Coastal Carolina Riverwatch

10/16/2026

Happy Farm Friday! Check out Pogies at The Farm (Maysville, NC) for Fall festivites! Pogie’s Farm focuses on hands-on learning, agricultural education, community events, and getting people outdoors. Stop by to meet their friendly animals, explore their walking trails, and learn more about working farms. Follow them on social media for more seasonal events.
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The team at Pogie’s are lovers of clean water too, as they offer kayaking, fishing, and ecotours at Pogie's Fishing&Kayaking (Swansboro, NC). Thanks Pogie’s for connecting our community to both the land and our local waterways!

Everything is on at the farm today! Plus We’re starting the GREAT PUMPKIN PRICE COUNTDOWN at Pogies at the Farm! Like and share the post we need to get the word out.

ALL pumpkins are $12 or less TODAY—including the XL pumpkins, polar bears, and heirlooms!

Here’s the countdown:

• Today, Friday, October 16: $12 or less
• Tomorrow, Saturday, October 17: $10 or less
• Sunday, October 18–Friday, October 23: $8 or less
• Saturday, October 24: $6 or less
• Sunday, October 25: All remaining pumpkins are $5 each until gone!

Pumpkins are going FAST, and there is NO restock coming! What’s here is all we’ll have for the season. If you’ve got your eye on a particular pumpkin, come grab it while it’s still here!

8 AM–5 PM:
FREE parking! Enjoy the animal area, playground, and hay bale maze, and shop the pumpkin patch. Pumpkins are priced separately.

5 PM–9:30 PM:
Our family-friendly Halloween trail is open! Parking is $10 PER CAR, covering everyone in your vehicle. The pumpkin patch, playground, and hay bale maze stay open during trail hours. Animals close at dark.

Tonight we’ll also have Fancey Fry’s, La Cocina Del Coqui, LLC and The Cone Ranger NC food trucks, plus vendors!

Come spend the day playing at the farm, grab some dinner, and enjoy an evening on the trail. Thank you for supporting Pogies and helping us keep these family events going!

10/16/2026

The Water Quality for Fisheries Symposium is your opportunity to engage with cutting-edge science, proven solutions, and collaborative partnerships that make a difference for our coastal communities.

📅 When: January 28–29, 2027
📍 Where: Sturgeon City Environmental Education Center
Jacksonville, NC

💬 Why You Should Be There:
✔️ Learn from expert scientists and coastal advocates about water quality, coastal management, and fisheries health
✔️ Gain tools you can bring back to your classroom, organization, or community projects
✔️ Network with volunteers and professionals from across North Carolina who share your passion for clean water
✔️ Participate in an interactive workshop designed to spark new ideas for coastal resilience and community planning

🌊 Come learn. Come connect. Come be part of the conversation.

🔗 Register today and be part of the solution:
https://coastalcarolinariverwatch.networkforgood.com/events/100443-water-quality-for-fisheries-symposium

10/15/2026

🌊 2027 WQ4F Symposium Speaker Highlight!

Victor D’Amato is supervisor of the Viable Utilities Unit in the North Carolina Division of Water Infrastructure. Vic earned his Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from Penn State University and his Masters of Science degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is a registered professional engineer in North Carolina and three other states.

Vic has over 30 years of diverse environmental and water resource engineering experience, including 21 years in consulting, and earlier stints with a water and wastewater treatment technology developer, and as an environmental engineer in North Carolina’s Onsite Water Protection Branch.

Most importantly, Vic is an avid surf fisherman with deep appreciation for North Carolina’s abundant natural resources and ecosystems.

📢 Get your tickets here:
https://coastalcarolinariverwatch.networkforgood.com/events/100443-water-quality-for-fisheries-symposium

10/14/2026

🌊 What is the WQ4F Symposium? 🐟

The Water Quality for Fisheries Symposium is a two-day event bringing together community members, fishermen, scientists, industry leaders, students and decision-makers to exchange information on policy development, restoration and resilience projects, ongoing research, and advocacy related to the connection between water quality and the future of our fisheries.

📅 When: January 28-29, 2027
📍 Where: Sturgeon City Environmental Education Center
Jacksonville, NC

🔗 Learn more and register today:
https://coastalcarolinariverwatch.networkforgood.com/events/100443-water-quality-for-fisheries-symposium

Together, we can protect the waters that feed our families and sustain our communities.

10/13/2026

🦀 What are we learning about blue crab health in North Carolina?

Our latest newsletter takes a closer look at a research partnership examining blue crabs, Hematodinium, submerged aquatic vegetation, water quality, and changing environmental conditions across coastal North Carolina.

The current draft research summary includes 587 blue crab samples, and one of the clearest raw patterns so far is an important one: Hematodinium infection was much more common among the smallest and youngest crabs sampled than among larger adult crabs.

But finding a pattern is only the beginning. Researchers are continuing to examine how crab life stage, season, location, seagrass habitat, salinity, temperature, surrounding land use, and other conditions may help explain what we are seeing. The current draft results do not, by themselves, show that any one of those factors causes infection.

Explore the project, current findings, and what researchers are still working to understand:
https://coastalcarolinariverwatch.org/blue-crabs-and-sav-research/

Stay with us. Final research-team-approved results and an interactive StoryMap are planned for the next phase of the project communications.

10/13/2026

💙 2027 WQ4F Symposium Highlight!

Rebecca Ward is the Science Engagement Senior Research Scholar at the Climate and Sustainability Academy at NC State University. She works at the intersection of science and practice, focusing on how scientific knowledge informs decision making and how community and policy needs shape the research enterprise. Her scholarship and engagement efforts center on supporting people and communities to thrive in a changing climate, with a particular emphasis on coastal resilience, climate adaptation, and climate‐related health risks.

Ward leads initiatives that connect researchers, practitioners, and local governments to co-develop actionable strategies for climate preparedness. As director of the Coastal Community Resilience Immersive Training Program, she trains AmeriCorps members to conduct risk and vulnerability assessments with low‐capacity communities in North Carolina. Her work spans harmful algal bloom response, extreme heat planning, and community-driven resilience strategy development.

Her interdisciplinary research has explored learning and decision making in the context of climate change, including developing the FutureScape serious game, creating standards‐aligned weather and climate curricula, and studying how scientists and educators use visual displays to communicate climate information. Prior to her current role, Ward served as the Assistant State Climatologist for North Carolina.

Ward holds a PhD in Science Education, an MS in Atmospheric Sciences, and BS degrees in Meteorology and Applied Mathematics, all from NC State University.

📢 Secure your ticket! Use the link below: https://coastalcarolinariverwatch.networkforgood.com/events/100443-water-quality-for-fisheries-symposium

10/12/2026

Join Coastal Carolina Riverwatch for the next Indigenous Lecture Series!
On Friday, November 13, we welcome Dr. Stephen Stacks, Assistant Professor of Music at North Carolina Central University and an enrolled member of the Lumbee Tribe, for Hearing the Water: Music, Land, and Indigenous Movements in North Carolina.

Dr. Stacks will explore the connections between music, land, water, and Indigenous identity through stories of Native music and culture, North Carolina’s environmental justice movement, and Indigenous musicians giving voice to Southeastern Native lands and people.

📅 Friday, November 13 | 5:30–7:30 p.m.
📍 Tight Lines Pub & Brewing Company, Morehead City
🎟️ FREE — advance registration encouraged

Register here:
https://coastalcarolinariverwatch.networkforgood.com/events/103083-an-indigenous-lecture-series-event-with-dr-stephen-stacks
Please share and help us spread the word!

Special thanks to Tightlines Brewing Company for supporting our mission.
Together, we protect the quality of water and quality of life in coastal NC.

Tight Lines Pub & Brewing Co.

10/10/2026

🌊🌱 If you can’t see underwater grasses, does that mean they aren’t there? Not necessarily!

During Friday’s NC SAV Watchers monitoring event in Chadwick Bay, visibility presented a real challenge for our community scientists.

In this video, our White Oak Waterkeeper, Christina Boxberger, demonstrates some of our monitoring techniques for volunteers, followed by a glimpse beneath the surface using our underwater GoPro.

What’s interesting? You can barely make out the underwater vegetation in the GoPro footage, and volunteers couldn’t see it from their kayaks under the day’s conditions.

🔬 Why does water clarity matter?

Cloudy or turbid water can result from sediment stirred up by wind, waves, tides, and boat traffic, as well as stormwater runoff. Excess nutrients can also fuel algae growth that reduces the sunlight reaching underwater plants. Surface glare and lighting conditions can make observations even more difficult.

We can’t determine the cause of Friday’s limited visibility from video alone, but documenting these conditions is an important part of the research.

🌱 Underwater grasses need sunlight to survive. They also provide important nursery and feeding habitat for blue crabs, fish, and other aquatic life. 🦀🐟

When water clarity declines, these valuable habitats can be affected.

This connection between water quality and fisheries habitat is a major focus of North Carolina’s Coastal Habitat Protection Plan (CHPP). The state’s draft 2026 update prioritizes submerged aquatic vegetation protection and restoration, including efforts to establish water-clarity standards that better protect underwater grasses.

Through our partnership with UNCW, NC SAV Watchers is helping us understand how trained community scientists can contribute to monitoring these important habitats, even when field conditions are challenging.

💙 Interested in joining us for SAV monitoring in spring 2027?

Email [email protected] to learn more about future volunteer opportunities!

🔗 Learn about the project:
https://coastalcarolinariverwatch.org/programs-and-projects/nc-sav-watchers/

10/09/2026

🌊🌱 What’s happening beneath the surface of our coastal waters?

Come along for a look at community science in action! Today, Coastal Carolina Riverwatch, UNCW researchers, and dedicated volunteers took to the waters of Chadwick Bay to monitor underwater grasses that provide vital habitat for blue crabs, fish, and other aquatic life. 🦀🐟

Together, we’re turning research into action to protect North Carolina’s coastal waters!

💙 Learn more: https://coastalcarolinariverwatch.org/programs-and-projects/nc-sav-watchers/

10/09/2026

🌊🌱 Community Science in Action on the New River!

Today was an exciting day for Coastal Carolina Riverwatch as we joined researchers from the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW) and a wonderful group of community volunteers for our first NC SAV Watchers monitoring event in Chadwick Bay, Sneads Ferry!

Working from kayaks, volunteers helped document submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV), often called underwater grasses, while collecting observations about water clarity, depth, and habitat conditions.

🐟 Why does this matter?

These underwater habitats provide essential shelter and nursery areas for fish, blue crabs, and other aquatic life. They also help stabilize sediments and support healthy coastal ecosystems.

Through this North Carolina Sea Grant-supported research project, led by Dr. Jessie Jarvis at UNCW in partnership with Coastal Carolina Riverwatch, we’re exploring how trained community scientists can help expand SAV monitoring across coastal North Carolina.

💙 A huge thank-you to our dedicated volunteers, Dr. Jarvis and the UNCW research team, our White Oak Waterkeeper, Christina Boxberger, and Board President, Jan Farmer, for helping make this field day possible!

This is just the beginning. The information and experiences gained through this pilot will help us refine monitoring methods, strengthen community participation, and build a foundation for future coastal habitat research.

Together, we’re connecting science, community, and conservation to protect the quality of water and quality of life in coastal North Carolina.

📍 Chadwick Bay | New River | Sneads Ferry, NC

🔗 Learn more about NC SAV Watchers and our research partnership:
https://coastalcarolinariverwatch.org/programs-and-projects/nc-sav-watchers/