Don’t Get in the Water: My Internship with Friends of the Reedy River

Before I began my internship with Friends of the Reedy River, a nonprofit based on protecting our local watershed, I didn’t realize the problems right here in my own backyard. I remember walking around Falls Park downtown and blatantly ignoring the signs bordering the river: “Caution: Swimming Advisory – Bacteria levels have exceeded state standards.” If other people were swimming there, it was probably fine. (Spoiler alert: don’t swim in the Reedy.) But the further I got into my internship, the more I realized how polluted our river was.

My name is Anna Jones and I’m a a Sustainability Science major from Spartanburg, SC. One of my jobs as a Watershed Intern is routinely monitoring several sites throughout Greenville County. We use whirl-packs (the scientific version of Ziploc bags) to collect water samples. These are later plated in Petri dishes to determine the level of E. Coli in the watershed, which, if you couldn’t guess, is dangerously high.

But Anna, you might ask. What’s causing this?

The answer is unexpected, but unsurprising if you’ve spent any time downtown: Geese. They excrete up to 40x more E. Coli than a toddler, and they’re everywhere. But worse, I was surprised to learn that I was also accidentally polluting the Reedy. Me. I literally spent so much time in a creek this weekend that my skin is lobster red. I love the Earth– there’s no way I could be hurting it!

Only, what no one tells you anymore is that Greenville’s pipes flow directly into the Reedy River. Every time you dump expired milk, salad dressing, or butter down your drain? Well, it usually ends up amalgamating into a giant mass of nasty. Ever heard of a fatberg? Look up a picture. Not very pleasant, but it’s safe to say that I throw most of these things away now.

Friends of the Reedy River plays a large role in community outreach, so we frequent science centers and fairs around the upstate. Here, I get to explain the whole don’t-feed-the-geese-and-don’t-pour-things-down-your-kitchen-sink dilemma to adults. I also give runoff demonstrations to kids, explaining how water can carry pollutants directly into our river. This was definitely a learning curve for me– going from college seminars to asking 8-year-olds “do you think fish like dirty water?” is harder than you think.

This internship changed my perspective on water. Everything I thought I knew as an environmentalist was flipped on its head. No wonder our river is so disgusting; no one knows just how easy it is to pollute it– not even a Sustainability Science major.

Having the opportunity to learn firsthand how to protect the Reedy has been an incredibly important experience. It’s allowed me to give back to my community through conservation education– something sorely needed in Greenville. Next time you want to take a dip at Falls Park, remember the geese… and stay out of the water.