Muddy Water Watch training

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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From RiverLink:

New Asheville Muddy Water Watch Training

Have you ever seen the French Broad River resemble the color of chocolate milk? RiverLink’s Muddy Water Watch program is bringing a lot more attention to these sites. There are now over 75 volunteers from Transylvania, Henderson, Buncombe, Madison, Haywood, and Yancey Counties patrolling their neighborhoods to look for sediment running off construction sites. These sites are responsible for a severe degradation of our waterways and have made sediment the number one polluter in the French Broad Watershed. Muddy Water Watch is a state-wide initiative to reduce sediment pollution by providing training materials to help volunteers understand erosion control violations, and how they can monitor and improve erosion control violations.

The work of these volunteers has resulted in dozens of polluted sites being tracked online at imrivers. This site allows the public to see the severity and wide spread problem that is caused from failing erosion control measures. These pictures and reports on this site have resulted in several enforcement actions to clean up sediment violations.

The next training program begins February 10th at RiverLink’s office in Asheville. Trainings take place from 5:30-8:30pm over three nights and feature speakers from NC State, the French Broad Riverkeeper, and local regulators. Volunteers are asked to attend all three trainings. To sign up for the training visit www.riverlink.org, or for more information contact the French Broad Riverkeeper at[email protected] or 828-252-8474 ext. 114.