Tag Archives: Adopt-a-Stream

Program Spotlight: SC Adopt-a-Stream

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World Water Day was observed this week on March 22. DHEC would like to take this opportunity to highlight the SC Adopt-a-Stream program.  

SC Adopt-a-Stream is a statewide, volunteer water quality monitoring program that is led by DHEC’s Bureau of Water and Clemson’s Center for Watershed Excellence.

The program educates and certifies citizens in protocols for collecting stream data. The program has a meaningful impact on citizen science because the data generated by SC Adopt-a-Stream volunteers helps to screen for water quality issues, show trends in water quality over time and can be used for educational purposes.  

SC Adopt-a-Stream was founded on the belief that people who spend the time to get to know their streams and waterways, through recreation or data collection, will want to work to protect them. The program is a fun, easy way to make a positive impact in your community and help the overall health of South Carolina waterways.  

If you are interested in becoming an SC Adopt-a-Stream volunteer or you simply want to learn more about the program, explore the website at www.scadoptastream.org.

DHEC in the News: S.C. Adopt-A-Stream Program, Swim Advisories, Opiods

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Here’s a look at health and environmental news from around South Carolina.

Edisto group backs S.C. Adopt-A-Stream program

Edisto River conservationists are supporting recently announced efforts by the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control and Clemson, who said this month, they are partnering to form the South Carolina Adopt-a-Stream (or SCAAS) program.

S.C. DHEC and Clemson’s Center for Watershed Excellence said in a news release the program will closely mirror the Georgia Adopt-a-Stream program, on in which several volunteer organizations in South Carolina have already been utilizing to monitor and record water quality in the streams and rivers around the state.

Several Grand Strand beach access points under swim advisories for July 4th holiday

If you’re thinking about heading to the Grand Strand for the July 4th holiday, you may want to pay close attention if your plans include a visit to the beach.

The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) reports several beach access points from Garden City to Atlantic Beach are currently impacted by long-term swimming advisories.

Impacted beach areas will have signs posted, discouraging swimming within 200 feet of either side of the sign.

South Carolina one of 10 states with lowest hospitalizations from opioid abuse

The opioid epidemic is sweeping hospitals across the country, but South Carolina hospitals have so far escaped the brunt of it, according to a report by the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project. 

At the end of 2014, the last year for which data is available, Maryland had about three times the number of opioid-related emergency room visits than South Carolina did. Maryland has struggled with heroin overdoses, a problem that exists in South Carolina to a lesser degree.

DHEC in the News: National HIV Testing Day, Adopt-a-Stream, Murrells Inlet wetlands, Riverside Park

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Here’s a look at health and environmental news from around South Carolina.

The [Minority AIDS Council] will be sponsoring a community forum at 6 p.m. Tuesday, June 27, at New Mount Zion Baptist Church in Orangeburg. The program’s topic will be “Shining a Light on HIV/AIDS in the Tri-County.”

A discussion panel will include Shiheda Furse, community manager at HopeHealth, which provides outpatient treatment and care for people with HIV/AIDS living in the tri-county region; MAC member and HIV advocate Pat Kelly and the Rev. Todd A. Brown, pastor of New Mt. Zion Baptist Church. Wilhemina Dixon, a Barnwell County woman whose story of resilience after both her daughter and her granddaughter were diagnosed with AIDS became the subject of a PBS documentary, will also be a panelist.

Brown said he hopes the forum will bring about change, particularly within the African-American community, where HIV/AIDS infection rates are the highest.

Worried about the water in a nearby river? You can do something about it.

Adopt-A-Stream is looking for volunteers to document river conditions monthly and alert regulators of changing water quality or illegal discharges. Volunteers will be trained in classes and given a website to work from.

They will collect visual, chemical, bacteria and macroinvertebrate samples. Macroinvertebrates are creatures without backbones, including bugs, mollusks and crustaceans.

Some new wetlands should soon be taking root in Murrells Inlet.

The blankets of plants, including iris, sedge, spartina, black needlerush, soft-stem rush and yellow water canna, were installed at two sites June 14.

If things go according to plan, the plants will root in the pond soil and spread.

The manmade wetlands, both floating and nonfloating, are an outgrowth of the Murrells Inlet 2020 watershed plan, created to protect the inlet’s fragile marsh and shellfish beds.

  • DHEC is working with North Augusta city officials to dispose of contaminated soil found at Riverside Park.

About a month ago, construction workers came across contaminated soil when they were moving dirt around center field.

“When they started digging they could even smell the fumes from it,” said City Administrator Todd Glover.

The future home of the Augusta GreenJackets used to be what we’ve come to know as an industrial park.

For more health and environmental news, visit Live Healthy SC.

DHEC in the News: South Carolina Adopt-a-Stream program, Reedy Falls, mosquito control grant

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Here’s a look at health and environmental news from around South Carolina.

The SCAAS program, which will mirror the Georgia Adopt-a-Stream (GAAAS) program, will promote and expand existing South Carolina volunteer stream monitoring efforts by providing volunteer monitors with a website for information, a database to maintain water quality monitoring data, training classes and materials, and other useful resources. Many volunteer organizations in South Carolina have already been using the Georgia program to monitor and record water quality in the streams and rivers around the Palmetto State.

  • The City of Greenville has begun a restoration project on Reedy Falls.

The stream bank restoration project is expected to take a week. Boulders are being placed along the Reedy River bank to help prevent erosion and create a safer slope between the river and sidewalk.

The grant provides funds to purchase additional insecticides and improved spraying equipment as well as to help pay for training in effective mosquito control procedures.