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Sound Rivers’ Riverkeeping team hosted its first quarterly Water Watch meet-up since the program’s April launch.

“This was a good test run for a first volunteer meeting,” said Pamlico-Tar Riverkeeper Katey Zimmerman. “We plan to take what we learned from this meeting to improve our volunteers’ experience and increase engagement in future meetings.”

Hosted virtually on Zoom, the meeting was an opportunity for Water Watchers to meet one another and share stories of what they’ve experienced out in the field.

“The volunteers who attended the meeting were great and actually representative of the regions where we now have trained Water Watchers — Blounts Creek, Durham and New Bern,” Katey said.

Katey said they meeting started with introductions and a request to share something cool, or fun, or even gross, they’ve seen on their Water Watch data-collecting excursions.

“It was a good ice breaker,” Katey said. “One of our Water Watchers from Durham shared that she’d noticed little mussel shells on the banks of the creek she monitors, which looked like they’d been dragged there by a little animal. We then talked through some water-quality questions, shared some of our favorite reports so far, and talked about our current work and ongoing investigations.”

The Water Watch program trains volunteers in the field to collect scientific observations about water quality, flooding, erosion, habitat and more. This data helps inform the Riverkeeping team’s understanding of the health of the Neuse and Tar-Pamlico waterways, flag pollution concerns and monitor and protect more stream miles throughout both watersheds.

Katey and Neuse Riverkeeper Samantha Krop’s riverkeeping roles require monitoring more than 12,000 square miles of watersheds, which include the Neuse and Tar-Pamlico rivers, 928,052 acres of estuary, 5,909 miles of streams and 21,423 acres of freshwater lakes.

“Unfortunately, we can’t be everywhere at once, so that’s where we’re putting Water Watch into play: a team of community scientists to help us keep an eye on those waterways,” Samantha said in a previous interview. “So, our goal with Water Watch is to build relationships between community members and their local waterways and build out our capacity as a watchdog organization, where those communities are alerting us to issues when they happen.”

In April, the first Water Watch trainings were held in Oriental and Blounts Creek. Trainings in Washington and New Bern are scheduled in August.

Like Sound Rivers’ Water Watch program? Donate today to support the effort to keep a close eye on all waterways in the Neuse and Tar-Pamlico watersheds!

Interested in becoming a Water Watcher? We’d love to have your help! Visit our Water Watch trainings page to sign up for trainings in Washington or New Bern, or get on our watch list for a training near you!