Adopt a Beach
Salem Sound Coastwatch's beach program
is unique in many ways:
- It creates teams of individuals to become "beachkeepers" at their favorite beach.
- It is year-round, which makes it more productive and responsive than seasonal activities such as a single coastal cleanup.
- It is comprehensive. Volunteers will be trained and asked to identify issues of concern for public health and environmental quality in order to provide timely information to the beach owners.
- It expands local stewardship of the environment.
- It provides a sustainable mechanism to protect and improve beaches and marine resources.
Become a beachkeeper!
We train each team to conduct a beach survey at their adopted beach. Email or call if you want training: info@salemsound.org or 978-741-7900.
Volunteer sign-up form (171 KB Word Doc) Program Description (34 KB PDF)
Teams are:
- Conducting regular coastal clean-ups, especially after storm events when marine debris is washed ashore and documenting storm damage on Storm Reporter
- Identifying other problems and issues affecting the beach
- Visually monitoring for sources of pollution, signs of erosion and evidence of invasive species such as the new invasive plant, pepperweed
- Collecting samples from stormwater outfall pipes and coastal streams for testing for bacterial contamination (where appropriate)
Understanding long-term stresses on our beaches is important. Team members will help establish benchmarks to enable us to evaluate erosion rate, storm damage and sea level rise over time.