Introducing This Year’s WMA5 Watershed Ambassador

 

My name is Elyse Levy, and I am this year’s Watershed Ambassador for Water Management Area (WMA) # 5. While in this capacity I will be working to help educate citizens, and enlist their help to improve the watershed around us. I am stationed here at Hackensack Riverkeeper, which is a great organization that has been working to improve the Hackensack River Watershed for many years now. WMA 5 also includes the Hudson River and Pascack Brook watersheds.

As your Watershed Ambassador, I am available to give presentations to schools and community groups about watersheds and watershed management practices. In these presentations, I will show what a watershed is, what problems affect watersheds, such as non- point source pollution, and why it is so important that we protect them. This knowledge will allow citizens to become involved with protecting their watershed, through modifying their own behaviors, as well as through organized projects.

Also, I am available to lead volunteer monitoring trainings, where groups and individuals can become directly involved in keeping track of changes within the watershed, through biological and visual assessments. This data will be used to study the effects of pollution, especially from non point sources, on the streams and rivers within the watershed.

My educational and experiential background will help me to accomplish some of these efforts and goals. I was an Environmental Science major at Union College in Schenectady, NY.  Since my graduation in 2003, I have worked in the outdoor educational field. First, I spent a year at Newfound Harbor Marine Institute in Canada, where I taught Marine Science, which included a variety of topics, from coastal ecology to shark biology. After that, I came back to New Jersey, and became an Experiential Education Facilitator at the Princeton Blairstown Center, which gave me the opportunity to work with urban youth, and to give them an experience in the great outdoors. 

I am excited to be part of a united effort to help restore the watershed, so in the future we can enjoy clean water and the aesthetic value of the natural environment. For more information on WMA 5 and how I can help you, your school, organization, or community please contact me.  We can arrange presentations, monitoring trainings, clean up and restoration projects, and more.  I hope to hear from you soon.

 

–Elyse Levy

Ambassador@HackensackRiverkeeper.org

(201) 968-0808