Pamlico-Tar Riverkeeper Katey Zimmerman was in Greenville this week, a guest of East Carolina University’s Water Resources Center annual water summit.

“It’s always really good to be in the same place with our Water Resources people and talking about what everyone’s working on and how we can be involved moving forward,” Katey said.

The summit was an opportunity to share what different groups are working on, learn more about the projects and attend workshops designed to facilitate that work.

“My favorite part was a poster presentation where everyone displayed their research on the posters. Trey, from the Water Resources Center’s Water Corps, who has been doing work with me in Blounts Creek, had a display of all our samples and findings in Blounts Creek,” Katey said.

For the past several months, the Water Corps has been assisting Katey with benthic macroinvertebrate sampling in Blounts Creek. Benthic macroinvertebrates (aquatic bugs) make good bioindicators — they are sensitive to changes in water quality and habitat conditions, which means they’re a good indicator of the health of a given creek or stream.

Another display featured a study about urban litter, which was based on the trash collected from Sound Rivers’ trash trap on Greens Mill Run in Greenville. The Greens Mill Run trash trap is one of a fleet of 10 passive, litter-collection devices installed on urban waterways throughout the Neuse and Tar-Pamlico through Sound Rivers’ Litter-Free Rivers program.

Katey also used the opportunity to attend a workshop on facilitating skills.

“Some of those facilitation skills translate over to the work we do with giving presentations and our outreach efforts,” she said. 

Overall, the summit was a great opportunity to catch up with the work being done for water quality. 

“I very much enjoy going to these summits because ECU is such a strong partner for us, and it’s a good way to learn about what research they’re doing and other ways we can collaborate with them,” Katey said.

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