Chattahoochee Riverkeeper calls on volunteers to test water quality
Published 6:43 pm Thursday, March 7, 2019
- Dustin Duncan | Times-News Whats in the water: Pictured is Moore’s Creek near Valley City Hall on Thursday afternoon. On Saturday representatives of the Chattahoochee Riverkeeper will come to Valley to test the creek with individuals of the community. Volunteers are needed to perform samples themselves and have it sent back to LaGrange for testing.
VALLEY — Thousands of people drive over Moore’s Creek every day in Lanett and Valley and most of them probably don’t stop to think about the quality of the water.
This Saturday residents of the Greater Valley Area will get the chance to find out if their water is in good shape or not with Chattahoochee Riverkeeper, an environmental advocacy organization dedicated solely to protecting and restoring the Chattahoochee River Basin.
The organization is teaming up with the Moore’s Creek Project — an initiative to restore and preserve sections of Moore’s Creek as it runs through Valley and Lanett — to host what is being called a “River Rendezvous” starting at Valley City Hall Saturday morning.
The interactive event will begin at 10 a.m., and it’s an extension of the Riverkeeper’s Neighborhood Water Watch program, and it’s the first for Moore’s Creek and the Greater Valley Area community.
Hannah Bradford, watershed protection specialist with the organization, said volunteers from the event will collect multiple samples from the creek at different locations to assess the health of the water.
“This is an event to get people familiar with the creeks they drive over every day,” Bradford said.
She said the event will help the Riverkeeper get a snapshot for water quality and help pinpoint problems. Such problems could be runoff from multiple surfaces, like roadways, businesses or failing sewer systems. The program also helps city officials find issues and quickly address them.
After a presentation Saturday at city hall about what Riverkeeper is, why it does what it does and what volunteers will be testing for, participants will get a sample kit and instructions on how to collect a sample.
Bradford said there will also be a scavenger hunt and a data sheet to fill out.
The samples will be brought back to city hall and then sent to a lab in LaGrange. The materials will be processed and sent back to Riverkeeper Sunday morning and the results will be released the following week.
“Everyone lives in a watershed, and it’s important to know what is getting to the water around them,” Bradford said.
The event is open to the public, free and considered a family-friendly event.
To RSVP for the event, contact Bradford at hbradfor@chatahoochee.org or call (706)882-3701.
