We monitored at Robertson Millpond Preserve on Friday and managed to avoid tripping on the many cypress knees that populate our monitoring locations. Robertson Millpond Preserve is unique in that it is home to the only bald cypress habitat in Wake County, NC. We didn’t find many salamanders at this site, but we did find a Green Treefrog and Pickerel Frog.
New Volunteers Get Their Feet Wet in First Round of 2023 Volunteer Wetland Monitoring
chase.bergeson • March 7, 2023
The first Volunteer Wetlands Monitoring Pilot Program weekend of 2023 provided plenty of opportunities to get our feet wet (both literally and figuratively)! We had lots of new people volunteering this weekend who got to learn our monitoring protocols for amphibian surveys, water quality sampling, and hydrology monitoring for the first time. We are so excited to see the program expanding and meet new, amazing wetland warriors!
On Saturday, we monitored at Mason Farm Biological Reserve in Chapel Hill, NC. Our first monitoring location was wetter than we’ve ever seen it! In some places the standing water was over a foot deep and some of us had to switch to waders to avoid overtopping our boots! Because of all the water, we were able to find lots of larval salamanders who would sneak up to the surface and make themselves visible in the otherwise dark or cloudy water. We don’t usually take a water quality sample at this site and don’t have a permanent staff gauge because it is often completely dry.
This site illustrates how widely wetland hydrology can fluctuate over the course of the year. Luckily, our water level data loggers will help us keep track of the hydrology even when we can’t go out and see for ourselves. These loggers, along with our keen observations of wetland hydrology indicators, such as, drift deposits and crayfish burrows can help us to determine whether our sites are really “wet” enough to be “wetlands.” Sometimes, when we visit a wetland during the dry season, it can be hard to know how wet it is at other times of the year. These indicators and loggers help us to have a clearer picture of wetland hydrology over time.
On Sunday, we had a beautiful monitoring session at Hemlock Bluffs Nature Preserve. We were lucky enough to be joined by an employee of the preserve who says she can “smell where the salamanders are.” We were able to find salamanders in every life stage from egg sacks to adults, although the numbers that we saw may have been impacted by other herpetology surveys in our study area earlier in the week.
It was great to see so many new faces and add to our already wonderful group of wetland warriors. We are looking forward to getting back out in June for another round of water quality, hydrology, and amphibian monitoring. We will also be doing our vegetation surveys, so we’ll be calling all plant lovers for our next monitoring events. In the meantime, we hope to see everybody at our second Wednesday of the month Meet & Greet social events and to get back in the wetlands soon for some more practice with our field skills.
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Celebrating Our Carolina Wetlands
A Decade of Celebrating Carolina's Wetland Treasures
On September 9, 2026, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued a supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking (SNPRM) offering additional ways to define “waters of the United States” (WOTUS). Why this definition matters The WOTUS definition determines which water bodies the federal government can protect under the Clean Water Act. In November 2025, the agencies proposed revisions to bring the definition in line with the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Sackett v. EPA. After taking public comments, they have now put forward further options. The new proposal narrows federal jurisdiction even more, potentially stripping protections from the vast majority of U.S. wetlands and seasonal streams. What our comment letter says The Carolina Wetlands Association is submitting comments opposing the proposal. Our main concerns: It would undermine the Clean Water Act’s purpose. The law’s goal is to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation’s waters. This proposal would severely undercut that goal. The “days of water” test is a poor measure. The proposal decides jurisdiction by how many days a year water is present. That number correlates poorly with a waterway’s ability to carry pollution downstream to the rivers, lakes, and estuaries that would stay protected. Streams dry for as few as 30 days a year could lose protection, and polluters would have an incentive to discharge into them rather than into protected waters. Drinking water is at risk. About 56% of North Carolina’s stream miles feeding public drinking water systems are intermittent, ephemeral, or headwater streams. In South Carolina the figure is 51%. These systems serve 6.6 million people, who would bear higher health risks and treatment costs. Wetlands do critical work. They filter pollutants and nutrients that cause algal blooms, dead zones, and fish kills. Losing that function would also degrade groundwater, which many people drink untreated. The legal reasoning is flawed. We argue the agencies misread the Supreme Court’s language. “Relatively permanent” describes geographic features such as streams with defined beds and banks. The word “continuously” modifies “flowing” and doesn’t limit what counts as relatively permanent. It would be hard to implement. Many affected streams have no data showing how many days they lack surface water. That makes the rule difficult for agencies to administer and leaves landowners unable to tell whether the Clean Water Act applies to their property. The impacts haven’t been analyzed. The agencies should not finalize a rule before measuring the added pollution flowing from newly unprotected waters into those that supply drinking water, or projecting the resulting damage to downstream uses. What you can do Read the SNPRM Submit your comment by October 9, 2026, under Docket ID No. EPA–HQ–OW-2025-0322 . Personal stories about the streams, wetlands, and drinking water you depend on are especially effective. Learn more: read the comments we submitted on the November 2025 version of the rule, many of which still apply.
Welcoming New Members to the Carolina Wetlands Association Board