Port Royal Sound Foundation reports healthy waterways but flags declining salinity; volunteer monitoring expanded
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Summary
Courtney Kimmel, director of conservation at the Port Royal Sound Foundation, said the watershed (about 1,500 square miles across Beaufort, Jasper, Hampton and Allendale counties) remains generally healthy but shows declining salinity trends in some creeks. The foundation launched a state'approved volunteer water'quality program with USCB and is building a data portal and marsh monitoring to improve local decision'making.
Courtney Kimmel, director of conservation at the Port Royal Sound Foundation, said the foundation's 2022 assessment of two decades of monitoring data shows the Port Royal Sound watershed is generally healthy but that some subwatersheds are showing changes that warrant attention, notably declining salinity in Broad Creek and other tributaries.
"That linear regression line is flagging for us, a concern in the watershed that salinity levels are decreasing," Kimmel said, and added that the trend points to increased freshwater inputs and stormwater runoff as key stressors.
Kimmel said the foundation has worked with the Department of Natural Resources and the University of South Carolina Beaufort (USCB) to develop a state'approved volunteer monitoring program that began in April. She said about 70 volunteers have been trained and are monitoring roughly 25 sites twice monthly using high'tech kits that cost about $5,000 each; samples are analyzed with USCB'affiliated labs and the foundation expects a roughly two'week turnaround for data, compared with four to six months for some state reporting processes.
The Port Royal Sound science data portal is being developed to aggregate monitoring and indicator data across five priority areas: water quality, land cover and land use change, wetland and marsh dynamics, biodiversity and indicator species, and community resilience. Kimmel described marsh monitoring stations, biodiversity surveys (including fish and diamondback terrapin monitoring), and regional resilience collaborations with local governments and NGOs.
In audience questions, Kimmel said researchers have recorded more underwater boat noise that may affect spawning but that localized quantitative studies are limited, and she said Beaufort County'level green'space funding has been used strategically across county lines to protect watershed headwaters.
Kimmel encouraged interested residents to sign up for the foundation's newsletter or contact the foundation for more information on monitoring and volunteer opportunities.