Our Mission

The Clean Water Education Partnership (CWEP) is a cooperative effort between local governments, state agencies, and nonprofit organizations to protect water quality in the Tar-Pamlico, Neuse, and Cape Fear River Basins. CWEP aims to protect North Carolina’s waterways from stormwater pollution through public education and outreach.

What We Do

CWEP helps public entities communicate the important fact that clean water is vital for healthy ecosystems and a high quality of life for area residents. It is our goal to create a unified messaging about stormwater and pollution throughout our partner regions. We accomplish this through two main avenues: in-person education at community festivals, after school programs, libraries, and classroom visits; and mass media outreach campaigns via digital, radio, television, print, and cinema ads in English and Spanish.

How We Operate

CWEP is governed by a Steering Committee that is composed of representatives from each partner jurisdiction or agency. CWEP began in fiscal year 2002 with just 10 partners, and today it has grown to 43 local government partners and counting. Together, these organizations weigh in on outreach priorities at quarterly meetings and provide the ongoing financial support for the program through member dues based on their population.

Local governments perform the most important function of CWEP: interacting with the public. CWEP helps local governments develop educational and outreach materials, allowing the partners to cooperatively achieve more than any one could individually. In addition, CWEP provides direct education at schools, libraries, camps, fairs, festivals, and more using various services and programming.

How to Join

If you are a representative of a local government that is interested in joining the CWEP program, please visit our Contact page to reach out to the program administrator.

CWEP Staff