Angelina & Neches River Authority encourages to keep East Texas rivers clean on World Rivers Day

ANGELINA COUNTY, Texas (KTRE) - Every fourth Sunday in September is known as World’s River Day to celebrate nature’s waterways.

“Having clean rivers is really important for human life, for animal life, plant life, for anything really to exist,” says ANRA’s communication manager, Kimberly Wagner.

Wagner said it’s important for people to be aware of water quality issues. “We do have water quality issues here. They just don’t ever think about it because it’s out of sight, out of mind,” she said.

ANRA offers a few programs to help conserve clean East Texas waterways, such as the Texas Stream Team. Volunteers learn how to monitor water quality on their own said Wagner.

People can also request litter bags to help pick up trash for ANRA’s ‘Stash your Trash’ Campaign while they’re out on water recreational activities.

“Whenever we do stream clean-ups, we’ve never come away less than 20 bags of trash,” said Wagner.

Three River Basin’s runs across East Texas. According to the Texas Water Development Board, the Neches River runs 416 miles, supporting 10 total lakes and reservoirs.

The Sabine River is 360 miles, supporting 12 lakes, and the Trinity river is 550 miles, supporting 32 lakes.

Every three months, Clean Rivers Program Coordinator Andrew Henry goes out to 37 sites to measure water quality. Henry said the area has elevated levels of bacteria.

When flash floods occur, Henry said it causes more damage than good. “After droughts, waste, and pollution collecting on the land surface and then if you have a big flash flood, you end up with all that stuff running into the river at once and that can cause some short term issues.”

One sure way to help solve water quality issues, Henry said you can follow Best Management Practices. “Basically, you’re doing things to try and best ensure that you’re not polluting the river,” he said.

“Without our rivers, we wouldn’t have anything,” said Wagner.

For more information about ANRA programs, click here.

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