Mt Laurel Welcomes Coosa Riverkeeper
Mt Laurel is proud to welcome Coosa Riverkeeper, Inc. to Mt Laurel’s Town Center. They recently chose to move their office from a location off of Highway 280 to their new location on Croft Street.
“We chose to move to Mt Laurel because the community holds the same values that our organization does in protecting the environment,” said Executive Director Justinn Overton. “We feel so fortunate to be in this community and look forward to the opportunity to get involved and introduce ourselves in the neighborhood.” The move to their new office in Mt Laurel allows them more space for a larger lab, meeting space, and office area.
Coosa Riverkeeper, Inc. is a non-profit organization with a mission to protect, restore, and promote the Coosa River. Their Executive Director, Justinn Overton founded the organization in 2010 after the national environmental group, American Rivers, named the Coosa one of the 10 most endangered rivers in the nation.
The organization’s three core activities are patrolling the waters, educating the public, and advocating for the river. Justinn explained, “Our approach to river conservation is driven by the river and its needs, not by politics and self-interest. We supplement our passion for the river with science and an understanding of policy. We get out on the water to see the river and the people who depend on it firsthand. When there’s a lack of data or information about an issue on the river, we go collect samples or conduct research. In an age where major decisions made by lawmakers are based mostly in politics and not in science, we speak up for our river and ensure it is protected from greed and ignorance.”
Justinn was recently honored as a “Woman of Worth” in November’s issue of Southern Living magazine for her work in making a difference in the South. From humble beginnings, Coosa Riverkeeper now has a team of two full-time staff, a Board of Directors, Advisory Board, and dozens of volunteers, interns, and citizen members. With this team, they are able to patrol the rivers including taking samples of the Coosa and streams feeding into the river. To educate the public, they regularly post swim and fish guides and updates from the Riverkeeper Patrol. They also provide educational opportunities to schools, civic groups, and professional organizations.
“We take a watershed approach; we don’t just look at what’s happening on the lakes, we look at what’s happening on all the creeks because it all matters in the scope of a healthy river. Because the Middle and Lower Coosa River Basins in which we work are so expansive at 5,000 square miles, we prioritize our work based on the most urgent issues where we believe our approach to conservation will be most effective. The data that we generate through our research projects, like Water Quality Monitoring, help guide us to the restoration and conservation efforts that will have the greatest impact.”
Read more about Coosa Riverkeeper at CoosaRiver.org.
