Tag: Southern Environmental Law Center
Water Watch Trainings
March 17, 2025
Water Watch Trainings
Sign up today!
Want to be a part of Sound Rivers’ Water Watch team? Sign up today!
At Water Watch training, you’ll be trained in the field to collect scientific observations about water quality, flooding, erosion, habitat and more.
After training, you’ll pick a site and visit it at least once a month to collect observational data, filling out a form to share with your Riverkeepers.
We’ll also host quarterly Water Watch meet-ups where you can share your observations with Sound Rivers’ Riverkeepers and your Water Watch community!
Sound Rivers is hosting its first two Water Watch trainings in April at the following locations:
Lick Creek sampling continues
March 13th 2025
Sound Rivers Highlight: AmeriCorps Stormwater Education Coordinator Sierra Stickney
March 13th 2025
Stormwater team gets into repair business
March 13th 2025
NC Riverkeepers gather for spring meeting
March 13th 2025
Trash trap gets 33 pounds lighter
March 13th 2025
Crowd turns up for New Bern land-use ordinance workshop
March 6th 2025
Riverkeeper makes Blounts Creek benthic survey trip No. 2
March 6th 2025
Sound Rivers visits the birthplace of environmental justice
March 6th 2025
Sound Rivers celebrates Goldsboro Rotary’s Water Month
March 6th 2025
Water Watch
February 12, 2025
Water Watch
Monitoring your waterways!
Have you ever wanted to be part of a Riverkeeping team? Do you have a favorite creek, stream or section of the river that you keep an eye on?
Sound Rivers needs YOU to help us monitor your waterways!
Sound Rivers’ Neuse and Pamlico-Tar Riverkeepers need your to help keep an eye on our waterways by signing up for Water Watch, a new community-science program!
The Neuse and Tar-Pamlico watersheds cover a lot of land … and water — two rivers, 928,052 acres of estuary, 5,909 miles of streams and 21,423 acres of freshwater lakes across 12,210 square miles of North Carolina.
Sound Rivers’ Riverkeepers have a lot of watershed to pay attention to, and since they can’t be everywhere at once, they rely heavily on community members to let them know when things are wrong on the water.
That’s why Water Watch was created: Sound Rivers knows the value of community members who are engaged in keeping your waterways safe. Water Watchers are community scientists that keep an eye on the waterways by collecting basic observational data about river health, which informs your Riverkeepers, in real time, about the condition of the Neuse and Tar-Pamlico waterways and flags any pollution concerns.
Water Watch Trainings
Water Watchers are trained in the field to collect scientific observations about water quality, flooding, erosion, habitat and more. With the help of Water Watch volunteers, your Riverkeepers can monitor and protect more stream miles in the Neuse and Tar-Pamlico watersheds, and help grow a volunteer base of community members who are trained and knowledgeable about water-quality science.
So, what’s it take to be a Water Watcher?
- You’ll attend a Water Watch training, where volunteers are trained in the field to collect scientific observations about water quality, flooding, erosion, habitat and more.
- You’ll pick a site and visit it at least once a month to collect observational data, using your senses to determine the general health of the waterway and spot potential pollution issues. Do you see blue-green water or an unusual number of dead fish? It could be an algal bloom. Do you smell sewage? It might be a sewage spill.
- You’ll fill out a field form to share these observations during each visit, then send that form to your Riverkeepers.
- We’ll also host quarterly Water Watch meet-ups where you can share your observations with Sound Rivers’ Riverkeepers and other volunteers.
If you are passionate about water quality and looking for a way to give back to your watershed and community, sign up for Water Watch — it’s community-led science in the name of water quality!
Latest News
Sound Rivers Highlight: AmeriCorps Stormwater Education Coordinator Sierra Stickney
March 13th 2025
Stormwater team gets into repair business
March 13th 2025
Stormwater team makes cistern fix
February 6th 2025
Northern Nash stormwater update
January 30th 2025
Nash stormwater control measures get rain-tested
January 9th 2025
Welcoming the new year with a recap of 2024!
December 27th 2024
Underground cistern a first for Sound Rivers
December 19th 2024
Campus Stormwater takes on Northern Nash
December 19th 2024
Sound Rivers launches Stormwater Education Week
December 12th 2024
Current Action Alerts
September 25, 2024
Current Action Alerts
Make your voice heard!
Your voice can make a difference in the fight to stop pollution. Sound Rivers’ Action Alerts are set up to make it super-easy for you to weigh in on what matters to you. Since you’ve landed here, we already know you care about the health of your waterways — waterways that belong to YOU, not polluters. Here’s an opportunity to make your voice heard, whether you’re weighing in on permit being considered, ineffective regulations contributing to pollution or legislation that will codify harms to your waterways into law.
Sound Rivers’ Action Alerts are pre-written, but you can always add your own comments to the draft message, or even delete the draft message altogether and make it wholly your own. All that’s needed is your name and email address (occasionally, an Action Alert will ask for your physical address, solely to identify which elected official your email will be sent to).
If Sound Rivers has not created an Action Alert for any listing below, contact and other relevant information is available.
Bridge Harbor Marina, Washington
Public comments sought for CAMA permit application
The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality is accepting comments on a CAMA permit application for the construction of a marina at the southern base of the U.S. Highway 17 Business bridge in Washington. The proposed marina will have 133 boat slips, stick-built and floating docks, bulkhead, boardwalk, a boat ramp and boat lifts. The permit application is a scaled-down version of a project proposed in 2021 (read about the original project here). Sound Rivers is evaluating potential impacts and will comment in the near future.
For more information about the scope of this project, the Division of Coastal Management’s field report can be viewed HERE, and the permit application HERE.
Those who wish to comment can send an email to ashley.grandy@deq.nc.gov and Wayne.Hall@deq.nc.gov. Comments will be accepted up until the decision date, which will likely be “towards the 75-day review deadline for the project,” according to NCDEQ staff.
Durham: Lick Creek
Durham must adopt stronger ordinances to stop sediment pollution
We need your help to protect Durham’s water quality!
Despite new regulations, new sprawling developments continue to pollute Durham’s waterways, and the Falls Lake drinking water supply downstream.
Large-scale land clearing developments are turning Durham’s rivers a “tomato soup” shade of muddy. For over two years, in partnership with community members, Sound Rivers has been documenting sediment runoff from active construction sites polluting streams and creeks. Southeast Durham’s most heavily developing Lick Creek watershed has regularly seen levels of sediment ten and twenty times over the state of North Carolina’s standard for healthy waterways. Ellerbe Creek at the heart of Durham has also gained attention for running orange since the start of this year due to runoff from a large development at its headwaters. All of the waterways in Durham’s Neuse River basin flow directly into Falls Lake, a drinking water supply for half a million total people.
The problem is that Durham’s Sediment and Erosion Control regulations have not yet caught up with the rapid scale of growth. In response to public outcry about Durham’s tomato soup creeks, Durham officials have adopted some measures to strengthen S&EC practices. However, we have not seen evidence that these new measures are working to prevent mud from polluting Durham’s public waterways.
We need your help to tell Durham’s City Council that enough is enough — Durham must adopt stronger protections for its waterways before annexing more large-scale land clearing developments in its sensitive watersheds! Lend your voice to this call to action!
Write your email to Durham city councilmembers here!
Read more about this issue on this page.
Want to learn more about sediment pollution in the Neuse and Tar-Pamlico watersheds? Neuse Riverkeeper Samantha Krop breaks the problem down in our Sound Rivers: Riverkeeping Tales from the Neuse & Tar-Pamlico” podcast. Look for the episode, “Muddied Waters” here. The podcast can also be found by searching for keyword “riverkeeping” on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music.
Adopt a Trash Trap!
September 19, 2024
Adopt a Trash Trap
Want to do something good for your waterways? Adopt a Trash Trap!
Adopting a trash trap gives groups the chance to sign up for a month of monitoring the amount of trash collected by a trash trap, organizing clean-outs and participate in keeping local waterways clean. Groups aren’t defined in any way: it could be a student group, a civic group or even a group of friends.
Trash trap adopters will be responsible for monitoring the trap, cleaning it out at least once (or more if there’s a big storm), weighing the trash, then disposing of it, taking pictures and sending Emily photos and data. In return, Sound Rivers will promote the group on social media and provide up to five Sound Rivers shirts to the group.
Sound Rivers will supply waders, gloves, trash grabbers, trash bags and a scale for weighing the trash.
View and/or download the Adopt A Trash Trap handbook, checklist and data form by clicking on the links below!
Resources
Our handbook has everything you need to know about adopting a trash trap. View or download the PDF by clicking on the image!
Thank You
June 25, 2024
Thank You
Thank You!
Thanks for reaching out to us. We will be in touch with you.
