The Healing Our Waters - Great Lakes Coalition are running a photo and writing contest about life along the Great Lakes. The prizes are monthly, so you have more than one chance to win.

The contest rules are not explicit what these folks will do with your story, but from the looks of their website, they’ll use it to persuade Congress to invest in steps to make sure that the Great Lakes are clean and healthy for future generations. What could be more important than that?

Here’s a second excerpt from Clean Ocean Action’s membership recruitment video, The Giving Ocean. It’s perhaps the most motivating description of polluted runoff that I have ever seen. The shot of the woman tossing her cigarette out the car window is classic. Viewers will get mad about that, and they’ll stay mad as they hear about things you really care about: Sediment and runoff from streets and parking lots.

Compare this clear, explicit, and compelling piece to the Lower Susquehanna Riverkeeper’s web video, Mud in the Run, on the same subject.

Very deft, Clean Ocean Action.

The Lower Susquehanna Riverkeeper is rightly concerned about polluted runoff from construction sites, but the keeper’s web video on the topic Mud in the Run, is going to leave a lot of viewers scratching their heads instead of demanding more stringent enforcement.

Of course it’s perfectly clear to you and me why the riverkeeper made this film and what’s he’s mad about. But here’s why it’s not clear outside of the college-educated green elite:

• Few ordinary citizens realize that mud (sediment) is a form of pollution that smothers stream habitat
• Shockingly large numbers see stormdrains on the side of the road and don’t realize they drain to the nearest creek. Most have simply never given this matter any thought at all.
• Probably only a few people living in the area even know that the creek he mentions — Codorus Creek — is a tributary to the Susquehanna River.

Add all that ignorance up, and here’s what you get: A video that has to explain too much and hits no emotional hot buttons. I suspect that most viewers will lose the thread and click away before the video is over, wondering why the riverkeeper is tromping around a muddy construction site with a video camera instead of cruising around in his boat doing his job.

This could be a perfectly fine video with some improvements to the narration. Here’s a nudge in the right direction:

Developers are accountable to Pennsylvania’s nature protection laws that require them to take steps to avoid polluting nearby streams or burying them in mud. But developers and other corporations have more than a legal responsibility, they have a moral responsibility to balance their profits with the needs of future generations and wildlife for clean water.

Compare this “muddy” messaging to Clean Ocean Action’s clear, compelling web video on the same subject.

My wife and I are spending the week in Reno, NV, with her dad who is pretty sick. On Saturday, we took him to see standup comedian Ron White, best known for his work in Jeff Foxworthy’s Blue Collar Comedy tour. Ron’s not exactly what you would call an outdoorsy guy, but he tells a funny tale about his first experience tubing that should evoke a familiar chuckle from you river rats out there.

Visit Ron White’s Official Website
Download this video from his website to your computer