Meet the Team: Clean Water Specialist Rebecca Wade

This is a feature from the Fall/Winter 2024-2025 issue of the Upstate Advocate, Upstate Forever's twice-yearly publication. To read a digital copy of the complete publication, please click here.

I moved to Greenville in 2015 to attend Furman University, attracted to the area by Furman’s beautiful campus, academic programs, and potential for studying abroad. However, what made me want to make the Upstate my home was the sense of balance that the region has cultivated. There is an abundance of wild, scenic, and protected lands, working farms, exciting cities, and green infrastructure that is blossoming to support the growing community.

As time went on, it felt like the most ideal place to start my adult life with my partner because we could “have it all.” My husband and I both have offices in downtown Greenville and careers in fields we are passionate about. We enjoy social bike rides on the Prisma Health Swamp Rabbit Trail and evening hikes with our pups at Paris Mountain State Park.

As we get older, my partner and I often have the same conversation about whether we want to move anywhere else. Consistently, and unanimously, we agree that the Upstate is our home.

One of the most formative experiences that underscored the importance of clean water and oriented me to this work was the harmful algal blooms that impacted the drinking water in my hometown, Toledo, Ohio, in the summer of 2014. In August of that year, high microcystin concentrations were detected in Lake Erie and as a result, the water supply to 400,000 people in Toledo was shut down.

Now, in my role as Clean Water Specialist at Upstate Forever, I am able to advocate for policies and plans that are protective of water quality and quantity, and work with landowners to install best management practices to mitigate pollution in the Upstate’s waterways.

Together, we can work to ensure that threats to water sources — like the algal bloom I experienced in Toledo, the 1999 bloom on Lake Greenwood, and countless others — are prevented.

This work is quite variable. On any given day, I could be checking emails from my kitchen counter or collaborating with other staff at our Greenville office, traveling across the Upstate for meetings, or meeting with landowners to see their properties and discuss site design for Best Management Practice projects (BMP) like septic repairs, livestock exclusion fencing, streambank repairs, and land protection in the Tyger River watersheds (Greenville and Spartanburg Counties) or Three & Twenty Creek Watershed (Anderson County).

A lot of the Clean Water work we do is difficult to measure, and it often takes a very long time to complete. Most of our BMP projects take two to three years to complete. The Riparian Buffer Ordinance passed by Greenville County Council in January 2024 was the result of more than a decade of advocacy from groups like Upstate Forever and other members of the Reedy River Water Quality Group.

With these expansive timelines, it can be understandable to wonder, “Are we really making a difference?” — a not uncommon refrain in conservation work. In my experience, however, it is essential to remain grateful for the small wins and be consistent in the work so that we can slowly achieve the smaller accomplishments that allow us to reach the big finish lines. As the Upstate continues to see intense development in the years to come, I expect we have more big finish lines on the horizon.

Water is a finite resource directly impacted by our actions and inactions. We need citizens like you to understand, advocate for, and educate others on the importance of clean and abundant water for drinking, recreation, businesses, and wildlife.