officially launched
N.C. State University Chancellor Marye Anne Fox, Swansboro officials and College of Agriculture and Life Sciences faculty gathered in August at Ward’s Shore Park on the banks of the White Oak River for a ribbon-cutting ceremony. They were emphasizing several stormwater best management practices initiated by N.C. Cooperative Extension’s Watershed Education for Communities and Local Officials program (WECO).
The White Oak River watershed project stresses water quality demonstration projects with Swansboro and a research effort to identify and address pollution sources in a White Oak River tributary, Pettiford Creek, says Christy Perrin, WECO program manager, who’s based in the College’s Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
In addition to the Ward’s Shore site, the project includes a rain garden at town hall and a riverside pervious pavement parking lot. All are designed to slow stormwater runoff and remove pollutants, but their main purpose is to educate the public about water quality and how their actions impact it.
WECO brings stakeholders together to find collaborative solutions to water quality problems in their watershed. The White Oak project team is coordinated and administered by WECO, in partnership with the College’s Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering and its Water Quality Group, N.C. State’s College of Design, Carteret County Cooperative Extension, N.C. Shellfish Sanitation, Onslow County Soil and Water Conservation District and Duke University’s Marine Laboratory.
— Art Latham
