Volunteer With Us
Help support waterways in Addison County with water quality sampling and riparian restoration. Find more information about our work below, and fill out our volunteer form to join us in the field!
Upcoming Events
Our sampling and planting season has wrapped up for 2024! Thank you so much to our wonderful volunteers who make our work possible. Stay tuned for our 2025 calendar and more volunteer opportunities!
Monitoring
Two mornings per month from April to September, teams visit established sites on Addison County Rivers to collect water samples. These samples are then transferred to a laboratory for analysis.
Addison County River Watch Collaborative’s monitoring protocols are rigorous and strictly followed. We can only expect our data to be useful if all our volunteers proceed according to our EPA-approved methods. In order for our data to be considered valid, we file a Quality Assurance Protection Plan with EPA (through the State of Vermont DEC) every year. Our ACRWC Field Manual spells out our sampling protocols in a step-by-step guide and the following videos demonstrate some of our field practices.
Riparian Restoration
River Watch works with landowners to establish or restore riparian buffers along stream banks with the ultimate goal of improving water quality. Volunteer help is much needed to do the substantial work of planting hundreds of trees and following up to ensure as much success as possible. Riparian restoration helps stabilize stream banks, curb runoff during storm events, and create wildlife corridors.
Volunteer roles include:
site preparation, involving weed suppression and invasive plant removal
transporting plants
digging holes for young trees and shrubs
planting trees
installing biodegradable weed suppression mats
helping on the maintenance crew, which controls weeds and checks on plant survival
““I believe ACRWC is doing important work for all of us - the soils, the plants, and the animals (including humans). Monitoring rivers throughout the Spring/Summer/Fall arc gives us a unique window into what is happening in our environment, if there are pollutants in our midst, and how our waters change throughout the seasons.
I love being on the river early in the morning before the heat of the day, and maybe getting a swim after collecting samples, but before work.
The volunteers at ACRWC have made collecting samples super fun. Volunteers tend to be smart, funny, passionate about outdoor fun, and deeply committed to environmental protection. I learn something every time I go out with this gang. ”
Jessica Chatfield,
Water sampling volunteer