How Upstate Forever works to protect water

Upstate South Carolina is known for its scenic blueways and award-winning drinking water. However, as population pressure increases in the Upstate, an unprecedented number of individual and industry users are now competing for our valuable water resources. Now, more than ever, it's crucial we protect our region's water sources. 

Here's how our Clean Water team works to protect the Upstate's clean and abundant waters: 

Critical land protection

Water quality drives our land protection work. Because of your support, we’re working to permanently protect an additional 15,000 acres of our region’s most critical lands to positively impact water quality.

Watershed-based planning

Our Clean Water Team partners with drinking water utility providers on strategic plans to protect and improve water quality right here in our local watersheds. 

Clean water advocacy

We advocate at the local, state, and federal levels to advance policies that protect our drinking water, as well as the places we love to fish, hunt, swim, and explore. 

Slowing the rate of sprawl

UF’s Land Policy team works to enact plans that slow the rate of sprawl and steer development away from the sensitive areas that naturally protect our water quality. 

Supporting 100-foot buffers

The most cost-effective way to protect drinking water quality is by keeping land next to waterways natural and intact. We support an initiative to require 100-foot buffers along rivers and streams in Greenville County.

Bacteria reduction in rivers

Thanks to SCDHEC funding, we help landowners in critical areas by offsetting costs on projects that reduce bacterial pollution, such as septic tank repair and replacement and fencing cattle out of streams. 

Would you like to stay up-to-date on Upstate Forever's Clean Water work, as well as water quality news, issues, and more? Click here to sign up for The Water Log, our dedicated email newsletter for all things Clean Water. 

Photo by Morgan Yelton