In 1995, NJPIRG partnered with AmeriCorps to create New Jersey Community Water Watch. Since then, hundreds of AmeriCorps members have come through the program, working on campuses and in communities across the state to address our most pressing urban water quality problems.

AmeriCorps members with Water Watch work to engage students and other community members in improving the health of our water ways. Each year, we train college interns and volunteers who organize over 50 river cleanups, monitor the health of a dozen key water bodies, and educate thousands of elementary and high school students.

Water Watch focuses on three main tactics: Community cleanups, environmental education, and streamwalking.

Recent Highlight: Hurricane Katrina Relief
After Hurricane Katrina devastated the gulf coast, NJPIRG Student Chapters joined forces with other groups on campus to raise money for hurricane victims.  In November 2005, the AmeriCorps members with NJPIRG’s Water Watch program traveled to Ocean Springs, Mississippi, to spend a week working with the Lutheran Episcopal Disaster Response Project, rebuilding homes, cleaning up debris, and working at the soup kitchen at Christus Victor church. Over spring break 2006, NJPIRG Student Chapters recruited an even bigger team of volunteers to make another trip to the gulf coast.