It’s your river ~ why not show the love ? The Black River Action Team invites you to participate in the Adopt The River program! All it takes from you is a commitment to clean up junk and trash twice a year from the bed and banks of your favorite area of the watershed: a pond of lake, tributary stream, wetland, or a long or short section of the Black River itself. Grab your family, friends, neighbors, employees, colleagues or fellow club members to lend a hand and make a difference while having fun and enjoying the great outdoors a couple of times a year. Don’t spot any trash? There are plenty of other ways to help keep our river clean, healthy and beautiful for all to enjoy, and the BRAT will support your group in many ways: supplies, feedback, data collection & interpretation, community partners if needed, and other resources. Some ideas include: * “Bug Hunts” ~ learning to capture and identify the many tiny creatures living on the bottom of the river who clean debris from the river’s bed and provide food for fish and other animals. * Habitat assessment ~ learn to identify invasive Japanese knotweed on the shores of the river, watch out for woody debris in the water (fish love to hide in such places!), glance skyward and figure out canopy coverage, scan the banks for erosion problems, measure culverts, grope the gravel, and more. * Water monitoring ~ using simple test kits, we’ll help train you to sample and test for various features such as pH, bacteria, dissolved oxygen and more. NOTE: This should be done at least 5 times each sampling season to gather enough data to be relevant. * Other projects or events ~ folks are coming up with cool ideas of their own as ways to celebrate, recreate, and keep clean their favorite section of the river, from a tubing trash collection day to an annual fly-tying workshop, from nature journaling to wildlife monitoring, and much more. For every year that you actively participate in the Adopt The River program, the BRAT will thank you with a “certificate of adoption.” You’ll also get your very own spotlight in an interactive online map of the river which is currently Under Construction. And you’ll have the wonderful sense of satisfaction that you are doing a wonderful service for the entire Black River watershed! Fill out this form to tell us how you want to participate ~ and thank you!