2023 In Review

2023 marks 15 years since Congaree Riverkeeper was founded, and it seems appropriate that this year saw several significant victories, but also many new issues and challenges that we rose to meet.

 

Let's look back at some of the highlights and accomplishments the last year (the first one is a big one).

• After 13+ years of advocacy the Congaree River coal tar cleanup was completed this fall and more than 38,000 tons of toxic tar and sediment were removed from the river!
  
  
• We worked with the City of Columbia to ban High-PAH pavement products that can harm the environment and are toxic to aquatic organisms.

• We continued our advocacy and sampling efforts to address pollution from PFAS “forever chemicals.”

• With the help of more than 200 volunteers we removed more than 10,000 pounds of trash from our rivers and streams through our volunteer cleanups.
  

• We continued to lead local water quality monitoring efforts, including the Midlands Rivers Coalition (HowsMySCRiver.org).

• We responded to dozens of citizen pollution reports, investigating and responding to issues including sewer spills, construction runoff, illegal dumping and more.

• We continued to support South Carolina's water planning efforts, both at the state level and as a member of the Broad River Basin Council, which just published a draft Broad River Basin Plan.

• We were featured or quoted in dozens of news articles and stories about our rivers and the issues we work on.

• And we engaged with thousands in the community through our outreach and education efforts.

We absolutely couldn't do this work protecting our rivers without the help of all of our donors, volunteers and partners. Thank you so much to everyone who continues to support our work for clean water and healthy rivers!