WRWA River News July, 2021

Westport River Watershed Alliance

July, 2021

Dear Members and Friends:

Summer is flying by! We at WRWA are so happy to be getting back to normal - our summer education programs are filled with enthusiastic children, and our water monitoring programs are proceeding each week. Recently we hosted a sell-out crowd at our Summer Concert at Westport Rivers Vineyard with the Narrows Center, and we are looking forward to our Summer Gala on August 14.

In the coming weeks we will be opening up our River Center for visitors - something we have been eager to do since the pandemic interrupted all of our lives. Visitors will be welcomed on Saturday, July 31st and Saturday August 7 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Email [email protected] to sign up or get more information.

Look for more news coming soon regarding some important fall clean-up activities, including resumption of our yearly electronics recycling, beach and town-wide clean ups with our partners at Clean Our Westport (COW), and a very important hazardous waste collection day to be managed by the Town of Westport.

Wishing you all good health as we continue to recover from the Covid pandemic! We are looking forward to offering more programs and activities at the River Center in the months to come.

Deborah

WRWA Summer Gala

Saturday, August 14

We are pleased to be holding our traditional Summer Gala this year, after having to cancel last summer. Invitations have gone out, and there is a lot of excitement brewing for this year's party. It will feature great food, an open bar, music, and a one-of-a-kind silent auction at a beautiful water view location.

Tickets are on sale on our webpage, or by calling the WRWA office at 508-636-3016. $100 for members and $120 for non-members.

Join WRWA as our

2021-22 TerraCorps Member

This year we are looking for one TerraCorps member to join the WRWA team! As a member you will be part of the 2021-2022 TerraCorps program and join up to 80 other members serving with nonprofit partner organizations across Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. As a TerraCorps member serving with WRWA, your focus will be on teaching the Watershed Education program to over 2,000 local students.

Members serve in full-time (38 hour/week) position from August 30^th, 2021- July 29^th, 2022. These 1,700-hour AmeriCorps positions receive a living allowance and are eligible for health insurance coverage, childcare assistance, education award, federal loan forbearance, and additional AmeriCorps benefits. Application specifics, position descriptions, and additional information about how to apply can be found at https://terracorps.org/apply-to-serve-with-terracorps/.

Applications will be accepted until all positions are filled. Interviews begin mid-May, and we aim to fill all positions by mid to late July.

AmeriCorps programs provide equal service opportunities. TerraCorps will recruit and select persons for all positions to ensure a diverse and inclusive community. We welcome and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds and varying experiences, including people with disabilities, people of color, and LGBTQIA individuals. We will provide reasonable accommodations for interviews and services upon request. TerraCorps is a grant program of the Corporation for National and Community Service.

Weekly River Water

Quality Monitoring

Each week, our science director Roberta Carvalho samples the water in the River at several places. The information helps determine where it is safe to swim and shellfish. We publish the data weekly on our web page. Click the link below for the latest news on River water quality.

Weekly water quality monitoring data

Congratulations Merit Scholarship Winners

WRWA offers a $1000 merit award for graduating seniors living in the watershed. WRWA has a proud 45-year record of environmental stewardship. The merit award offers an opportunity to honor students who have demonstrated their concern to protect our watershed environment.

WRWA is fortunate to have additional funds this year to give out two merit award scholarships to deserving applicants.

This year’s merit award winners are Isabella Glennon and Nora Brady. Isabella Glennon is a senior from Westport’s Junior/Senior High School and plans to attend Providence College in the fall as biology major. Nora Brady is a local Westport student who is completing high school independently at home this year. Nora will be attending Hartpury University in England in the fall as an equine science major.

The Westport River Watershed Alliance Merit Award was created to celebrate the lives of William and Ruth Heath and Margo C. Boote. William and Ruth Heath were committed to environmental issues and protection of the natural world, as well as to social justice and global peace and harmony. Margo C. Boote was very involved in her community and the world around her. She not only portrayed an active commitment to the environmental mission in her actions, but also had a deep spiritual connection with the environment as was shown in her poetry.

Summer Concert with Amy Helm

Sold out at Westport Rivers

During the wettest July in decades, we managed to find rays of sunshine at our summer concert at Westport Rivers Vineyard on Saturday, July 10. Our Amy Helm Concert was a big success, with a sell out audience and a great evening of music. Our thanks to the Narrows Center for the Arts for co-hosting this annual event. Thanks also to our Major Sponsor, DSK Architects and Planners, and other local sponsors including Lees Oil and Milbury Real Estate.

Our young summer program students learn all about the creatures that live in the River. This group from July enjoyed learning about horseshoe crabs!

Hello - Goodbye!

This summer we said "Goodbye" to our wonderful and steadfast Commonwealth Corps volunteers, who never lost a day during our year of Covid. Jenny Burns and Chelsea Thiboutot recently finished their 10-month service time with WRWA, and we can't thank them enough! We wish them both well as they move on to new adventures.

At the same time, we welcome our new summer interns, Michaelah Vasconcellos and Kassidy Cestodio, who are assisting Shelli with our summer programs, helping to maintain our aquariums and taking on other important tasks as needed!

Pictured above: Jenny Burns, Chelsea Thiboutot, Deborah Weaver, Michaelah Vasconcellos and Kassidy Cestodio.

And the Winners Are.....

During our "Experience WOW, the Wonders of the Watershed" activities in June, we had many participants in our outdoor tours and activities. We included a fishing contest to see who could catch the largest striped bass in the River, and we held a raffle for a BIC inflatable paddle board.

Congratulations to Maggie Swift for holding the winning ticket for the paddle board, and to Wyatt Cooper for catching this 24" striper in the River!

Our thanks to the Westport Highway Department for doing such a great and thorough job of cleaning the invasive plants and trees from the water retention pond behind the River Center. The pond stores storm water from the catch basins on Old County Road, and the water is treated and cleaned by the plants before being released back into the River.