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Water Watchers from across the lower Neuse and Tar-Pamlico rivers met up last week for a virtual gathering.

It’s an event Sound Rivers’ Riverkeeping and Program teams plan to continue hosting.

“The idea behind holding quarterly meetings is so we can check in with volunteers, see if they’re still engaged, if they have any questions for us about what they see in the field, and so they can meet each other and can actually see they’re part of a bigger team,” said Pamlico-Tar Riverkeeper Katey Zimmerman. “And as our volunteer base is growing, we also want to hear from them how we can make the program better.”

Ten Water Watchers Zoomed in to meeting where volunteers spoke about a broad variety of topics: a suspicious white barrel floating in a Chocowinity creek — reported by a Water Watcher and, in turn, reported by Katey to the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality — the new Water Watch dashboard that has replaced paper/email reporting, and, oddly enough, beavers.

“Someone mentioned something about seeing a beaver at their site, and one of our volunteers held up a book that was all about beavers and why they’re great, so he was answering a lot of questions about beavers,” Katey said, adding the conversation led to another about starting a Water Watch book club.

“Everyone that attended was really engaged and had some good questions,” she said.

Sound Rivers launched the volunteer-led, community science program in the spring of 2025, to help keep an eye on waterways across 12,210 square miles covered by the Neuse and Tar-Pamlico watersheds.

Volunteer Water Watchers are trained in the field to collect scientific observations about water quality, flooding, erosion, habitat and more, making monthly reports to the Riverkeeping team.

Since April 2025, trainings have been held Oriental, Blounts Creek, Washington, New Bern, Greenville and Kinston, resulting in nearly 80 volunteers monitoring waterways near them.

The implementation of the Water Watch dashboard launched in the fall helps facilitate the reporting.

“Lots of people are excited about the new dashboard. They had some good suggestions, including narrowing down the dropdown list of sites by region so it’s not so long,” Katey said. “I’m working on that, but it’s really great to see people actually use the dashboard and giving feedback on what changes they’d like to see.”

Interested in becoming a Water Watcher? We’d love to have you join the team! Find out more on the Water Watch page and check here for upcoming trainings! Like the work your Riverkeepers are doing to protect the Neuse and Tar-Pamlico? We love it! Donate today to support program like Water Watch!