There’s nothing as relaxing as casting into your favorite fishing hole or taking a dip on a hot summer day.
Unfortunately, our rivers are threatened, and many fail to meet basic water quality standards — especially after heavy rainstorms.
Our Rivers Need You
North Carolina’s rivers teem with life and provide important habitats for native forest animals, fish, bugs, and all kinds of other critters. They’re where we paddle and play with our friends and families. And they must be protected.
With your help, we can change the way our local governments and regulatory agencies operate, get more funding to help solve the problems, and win the support of elected officials in Western North Carolina and Raleigh. But to win, we need you.
Below are three steps to clean up our rivers, each with actions that you can take!
Step 1: Fix Leaky Sewers & Septic Systems
Let’s upgrade aging city sewer systems and fix broken septic systems so we can keep poop out of our waterways. Heavy rainstorms overload our stormwater and sewer infrastructure and cause overflows and backups. Failing septic systems don’t treat sewage properly, and our streams are polluted as a result. Find out how we can fix our pipes to make our rivers run clean and clear.
Step 2: Reduce Farm & Nutrient Runoff
Let’s give our farmers a helping hand to keep stormwater runoff from polluting our waters. We love our farmers and all the delicious food they grow for us. They deserve more resources to fully protect our streams from sediment, fertilizer and animal waste runoff. This includes options like fencing livestock out of streams, constructing heavy use feeding pads, renovating pastures, and expanding stream buffers to filter polluted runoff.
Step 3: Keep Plastic Bottles & Bags Out Of Our Rivers
Let’s unclog our rivers and streams by cutting down our reliance on single-use plastics. MountainTrue and other local conservation groups clean up thousands of tons of garbage from local waterways — most of it plastic bottles and bags.
This trash isn’t just ugly. It’s dangerous for fish and other aquatic life too. Plastics break down into small particles, and when the smallest aquatic organisms ingest them, these “microplastics” are transferred up to the larger organisms that eat them. This transfer can go all the way up the food chain to humans. Find out how you can cut single-use plastics out of your life and support local government bans on plastic bags and straws.
More Clean Water Actions
Protect The Clean Water Act
The so-called “Navigable Waters Protection Rule” would create a huge challenge for our daily work. Will you call on your Reps. to say no to this rule?
Update NC’s Spill Notification System
It’s time for North Carolina’s spill notification system to enter the 21st Century. The public has the right to know about major pollutions spills as soon as possible.
Protect Our Forest Waters
The Nantahala and Pisgah National Forests are the headwaters of seven major river systems, but the current draft plan is inadequate when it comes to protecting water quality.
