Advocacy

Catawba Riverkeeper

Advocacy

Catawba Riverkeeper Foundation

Advocacy

Advocacy has become a new focus of Catawba Riverkeeper. We understand and appreciate that protecting the river means more than just retroactively acting on problems that face our river. Catawba Riverkeeper knows that proactive legislative, regulatory, and local protective steps must be taken to ensure the future health of our river. The Advocacy team works to create an agenda that will limit and lower future problems that we face in our river basin. Advocacy is a team effort, and we love the active engagement of our members to achieve our goals. Check out our current advocacy agenda below! 

  • North Carolina Storm Water Bill

    • Storm Water runoff mitigation is common practice on new developments in North Carolina. Local ordinances across the state require strict adherence to storm water runoff mitigation in construction and final plans of new developments. Such requirements did not exist before the state and people had a true understanding of the devastation unmitigated runoff can cause. Even though we now understand the importance of runoff mitigation, there is no way to require updates on runoff mitigation to redevelopment projects in the state.
    • In 2018, the general assembly banned local governments from enacting ordinances to require storm water runoff mitigation for redevelopments. Once concrete has been laid and buildings built, there is no way to protect our streams from the devastating runoff produced during weather events. We implore the legislature to update HB 469 to allow for local ordinances on stormwater runoff mitigation within water basins of DEQ listed impaired streams.  
    • Petition HERE
  • South Carolina Forestry

    • The best way to protect a river is to protect the forest around that river. Forests act as natural filters, removing pollutants before they enter the water. Without healthy forests, pollutants from silt to nitrogen and anything in between, enter our waters freely. By being good stewards of our already existing forests along the river, water quality quickly increases. 
    • In South Carolina, where nearly 70% of the state is covered in forest, there is little to no oversight on actions in those forests. Clear cutting, vast pesticide use, unstable stream crossings, and other detrimental acts to the forest occur without regulation or oversight.  The South Carolina Forestry Commission, the only government entity with sustainable forestry initiatives, is vastly undersized and underfunded for the task it has been assigned. The Department of Health and Environmental quality, conversely, is too broad tasked to properly monitor and regulate pollutants stemming from improper forestry activities. 
    •  As the South Carolina Legislature moves to divide DHEC, we want to ensure that pollutants from forestry activities see higher levels on monitoring and stricter enforcement on polluters. As well, SCFC must be recharged with added funds and personel to disseminate information on Sustainable Forestry practices and bring every forester in the state in line with those practices.  
    • Petition HERE
  • Local Stream Care

    • The Catawba is a mighty river fed by hard working streams hidden in local communities all over our basin. Protecting these streams is vital to protecting the greater Catawba basin. There is no universal stream care policy we are pushing. Each stream watershed requires unique care to protect. It is on the shoulders of local governments to care for their local streams.
    • Some policies could be implemented in many areas that would see great benefit to the streams. Local governments can include stream care in park maintenance plans. Many municipal and county parks benefit from the natural beauty of the streams flowing through them. By retuning this favor and actively cleaning, restoring, and protecting these streams, there will be great benefit to the Catawba river. Local governments should make their streams visible, celebrating the beauty of their waters with more water accesses, greenways, and other projects.  
    • Petition HERE
  • Federal Meat Packing

    • Regulations for the safety of the Poultry and Meat we consume only begin their authority at the point of slaughter. There is little to no oversite on the raising conditions of the animals we consume, even though the conditions in which they are raised is the origin of many bacteria and disease. The concentrated animal feeding operations, CAFOs, pose major environmental and health risks. 
    • Our solution is a new combined Meat and Poultry protection act, each of which were originally written in 1906 and 1957, respectively. These acts bolstered the safety of the food we eat at the time but are in dire need of updating. By extending USDA regulatory authority to the origin of the meat and poultry we eat, environmental and public health with see great improvements.  
    • Petition HERE

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Let's protect the Catawba River!

The Catawba Riverkeeper Foundation is working towards clean, plentiful water now and for generations to come.

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