Haw River Assembly

The Haw River Assembly is a nonprofit founded in 1982 to restore and protect the Haw River and Jordan Lake.

Visit online at hawriver.org

=Projects=

Haw River Watch
Since 1995 our citizen stream-monitoring project has given us direct information on the condition of the river and its tributaries. We have trained and provided equipment to over 200 volunteers to assess water quality through basic testing and macro-invertebrate counts. In addition, volunteers act as watchdogs on their part of the river throughout the year, alerting us to pollution threats and providing vital information on the health of streams. These volunteers form the backbone of our annual river clean up as well, the "Clean-Up-A-Thon".

Haw River Festival Learning Celebration
Since 1990, this solar-powered, traveling environmental education program has reached over 28,000 fourth graders from the six counties the river connects. The three weeks of the Learning Celebration comprise a unique curriculum of outdoor activities where students explore the river ecosystem through interdisciplinary and hands-on activities. Science, art, music, giant puppets and the wildlife of the river combine to make memorable experiences that nurture stewardship for the river. More than 400 volunteers from all walks of life have come together to make the Learning Celebration happen over the past 15 years.

Haw River Land Conservation
We are increasingly concerned that the very fast growth underway in the Haw River watershed urban areas, and its overflow of sprawl development, is encroaching on wetlands, pristine creeks and hardwood forests in the riparian areas at an alarming rate. We are working with state and federal agencies and land conservation groups to identify and preserve fragile ecosystems and larger intact pieces of land. We have received three grants from the Clean Water Management Trust Fund to protect these special places including the headwater springs of the Haw River in Forsyth County.

Stream Steward Campaign
In 2000 we were awarded one of NC’s first ever EPA 319 grants to a grassroots organization to launch a pilot project on Robeson Creek in Pittsboro for our new Stream Steward Campaign, 'Saving the river one backyard at a time'. This campaign works with communities and individuals to look at the root causes of run-off pollution in their town or neighborhood. We are creating user-friendly information to explain how the decisions we make where we live can improve rather than degrade the waters. We work with citizens to identify and eliminate pollution.