BREWER, Maine — Disabled veterans in the recently formed Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing group spent time in uniform protecting their country, and last week got together to protect the waterways they fish.
Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing Inc. uses angling to get disabled veterans together for fly fishing activities, education and outings, said Jeff Spaulding of Orono, who started the group earlier this year. He said the goal is to help local veterans with their physical and emotional rehabilitation by providing them a fun, social activity that reconnects them with peers and the community.
He started the group “because I fly fish and it made a huge difference in my life,” Spaulding said. “Nothing makes you more calm than fishing. I thought it would make a difference in our lives and, so far, it has.”
The group volunteered last week to install catch basin markers in Brewer to educate people that dumping into the city’s stormwater system is actually dumping directly into the Penobscot River.
“We fish in the river and we want to make sure it stays clean,” said Spaulding, a disabled Marine Corps veteran who suffered a traumatic brain injury while serving with the 1st Battalion, 8th Marines. “Some of our veterans didn’t even know the stormwater drains into the river.”
Polluted stormwater runoff is the most significant source of water quality problems for Maine’s rivers, streams and lakes, and that is why Brewer does annual education, said Ken Locke, the city’s environmental services director.
“Each marker has the message ‘No Dumping-Drains to River’ with a picture of a fish in the middle of the marker,” Locke said.
The Bangor branch of Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing, in partnership with the Penobscot Fly Fishers, met for the first time on Jan. 20 at the VA outpatient clinic with eight veterans and eight volunteers in attendance. Spaulding started the group with the support of Steve Grant and Dean Williams. There are eight similar groups in New England, including one at the Veterans Affairs Togus Medical Center that partners with the Kennebec Valley Chapter of Trout Unlimited.
The Bangor group spent three hours on May 19 marking the stormwater drains in Brewer.
“It gave them a chance to get out in the community to help out with protecting the water,” Spaulding said. “They had a good time. Everybody laughed and joked around.”
The group meets at the Bangor VA Clinic 2-4 p.m. on the second and fourth Wednesdays of the month and has planned a fishing trip in Western Maine in June and a Moosehead Lake outing in July, said Spaulding.
Those interested in more information about Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing can contact Jeff Spaulding at jspaulding13@gmail.com or 802-598-4664.