Paddles in the water: Wallkill Alliance measure the health of the river

By Laura Fitzgerald
Posted 4/17/19

The volunteers of the Wallkill River Watershed Alliance are putting paddles in the water through its river monitors, a program that improves the health of Wallkill by searching for potential …

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Paddles in the water: Wallkill Alliance measure the health of the river

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The volunteers of the Wallkill River Watershed Alliance are putting paddles in the water through its river monitors, a program that improves the health of Wallkill by searching for potential pollutants.


Monitors paddle onto the river and search for red flags—such as color changes, odors, foam or temperature changes—in permits and streams, tributaries, pipes, or any other water source that empties into the Wallkill.


Monitors then write down those inconsistencies in a report. If needed, the alliance then notifies the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) when they find potential pollutants into the river.


“It’s pretty much observation, with your eyes, your nose,” board member Brenda Cemelli said. The alliance also publishes the reports and makes them available to all the municipalities they cover.


While the alliance has conducted this program for several years, this is the first year that individuals rather than groups will patrol, allowing the alliance to monitor a larger section of the 80-mile river.


Cemelli said this program is important for the health of the river because the DEC doesn’t have the ability to monitor large sections of the river, so the alliance steps in to assist the DEC with the job.


“The DEC told us, if people report, we can follow up, but they don’t have the manpower to monitor every waterway,” Cemelli said.


The alliance has helped raise awareness among municipalities for the need for water treatment upgrades, and some municipalities even secured grants to upgrade their water system, Cemelli said.


The alliance’s goal is to improve water quality, increase public engagement with the river and build capacity to protect and restore the Wallkill and its watershed.


“Our goal is that it would be swimmable and fishable and healthy again,” Cemelli said.


Building on its past incarnation as the Wallkill River Taskforce, the alliance was formed in April 2015 in the wake of the first “Future of the Wallkill River” summit at SUNY New Paltz.


Outreach chair Martha Cheo said in recent years she has seen more engagement from the public with activities and advocacy surrounding the river. She said the DEC has also taken more interest in the Wallkill since the alliance was formed.


Board member Dan Shapley said the alliance has helped promote the Wallkill as a valuable water source with recreational value, as opposed to being written off as a lost cause.


“The people who thought about it thought it was polluted and written it off and it hasn’t been central to the lives of people who live around here because it was presumed to be polluted,” Shapley said, “and I think what the biggest impact we’ve had is to change that perception and to say that there is no reason we can’t save this river.”


Cheo said learning about your watershed is a good way to connect to the environment in which you live.

“What watershed you live in is a great way of thinking what your place is on the planet,” Cheo said.


The alliance is searching for more volunteers for its river monitoring program and other programs it hosts. Monitoring programs are each month from June through October. Monitors are needed especially in southern Orange County and the New Jersey line.


To join the alliance or learn more, go to website at wallkillalliance.org or check out their Facebook page at the Wallkill River Watershed Alliance. Interested parties may also email wallkillalliance@gmail.com to join the alliance.

Wallkill River, river monitoring, Wallkill River Watershed Alliance