What a year! We couldn’t have done it without your support!
One of this 2015’s biggest successes has been the launch of our recreational water quality monitoring program, Swim Guide! We are now able to answer the question of swim safety and fill a much needed service to protect public health and improve water quality in the CoosaValley. For 16 weeks, we monitored 14 sites from Big Wills Creek in Attalla to the tail waters of Jordan Dam on the Coosa River in Wetumpka. We issued 12 water quality alerts to the public when E.coli levels were at an unsafe level for swimming and enjoying the river!
We accomplished a great deal this year, thanks to people like you…
- Patrolled the river 41 times traveling over 11,000 miles working to protect the Coosa River
- Staff Riverkeeper participated in panel at University ofVirginia’s Law Symposium on “Water Rights in the Eastern United States” speaking on the Tri-State Water Wars
- Executive Director, Justinn, was selected as one of Southern Living’s 2015 “Women of Worth”
- Countless articles, 3 cover stories in major papers, 3 major TV spots, 3 radio interviews
- “Fishermen’s Right to Know,” a film from Southern Environmental Law Center’s Southern Exposure film series featured our work educating fishermen on the Coosa
- Expanded our outreach efforts to new parts of the watershed, hosting 12 events in 9 cities
- Continue to diversify the skill sets and representation of our Board of Directors, by adding two new board members, CPA Corey Galloway and lawyer Greg Brockwell
- Establish a partnership with Talladega College’s McNair Scholars Program to conduct a water quality study on Choccolocco Creek- they were invited to present their study at the national McNair’s Scholars conference in Wisconsin
- Promoted river and fisheries conservation through our kayak fishing tournament series that utilizes a Catch-Photograph-Release methods
- Built a larger volunteer network- 146 volunteers donated 618 hours of their time with an estimated value of $14,257 (according to the Independent Sector’s 2015 volunteer rate of $23.07/hr). To learn more about our work, please visit www.coosariver.org!
