flathead Valley of British Columbia, Canada.

The Pennsylvania photographs – and others from Bay states — will be on display in Washington in September. The photographers are volunteering their time, funding for the project comes from The Chesapeake Bay Foundation.