Member support at Waterkeepers Chesapeake means expanding the impact of each member organization to reduce pollution by promoting peer learning, communications and collaborations, sharing successful strategies, and providing technical and legal expertise and training. At our annual retreat, we provide trainings and facilitate discussion of the Waterkeepers’ issue and policy priorities that guide Waterkeepers Chesapeake’s work. We support our members by organizing collective legal and advocacy campaigns around clean water in the Chesapeake and Coastal Bays region, coordinating information and resources, and amplifying the voices of individual organizations as well as telling the story of their collective impact on improving water quality for all of our communities. We also track and connect our members with regional and national clean water efforts. When a disaster strikes such as an oil spill or a hurricane, Waterkeepers Chesapeake provides rapid response support to the impacted Waterkeeper by helping to coordinate a response and providing communications and technical support.
Beginning in 2020, Waterkeepers Chesapeake received funding to begin exploration and organizing for a possible Waterkeeper program in the York/Pamunkey/Mattaponi river basin in Virginia. In 2022, we partnered with Friends of the Rappahannock to fund a York River Steward position. Working with a York River Steward Advisory Committee comprised of local representatives, the York River Steward is working toward establishing a nonprofit that could become a Waterkeeper Affiliate.
“Thank you to the Waterkeepers Chesapeake team for the services and support you’ve given us over the last year and beyond. I’m feeling really good about how WKC has grown to be a resource for individual Waterkeeper groups.”
Choptank Riverkeeper Matt Pluta
Historic Sewage Spill in the Potomac River
Waterkeepers Find Widespread PFAS Contamination Near Wastewater Treatment Plants and Biosolids Sites
Be a Scientist in Your Own Backyard: How You Can Help Keep Waterways Clean
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