Program areas at MRC
Regulatory enforcement and pollution-reducing projects: Shorerivers works to improve water quality through legal and policy advocacy. The riverkeepers support laws that protect our waterways. They work with state and local governments to maximize the environmental benefit of the tmdl constraints and the water implementation plans that each jurisdiction must now employ. They patrol rivers and help state officials enforce conservation regulations. Shorerivers staff work with members of the agricultural community designing, funding and implementing pollution reduction projects.
Water quality monitoring and testing: Shorerivers monitors and tests water quality at over 200 sites multiple times each month on the choptank, miles, wye, chester and sassafras rivers and their tributaries. They test for water clarity, temperature, dissolved oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, and algal concentrations. They provide training, administrative, data analysis, and other support for this program. The organization issues a state of the rivers report card annually. The four riverkeepers patrol their watersheds by boat.
Education and outreach: Shorerivers publishes printed newsletters each year, sponsors an environmental outreach & fundraiser each fall, hosts a summer solstice outreach and fundraising event, hosts a ride for clean rivers bike ride to bring awareness to clean water issues, publishes periodic newspaper articles on river protection issues, promotes an oyster restoration program, engages in an agricultural outreach program with farmers and sends staff to public forums, community groups, etc. To speak on river stewardship. Shorerivers conducts an environmental education and outreach program in public schools in talbot, dorchester, kent, and queen anne's counties.