Help Protect the Water Quality of the

Taunton River and its Tributaries

Water Quality Monitoring Training Session
March 29, 2025, 9:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
TRWA’s Watershed Center, Sweets Knoll State Park, 1387 Somerset Ave, Dighton
(on Rt 138 just south of the Bristol Aggie Center Street traffic light)

The Taunton River Watershed Alliance has tested water quality in the Taunton Wild & Scenic River and its tributaries since its inception in 1988. This citizen collected data is an incredible tool as a historic picture of the watershed’s health.  It helps keep the spotlight on areas and actions needed for further improvement. This year, Water Quality Monitoring begins on Tuesday, April 8, 2025.  We need your help to continue recording this very important data.

The information gathered shows that ongoing efforts to clean up the river are necessary and effective. Each bucket of water pulled up to be tested can have national implications and must be continued to keep our water clean and our 43 communities informed and accountable.

In 2024 our volunteers  collected important data documenting the impact of climate change induced intense rainstorms and drought. Additionally, our data results were used to support the EPA’s Clean Water Act (CWA) permits for both Somerset and Fall River (read our submitted comments).

TRWA currently has 20 sample collection volunteers who work in 9 teams collecting samples from 20 locations from Berkley to Bridgewater the second Tuesday morning of each month from April through October. Volunteer teams collect samples from 2 or 3 locations bringing samples back to the Taunton wastewater treatment plant by 8:30 am.

No technical training or education is required, just a desire to be part of an important effort with good people who want to improve local water quality. We provide the training, pair new people with veteran volunteers, and explain the results and their importance.

If you know anyone who might like to be part of an important effort to safeguard our water, please invite them to the training. We are looking for new volunteers to replace some samplers who have moved out of the area and to make some of our teams a little bigger. 

If you have any questions, or want to participate but can’t make the March 29th training date, no worries! Just contact  Steve Silva, monitoring program coordinator, at ssilva@savethetaunton.org.

Latest testing results can be found here.

We are also looking for donations for this program to help defray the cost of testing supplies.