Shantel Neptune DeMerchant – We Are River People

She lived her early years in Green Bay, Wisconsin, near the Fox River, with her mother Servilla Van Dyke, a member of the Oneida tribe. She spent summers at Indian Island with her father, John Neptune, a member of the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy tribes.  She has fond memories of canoeing and fishing along the Penobscot River with her dad. He loves the outdoors and works with tribal youth through the Penobscot Nation Boys & Girls Club and the Wabanaki Youth in Science (WaYS) program , which weaves Indigenous knowledge and western science.

DeMerchant moved to Indian Island, a small island located within the Penobscot River, in her teens to attend high school in nearby Bangor, Maine. Through WaYS, she was introduced to the work of the Penobscot Nation’s Department of Natural Resources and its Water Resources Program. From those experiences, she knew she wanted to work on the water. “That’s where I felt most at home,” DeMerchant says.

DeMerchant earned a degree in ecology and environmental science at the University of Maine. She interned with the Penobscot Nation’s Water Resources Program, hoping to eventually be hired there full time. In 2022, she landed a position there as a field and laboratory technician. She conducts water quality monitoring  on and around Penobscot tribal lands. She collects water samples and aquatic macroinvertebrates such as dragonfly larvae, which are tested for mercury through the Dragonfly Mercury Project. Her work for the Penobscot Nation is essential to the tribe’s power to enforce water quality standards under the federal Clean Water Act. The Penobscot Nation Water Resources Program has also collected samples from traditional food sources such as striped bass, perch, muskrat, snapping turtles and fiddlehead ferns These samples are tested for toxins such as dioxin, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances  (PFAS., “The goal is we don’t have to keep fighting for a clean river.,” DeMerchant says. “It would be nice to be out of a job because the river is clean.”

DeMerchant remembers the removal of the Veazie and Great Works dams on the Penobscot River, beginning in 2013. Those two dam removals, along with fish passage improvements made to a third dam, restored more than 1,000 miles of river and headwaters habitat for migratory fish, including endangered Atlantic salmon. The Penobscot Nation, along with conservation groups, federal and state resource agencies, and the dam owner worked together to bring the dam removal and restoration projects to fruition.

Following the dam removals on the Penobscot,  DeMerchant had the opportunity through her work at the Penobscot Nation Water Resources Program to release adult Atlantic salmon in headwater streams of the East Branch of the Penobscot River and other tribal land. She was awestruck by the size and power of these magnificent fish. Releasing fish to waters they had not inhabited for more than a century was inspiring to her. “It’s crazy how resilient nature is,” DeMerchant says.

DeMerchant is proud of her Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, and Oneida heritage and believes it offers useful guidance for others working to preserve and restore rivers.  She explains that she has learned from tribal elders that the natural world is part of her family. “You wouldn’t poison your relatives, so why would you poison your river?” she says.