C’mon on in and get wet. The National Committee for the New River (NCNR) coordinates and sponsors many volunteer activities that provide hands-on, get dirty kinds of opportunities to make our Earth a better place. Take a look at the list here, and, go to www.ncnr.com, for more information about NCNR. The New River is the national treasure in our backyard; helping clean it up, and keep it clean, are critically important to our region’s conservation future.

Clean Up the New River
Each year, groups of volunteers perform New River Clean Ups throughout the watershed, pulling tons of trash, tires, and what amounts to an unbelievable assortment of bad stuff from the New and her tributaries. Clean Ups are organized on an ad-hoc basis by various community groups and NCNR, weather permitting. Here’s a list of the Clean Ups scheduled so far this year. You can call or e-mail the designated contact person to sign up for each, or just keep you eyes on NCNR’s Web site. Call Courtney Wait at NCNR toll free at 866.481.NCNR if you’ve got a group with a desire to take on cleaning up a stretch of the New; she can tell you who’s working in the area you’re interested in or if there’s already a group working there you can join. You can also e-mail her at courtney@ncnr.org.

Here are the Clean Ups currently scheduled in Virginia:

• Grayson Highlands State Park is hosting a New River clean up on April 19. This will be a clean up by canoe, so dress weather appropriate and if you have them, bring chest-waders. If you are interested contact Kevin Kelley at the Grayson Highlands State Park, 276-579-7092 or Kevin.Kelley@dcr.virginia.gov.

• The New River Conservation and Wildlife Club will be hosting a summer clean up in Grayson County in the Fries area. Date to be decided. If interested, contact Courtney Wait at NCNR: 866.481.NCNR or courtney@ncnr.org.

• Re-New the New, a New River Clean Up group, will host “Fall into the New” on Aug. 23 to clean up along the New River in Giles County. A combination of canoes, rafts, and on-foot trash pickup will be used at the all-day event; an after-party hosted at New River’s Edge is scheduled for later in the day. To sign up as a volunteer contact Courtney at NCNR: 866.481.NCNR or courtney@ncnr.org.

• The New River Watershed Roundtable will coordinate Clean Up the New on Sept. 6 at Foster Falls. Both professional boat guides and the New River Trails State Park will be leading volunteers in picking up trash in Wythe and Pulaski Counties. Contact Courtney at NCNR: 866.481.NCNR or courtney@ncnr.org.

• Several Virginia Tech-related groups are “adopting” sections of the New River this year; there are too many to list but if you are interested in either joining a group in your area or beginning your own New River Clean Up Adoption effort please contact Courtney Wait at NCNR: courtney@ncnr.org or 866.481.NCNR.

New River Water Watchers
Volunteers for the New River Water Watchers program learn to be stewards of the river, streams, and adjacent lands, fostering a clean water ethic and providing valuable water quality information for NCNR and for the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. The program hopes to evolve from an initial beginning of 10 monitors to an expanded program with dedicated volunteers. Monitors are trained and certified through NCNR’s Quality Assurance Program Plan and commit to dedicate at least one day per month doing water sampling at a designated monitoring site, convenient to them, somewhere in the New River watershed. The initial volunteer training for New River Water Watchers requires one full day of classroom and field training and one day per month monitoring, which generally takes two hours. Monitors are re-certified on an annual basis.

New River Water Watcher volunteer monitors learn how to test for basic water quality parameters including dissolved oxygen, pH, temperature, turbidity, and E.coli in Virginia. Overall, the collection of data by the volunteer monitors fosters good stewardship of environmental resources and provides early warnings of problems resulting from inadequate storm water management, sedimentation, sewage contamination, and other potential water quality problems.

If you are interested in the New River Water Watchers program, call Courtney Wait at NCNR for more information. She is especially looking for Volunteer Water Quality Monitors in Floyd, Bland, and Carroll Counties. Volunteers will need to commit to the one day of training in May, and then once-a-month monitoring at an assigned site within the New River Watershed for one year.  Courtney’s toll-free number at NCNR is 866.481.NCNR, or you can e-mail her at courtney@ncnr.org.

NCNR envisions a permanently protected New River as a treasured natural resource. The mission of NCNR is to advocate for successful protection of the New River, to restore eroding river and stream banks and enhance riparian habitat, and to permanently protect land along the River. NCNR works in North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia’s New River watershed.  Over the last 31 years, the organization has protected nearly 5,000 acres of land important to the River’s water quality, scenic and natural values, and has restored over 56 miles of river and stream bank.