Wicomico Environmental Trust Ltd

The Wicomico Environmental Trust's (WET) mission is to champion a healthy environment for all. We do this by collaborating with nonprofits, governments, schools, businesses, and local residents to protect our waterways, forests, farms, and communities. With many members and volunteers who are scientists or educators, we focus on science-based programs such as the Wicomico River Creekwatchers to protect natural resources and public health and on environmental education and outreach.  WET also engages in science-based advocacy on local priority issues, working to foster community dialogue and nonpartisan consensus-building on the most important and divisive issues.  

These are some of our recent accomplishments in each of these areas:

• Science-Based Monitoring -- For more than twenty years, Creekwatchers volunteers and staff have collected samples throughout the Wicomico River watershed every other week from March to November.  Salisbury University faculty and student volunteers use these samples to test for bacterial content, nutrient load, and other indicators of watershed health. In 2025, we provided expanded, more timely public access to these data by sharing results throughout the sampling season on our website and social media, including virtually real-time bacteria reports. We also celebrated the successful launch of our Adopt-a-Site program, which financially supports the Creekwatchers program and strengthens the connection between community members and our local waterways. These improvements not only enhance transparency and community engagement today but also set the stage for even more robust monitoring and public reporting in the years ahead.
• Environmental Education -- Over the past several years, WET has restored Waterside Park, transforming it into a healthier, more welcoming green space for the community. In partnership with the City of Salisbury Parks Department, Lower Shore Land Trust, Salisbury University Environmental Studies faculty and students, and many dedicated WET volunteers, we have planted more than 100 native trees, removed invasive species, and created a thriving pollinator habitat. We’ve also hired and trained local young people to serve as Park Keepers, building skills and an ethos of stewardship that will last well beyond the project. WET worked with Wicomico NAACP to host multiple community events at the Park and partnered with organizations like Horizons Delmarva to bring environmental education directly to the site. This fall, we will celebrate the official completion of the restoration effort, marking an important milestone in a project that continues to grow community connections and model what collaborative, grassroots restoration can achieve. Looking ahead, WET is also developing a Creekwatchers Junior program, based at Waterside Park, to engage elementary and middle-school students and their families in learning about the health of our local waterways.
• Advocacy -- WET champions policies that protect our local waterways and natural resources. Key successes included the court-ordered remand of Valley Proteins’ discharge permit to the Maryland Department of the Environment for reconsideration, ensuring that additional scientific data and analysis are fully considered. We advocated the denial of a permit for an experimental “biorefinery” in an agricultural-residential neighborhood north of Salisbury, upheld unanimously by the Board of Zoning Appeals. In addition, we supported State law amendments to continue integration of natural resource protection and environmental considerations into Maryland’s revised planning principles, helping to ensure that thoughtful, science-based safeguards remain central to development and land-use decisions here and throughout Maryland. Most recently WET, alongside the Friends of the Nanticoke River and more than two dozen Wicomico County residents, filed a complaint in Wicomico County Circuit Court seeking relief from the harms and risks caused by the open-top dissolved air flotation (DAF) waste storage tank on Porter Mill Road.