Water Watch

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.

Community Cleanups
Cleanups provide an avenue for both constructive solutions and community action. We bring people to a degraded site, present them with information on the ecological integrity of the area and its impact on the community and work together to clean it up. This brings local problems to life in front of the citizens who are affected by them, and provides an attainable solution.

Typically, a cleanup site is central to the community, and engages an array of citizens and decision makers, including local groups and politicians as well as citizens, students, and the media.

Education
Educating the public is an important step to getting people actively involved in solving the problem of water pollution. We teach students of all ages, as well as members of the community, about urban water pollution problems.

Water Watch interns and volunteers educate the public in many ways. One way is teaching formal lessons in classrooms across the state. We teach fun and informative lessons to elementary, middle and high school children in local schools. Additionally, we organize forums in the community to educate the public about current and pressing water quality issues, including toxic levels of mercury or other industrial pollutants in our water ways, the local impacts of development, and rules and regulations around storm water and household runoff. As always, we present the public with problems, and offer them tangible, applicable solutions based on our research.

Streamwalking
Water Watch volunteers patrol hundreds of miles of rivers, lakes and streams each year. We map local water resources, test water quality and check for evidence of illegal pollution discharges. Many times, it is this type of citizen monitoring effort which uncovers potentially dangerous pollution problems first. Once detected, these incidents are reported to state agencies. In addition, monthly monitoring walks show the gradual changes that may be happening in the water system, as well as provide more insight into the impact the waterway has on the community.

Also a great education tool, streamwalking allows volunteers to get to know their local waterways pretty intimately. It's a time you set aside to walk along the banks looking for signs of life or pollution.