Izaak Walton League Honors Volunteer Stream Monitors on Earth Day
Invites More Volunteers To Join the Clean Water Challenge
Gaithersburg, MD – Healthy streams and rivers are vital to healthy communities. Yet most Americans don’t know if local streams are safe for swimming, fishing, or as sources of drinking water. That’s because there is a critical need for up-to-date water quality information at the local level. Through our Clean Water Challenge, the Izaak Walton League is working to train and mobilize thousands of new stream monitors to gather that information.
Threats to America’s water quality today are just as serious as when the Clean Water Act was passed – they’re just harder to see. Polluted runoff from farm fields, parking lots, industrial sites, and yards across America flows unchecked and untreated into our streams and rivers. This runoff carries animal waste, bacteria, cancer-causing chemicals, and other pollutants through our communities. Yet according to the Environmental Protection Agency, 70% of our nation’s streams are not adequately monitored for pollution.
The Izaak Walton League is empowering Americans to collect water quality information where they live. With training and support from the League, volunteers can collect reliable water quality data in local streams – the first step in protecting our nation’s waters.
This Earth Day, the League invites people in our community and across the country to join the Clean Water Challenge. From a stream clean-up or tree planting to testing water quality, any activity that helps people get to know their local streams is a great way to celebrate Earth Day.
We encourage every person who takes action to protect local streams to show us their work through a Stream Selfie! The League partnered with SciStarter to develop a national map to document streams across the country. Visit www.streamselfie.org to post a photo of your Earth Day stream activities.
We can all help ensure children have safe water to drink and play in, healthy air and soil, and abundant outdoor spaces to explore. The Izaak Walton League celebrates Earth Day every day! Will you join us? To learn more about the Clean Water Challenge, visit the League’s website at www.iwla.org/challenge.
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Founded in 1922, the Izaak Walton League of America (www.iwla.org) protects America's outdoors through education, community-based conservation, and promoting outdoor recreation.