Draft:Haw River Assembly

• Comment: 1 Almoore83 (talk) 17:24, 2 June 2026 (UTC)

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Haw River Assembly

Formation	1982
Type	501(c)(3) nonprofit organization
Headquarters	Bynum, Chatham County, North Carolina, U.S.
Region served	Haw River watershed, North Carolina
Website	hawriver.org

The Haw River Assembly (HRA) is a North Carolina-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded in 1982 to protect and restore the Haw River, Jordan Lake, and the broader Haw River watershed. Headquartered in Bynum, North Carolina, HRA works across eight counties (Guilford, Rockingham, Caswell, Alamance, Orange, Chatham, Durham, and western Wake) in a watershed that serves nearly one million people. The organization's work spans environmental advocacy, water quality monitoring, pollution litigation, community education, and citizen science programs.

History

HRA was established in February 1982, when hundreds of people attended a charter meeting in Pittsboro, North Carolina. The founding was motivated by decades of industrial pollution from textile mills, inadequate sewage treatment, and the environmental consequences of rapid population growth in the Piedmont region. That same year, HRA organized a Canoe-A-Thon at the dedication of the B. Everett Jordan Reservoir, known as Jordan Lake, a 14,000-acre impoundment of the Haw River.

Through the 1980s and 1990s, HRA built its volunteer monitoring infrastructure, launched the annual Haw River Clean-Up-A-Thon beginning in 1988, and established the Haw River Learning Celebration in 1990, an environmental education program that has since connected more than 48,000 fourth-graders from watershed counties to the river. HRA also advocated for stream buffer protections, opposed landfill siting near the river, and worked with state officials on water quality legislation.

In 2008, HRA became a licensed member of the Waterkeeper Alliance and named Elaine Chiosso as its first Haw Riverkeeper. Chiosso served as both Riverkeeper and Executive Director until her retirement in August 2024, at which time Emily Sutton, who had served as Haw Riverkeeper since 2017, assumed the additional role of Executive Director.

The Haw River

The Haw River flows 110 miles from headwater springs in Forsyth County through the North Carolina Piedmont, passing through Guilford, Rockingham, Alamance, Orange, and Chatham counties before joining the Deep River in Chatham County to form the Cape Fear River. The watershed encompasses approximately 1,707 square miles and is home to nearly one million people. Jordan Lake, an impoundment of the Haw River, supplies drinking water and recreation to over 300,000 people and was listed on the EPA's Impaired Waters list in 2002 due to excessive nutrient pollution.

The Sissipahaw people, part of the Eastern Siouan language group, inhabited villages along the Haw River for over a thousand years before European settlement. Their descendants are represented today in part by the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation, whose tribal office is located in Mebane, North Carolina.

In 2014, the Haw River was named to American Rivers' list of America's Most Endangered Rivers due to threats from wastewater and stormwater pollution in the watershed.

Programs

Haw River Watch

HRA launched its River Watch monitoring program in 1995 with grants from the EPA and the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation. The program trains volunteers to monitor water quality across the watershed. By 2017, the program had grown to 28 monitoring teams along the river and its tributaries.

Swim Guide and E. coli Monitoring

In 2019, HRA launched a Swim Guide program to test and publicly report E. coli levels at popular swimming sites along the Haw River and at Jordan Lake, providing weekly results through a public app and social media channels.

Muddy Water Watch

Launched in 2007, Muddy Water Watch trains citizen volunteers to identify and report sediment and erosion control violations at construction sites using a free smartphone application. Reports are submitted directly to HRA and to county and state sedimentation officials.

Haw River Clean-Up-A-Thon

The annual Clean-Up-A-Thon began in 1988 and has grown into one of the organization's flagship volunteer events. The 2025 event engaged 418 volunteers across 36 sites throughout the watershed.

Haw River Learning Celebration

Established in 1990, the Learning Celebration is an annual multi-day environmental education program bringing fourth-graders from watershed schools to the river for hands-on learning with naturalists, scientists, and volunteers. Since its founding, the program has served more than 48,000 students.

Trash Trap Program

HRA launched its Trash Trap litter interception program in 2022, installing devices in Durham, Carrboro, Chapel Hill, and Greensboro. The first Trash Trout was installed at Third Fork Creek Trail in Durham in February 2022. As of 2024, the program had collected nearly 50,000 pieces of litter from watershed waterways.

Nature4All

Launched in 2023, Nature4All is an equitable outdoor programming initiative offering kayaking, birding, nature journaling, and other activities hosted by educators and leaders of color, designed to increase access to the outdoors for marginalized communities in the watershed.

Legal Actions and Advocacy

Burlington Sewage Spill

In January 2014, a 3.5-million-gallon raw sewage spill from Burlington's aging sewer infrastructure prompted HRA, represented by the Southern Environmental Law Center, to file a Notice of Intent to Sue the City of Burlington. The resulting September 2014 agreement required Burlington to repair and replace sewer infrastructure and improve public notification of future spills.

PFAS and 1,4-Dioxane Pollution

In November 2019, HRA filed a Notice of Intent to Sue the City of Burlington over high levels of PFAS and 1,4-dioxane being discharged from the city's wastewater treatment plant into the Haw River. This action led to a 2020 agreement requiring Burlington to investigate industrial sources of contamination. In 2023, a comprehensive settlement was reached requiring Burlington to control PFAS discharges, monitor and disclose data, and work with industrial polluters to reduce contamination. Between the initial filing in 2019 and 2023, PFAS concentrations in the river dropped from over 30,000 parts per trillion to below 500 parts per trillion.

In March 2026, HRA joined other groups in filing suit to stop Asheboro's discharge of 1,4-dioxane into drinking water supplies serving nearly 900,000 North Carolinians downstream.

Pipeline Opposition

HRA has actively opposed multiple natural gas pipeline proposals affecting the Haw River watershed, including the Mountain Valley Pipeline Southgate extension and the Enbridge Southeast Supply Enhancement Project, conducting landowner outreach, public mobilization, and regulatory intervention in both cases.

Chatham Park Development

HRA has engaged in ongoing advocacy and legal action regarding Chatham Park, a proposed development of approximately 7,000 acres in Chatham County. In January 2026, HRA filed a lawsuit seeking transparency and proper oversight for the project, described as North Carolina's largest development, over concerns about its environmental impact on the Haw River watershed.

Tarheel Army Missile Plant

HRA has advocated for cleanup and community notification regarding contamination from the former Tarheel Army Missile Plant in East Burlington, a site in a predominantly minority neighborhood where PFAS contamination was discovered beneath the facility.

Recognition

HRA received the Independent Weekly's Citizenship Award in 2007. In 2022, HRA was voted Best Nonprofit in Orange and Chatham Counties in the Indy Week Reader's Choice Awards. In 2024, founding Executive Director Elaine Chiosso was awarded membership in the Order of the Long Leaf Pine, North Carolina's highest civilian honor.

External Links

• Official website
• Haw Riverkeeper at Waterkeeper Alliance

References

Category:Environmental organizations based in North Carolina Category:Organizations established in 1982 Category:Waterkeeper Alliance Category:Chatham County, North Carolina Category:Alamance County, North Carolina Category:Water pollution in the United States Category:501(c)(3) organizations