Membership Meetings and Events: In-person and Virtual

 
 

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Join us Thursday, May 2, at 7 pm for Erin Donmoyer: PFAS and the Black River Watershed

In person: College of Charleston School of Science and Mathematics (SSM) Auditorium, 202 Calhoun Street, corner of Coming.  [Note change of location for May meeting only.]

or Zoom (https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUtcu-sqT8vHdwdRdxWdOLL5ITdeDtG_7Dy)

PFAS and the Black: Early Stages of Navigating a Complex Contaminant in the Black River Watershed

river and trees

As the Black-Sampit Riverkeeper® with Winyah Rivers Alliance, Erin Donmoyer has been working with available data to better understand PFAS presence, sources, and potential impacts within the Black River Watershed. Learn about successful approaches by other Riverkeeper programs and what we are doing locally to address the issue. The talk will cover social implications in areas with subsistence fishing and deep cultural connections to the river, the limitations and roadblocks encountered, and future goals. Erin will demonstrate how to navigate the statewide database on PFAS from SC Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) and will summarize tests conducted in the Black River.

Erin Donmoyer joined Winyah Rivers Alliance in March 2022 as Riverkeeper® for the Black River and Sampit River watersheds in South Carolina. Her work includes community engagement in water quality monitoring, monitoring for polluters, environmental education outreach, litter cleanup, and land conservation partnerships, including Winyah River’s Rocky Point Community Forest and the Black River Water Trail and State Park network. Before living 20+ years in Alaska and Vermont, Erin grew up in South Carolina, exploring the rivers and cypress swamps near her family farm on the banks of the Great Pee Dee River.

[The per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a group of chemicals used to make fluoropolymer coatings and products that resist heat, oil, stains, grease, and water.]

Sierra Club motto: Explore, enjoy and protect the planet. 

Land Acknowledgement

We want to acknowledge that we, the Robert Lunz Group of the Sierra Club (Berkeley, Charleston, Colleton and Dorchester Counties), work and live on lands once belonging to more than a dozen distinct groups of Native Americans whose existence is now evident in the familiar place names  including: Ashepoo, Awendaw/Sewee, Bohicket, Catawba, Combahee, Coosa, Edisto, Etiwan, Kiawah, PeeDee, Shem (named by Sewee Tribe), Stono, Wando, Wappoo, Wassamasaw and Winyah. Disease, warfare and displacement led to the extinction of most of these groups by the middle of the eighteenth century. Shell mound evidence indicates that Native Americans were present in the lowcountry as long as 4,000 years ago. Their presence has continued to the present day including the Catawba, PeeDee, Wassamasaw, Edisto and Winyah tribes. The Wassamasaw have applied for Federal recognition.  The Catawba Nation is the only Federally recognized tribe in South Carolina. A Native American Ceremonial Center is located in the Charles Towne Landing State Historic Park.

Sources

 https://native-land.ca/.

https://www.sciway.net/hist/indians/geo.html

https://www.ccpl.org/charleston-time-machine/first-people-south-carolina-lowcountry

Videos of Past Presenters:

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