The Perkiomen Creek is the largest tributary of the Schuylkill River, which is itself the largest tributary of the Delaware River.

So a canoe and kayak sojourn down the Perkiomen is no small thing, especially when it occurs for the first time.

As someone who has participated in a sojourn (the 2000 Schuylkill River Sojourn to be specific) I can vouch for the value of taking the time and the trouble to take a little ride down a little river.

As I wrote in a short write-up that will appear in The Mercury shortly, there is no better way to get to know a stream than from the stream's persepctive.

A recent documentary on PBS quoted an activist concerned about pollution in the ocean as saying, "the ocean is downhill from everything."

This same theory applies to our rivers and streams.

And perhaps few streams in our area are currently struggling to handle as much "up-hill" run-off as the Perkiomen, now at the heart of the once the fastest developing regions in THE fastest developing counties in Pennsylvania.

Even in this lagging market, housing construction continues on property in the Perkiomen's watershed that was once fields and woods, no doubt soon to be named after the natural resource it destroys.

One of the most remarkable aspects of my experience on the Schuylkill River Sojourn was how amazed everyone was, myself included, how pristine the river seems when seen from its surface -- even in urban areas like in Norristown.

And this for a river that was once so polluted, it became the subject of the first major environmental clean-up in the country.

I can only imagine how lush and verdant the Perkiomen will look from the water. I suggest all of you with the time and the $65 to spend take the Perkiomen Watershed Conservancy up on its offer.

To register for the sojourn, which is sponsored by the law firm of Keenan, Ciccitto & Assoc., call 610-287-9383, or visit their Web site at www.perkiomenwatershed.org

All eyes will be on Pennsylvania this Tuesday when the once irelevant Pennsylvania primary becomes the election that may make or break Sen. Hillary Clinton's bid for the Democratic presidential nomination; or, depending on your preferences, confirms or prolongs Sen. Barack Obama's unexpected race to the nomination.

But lost in all this hype is the ironic coincidence that Tuesday is also Earth Day, once a grassroots recognition of the infant environmental movement and now a corporate product-fest in which every polluter from Exxon to Exelon makes its annual pitch to convince you how "green" they truly are.

But perhaps this harmonic convergence offers us an opportunity.

Why not take this time to assess how green each of the three remaining presidential canidates truly is?

I'd like to take credit for this idea, but Newsweek beat me by about, what else?, a week.

So forgive me if I forgo re-inventing the wheel here and simply regurgitate some of their reporting for those of you who may have missed last week's issue.

Perhaps one of the most important aspects of this issue is how much more important this issue has become to voters.
Thanks the success of the insidious media conspiracy to hype the threat of global warming (with a little help from the overwhelming majority of the scientific community), the environment, and global warming in particular, has moved up the list of things voters find important in a candidate.

The most amazing thing about this is how successful the media conspiracy is. Newsweek tells us (if they are to be believed) that of the 3,231 questions asked by the leading political reporters of the five major networks during the 14 zillion televised debates, exactly eight related to global warming.

Those must have been some eight questions!

In 2005, only 11 percent of voters told a Zogby poll they took a presidential canidate's environmental credentials into account when choosing a candidate. By last year, it had jumped to 33 percent.

Anyhoo, despite the Bush administration's assault on just about every environmental regulations on the books -- from clean water, to clean air to endangered species to endangered habitat -- the environmental debate in this year's election will focus on one major issue: energy.

This is appropriate because it now touches on so many other aspects of American life and politics.

Beyond the most glaring connection -- that between global warming and the carbon created by our glutonous use of energy -- energy is now also a national security issue.

Until we can power our economy with power generated right here in the good old U.S. of A., we will continue to find ourselves entangled in the tribal and religious politics of the Middle East, something we neither understand, nor have the capacity or patience to understand.

And since we can't drill our way to independence (nor should we want to) that means an Apollo program for alternative fuel technology is our best chance for maintaining our standard of living.

Which brings us back to the Oval Office applicants.

Newsweek assembled one of those nifty graphics which helps us seem to understand the candidates' positions without needing to look for depth or shades of grey.

Stay with me while I crib shamelessly from it:

1) On "Greenhouse Gas Emissions," both Democrats hold the same position -- a cap-and-trade system to cut CO2 emissions to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the Republican candidate, supports a similar system, but one driven by the market and he has not come out in support of mandatory caps.

2) On "Fuel-Efficiency Standards," both Democrats again support increasing the standard above 50 miles per hour by 2026, while McCain favors improved mileage, but hasn't set a specific goal or target date.

3) In the "Renewable Energy" arena (in my opinion, the most important), both Democrats have identical positions -- 25 percent of the nation's electricity generated by renewable sources by 2025. McCain, again is generally in favor but offers no specifics.

4) "Biofuels," perhaps the biggest scam to hit the public spectrum since the pet rock, has nevertheless attracted identical positions from both Democrats -- 60 billion gallons in the fuel supply by 2025. McCain, (have you guessed yet?) favors them, but offers no specifics and opposes government subsidies to develop them.

5) "Coal" is perhaps the most politically sensitive subject for an Earth Day primary in Pennsylvania, but here goes -- say it along with me, both Democrats support coal liquification if it emits 20 percent less carbon than the gasoline we use today. McCain on the other hand, do I need to say it?, favors the process but has not articulated a position.

6) As for "Nuclear Energy," a subject of some interest to those of us who count the Limerick nuclear towers as part of our permanent landscape, there is finally some difference. Clinton calls herself "agnostic" about nuclear power because of the problems getting rid of its waste. Obama calls nuclear power "not optimal," but recognizes it as an existing energy source that should be utilized. McCain is a strong proponent of nuclear power, arguing it keeps greenhouse emissions down and promotes energy independence.

So there you have it folks, for those of you who had the energy to plow through all this, you now know before you vote that Clinton and Obama are essentially identical on the energy front and that McCain, who has made some impressive but ineffectual environmental votes in the past, looks with nonspecific favor on a number of clean energy initiatives.

Whatever you decide, please vote.

Pennsylvania is perhaps more relevant than it has ever been to America's electoral portrait this year and that's nothing to be bitter about.

I suppose you are all very tired of reading introductions in which the novice blogger professes to have never blogged before, but this being the truth, I suppose it can't be helped. So this is one of those introductions.
But there, we've dispnesed with that, so let us get on with the business at hand.
My name is Evan Brandt and I have been a reporter at The Mercury newspaper here in Pottstown, PA for more than 10 years now.
Having lived in the environment all my life, I have been a fan of it even longer than that.
As such, I have watched with dismay during most of my lifetime, mankind's speedy unraveling of the systems nature put in place to make this a planet capable of sustaining the life upon it -- ours in particular.
It is within the last two or three generations after all that we finally passed the tipping point (to use a phrase popular with pundits these days) into an era in which we are using resources faster than they can be replenished.
Two generations ago, would anyone have believed that we could actually deplete all the fish in the ocean?
It is now a question of when, not if.
Two generations ago, would anyone have believed that we would release so many noxious chemicals into the environment that their traces can now be found in blood samples of every human?
Two generations ago, would any American have believed that a land built on the tradition of an endless frontier would seek to satisfy its teeming population's yen for their own little corner of heaven by consuming -- as The Philadelphia Inquirer so succintly put it a few years ago -- "An Acre an Hour" of land?
If all politics is local, so too are all environmental issues and thus, all environmental reporting is local.
All things are entertwined and interrelated in the environment and so it is with environmental reporting.
A federal court case in Georgia declares as dangerous sewage sludge spread on a farm field? We do that here too.
Canada declares the chemical Bisphenol A dangerous? That chemical is found in half a dozen products at the local Giant.
That is way we have always tried to cover the environment at The Mercury, and the fair share of awards we've won along the way testifies to the boast that we know a thing or two about how to do it.
But space is limited in a newspaper, but the space on the Internet is limited only by the size of your server and this one isn't ours so .... expect to see a lot of extras.
Being new to blogging, as I noted above, we're starting slow, with this first, super-secret post, which we will re-tread in the newspaper on Earth Day for our big, splashy grand opening.
Expect to see technical difficulties by the score, and periods during which it seems I've fallen off the end of the earth and taken my blog with me.
We run with a slim crew at The Mercury and finding the time to post can be difficult on days filled with car crashes and misbehaving school board members.
Our goal here is to create a place where your desire for all things green -- from tips on which cleaner is more earth-friendly to which local streams are being threatened.
We will also be reaching out to the many local and state-wide organizations we know that are experts in everything from green gardening to sustainable communities in the hopes that they will share their expertise with us and, thus, with you.
To keep in touch with the wider world out there, it is my goal to post a link every day to a major environmental story somewhere in the world that might be of some interest to readers in the TriCounty area.
Some days, without a doubt, I will fail to do so, but keep checking back.
And write in.
Suggestions, criticisms, praise all are welcome here (some more than others obviously).
So long we we can keep it clean (no pun intended) all comments and replies will be immediately posted. If people start to misbehave, we'll have to revisit that promise.
That's about it for the first post.
Sorry if it's too long, but then anyone who reads me regularly knows I tend to get a little wordy.
But hey, there's a lot to say about the environment.
After all, it's the whole world.