Project Teams

Streams and Watersheds

  • Buckhannon River
  • Deckers Creek Restoration Team
  • McDowell County Wastewater Coalition
  • Opequon Creek
  • Cheat River (River of Promise)
  • Lost River
  • Morris Creek
  • Sleepy Creek

Resources

  • Project Team Guidance

    This document provides examples of objectives along with a variety of associated tasks. We realize every team and every situation is different, but our hope is this summary will help launch your team towards future watershed restoration opportunities.

  • River of Promise

    The River of Promise is a coalition of state and federal agencies, academia, industry, and environmental groups working to bring resources, technology, and expertise together to address acid mine drainage and other pollution problems in the Cheat River Watershed.

  • Watershed Improvement Branch Calendar

What are Project Teams?

A Project Team is a group of people who are interested in the health and protection of their streams and watershed. They come together at a local level to plan and implement water quality improvement projects, to educate themselves and their neighbors about how to protect our resources, and to make a positive impact on the quality of life within their community.

A group of state and federal partners, the presence of a watershed association, and the water quality of the stream lead this movement. Many are responsible for the protection and restoration of our streams and rivers; along with this comes government programs and regulations supported with specific missions to clean up streams and rivers. To be successful at this task we must coordinate and educate the many contributors to the pollution problem. The best way to accomplish this is to identify all the people who have a stake in the health of the watershed and stream, and to facilitate the coordination of their efforts and resources.

In a time of budget reductions and money shortages, Project Teams and Watershed Associations provide local, state, and federal government programs with a valuable resource. That resource is local buy-in and ownership of projects. If the local people are involved in what is happening in their back yard, they will support, protect, and maintain those projects. The end result is sustainability, and communities with control of their destiny.

Examples of those local stakeholders include participants from planning commissions, conservation districts, business and industry, landowners, community associations, non-profit organizations, and the list could go on.

The issues the Project Teams will focus on depend upon the interests of the stakeholders. A few examples of issues of concern are: county ordinances, agriculture runoff (nitrogen and sediment), industrial pollution, stream bank erosion, storm runoff on roadsides, management of timber harvest, storm water management, and development.

This process can be successful. It will not clean up your stream overnight, and it will not guarantee that a pot full of money will show up in you Watershed Association’s post office box, but it will in fact guarantee that a committed group of individuals will be successful in implementing priority projects one at a time. This success will in turn create an awareness of the importance of protecting our resources.

The basic premise of a Project Team is to create a forum for which people can bring their ideas, their needs, and their resources to be a part of successful watershed protection. If you would like to be a part of this effort, or if you are not sure which watershed you live in, please contact your Basin Coordinator. To explore opportunities to interact with WV watershed groups, and more - check out WIB's Calendar.