Cape Fear River Watch

Founded in 1993, the Cape Fear River Watch (CFRW) mission is to protect and restore the water quality of the Cape Fear River Basin for all people through education, advocacy and action. Working with our partners, we have a history of proven success in protecting our watershed. We have been instrumental in requiring Duke Energy to clean up power plant coal ash. We dissuaded Titan America from building a potentially significant pollution source in the form of a cement plant along the banks of the Cape Fear River. We are the region’s go-to source for information, advocacy and legal action related to GenX and other per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) discharged into the environment from a DuPont/Chemours facility located in Fayetteville, NC. In February 2019, our lawsuits culminated in a signed Consent Order between CFRW, the NC Department of Environmental Quality and Chemours which will drastically reduce the release of PFAS into our environment. We remain continually and passionately focused on issues facing the Cape Fear ranging from industrial animal operations to ecosystem improvements critical to the maintenance and growth of native fish populations. CFRW provides multiple opportunities for citizen engagement through monthly seminars, paddles and clean-ups. We provide education to both children and adults through eco-tours and summer camps. We manage a citizen science program called Creekwatchers that enables our community to become advocates for creeks in their neighborhoods through monitoring and collecting water samples, which we analyze in our in-office lab. We also manage the Greenfield Lake boathouse at a Wilmington city park, which gives the community access to the lake on paddle boats, kayaks and canoes.