The Friends of the Shenandoah River is a volunteer, non-profit, scientific organization dedicated to the preservation and protection of the Shenandoah River and its tributaries.

The group was founded in 1989 by a group of like-minded Shenandoah Valley citizens and scientists concerned about the rapid decline in water quality of their beloved Shenandoah River. While the fish kills of the 80’s and 90’s would not compare to those of the next decade (which depleted 80% of the adult smallmouth and sunfish populations), the danger signs were all too evident: industrial pollution from the Avtex Fibers plant; sediment and fertilizer runoff; livestock polluting the feeder streams; water turbidity; lesions and sores on fish; the stench of under-treated sewage. Clearly, action was needed, but where to begin? This nucleus of science-minded Friends knew just where to start—with the science.

Launched in 1989, the FOSR grass-roots water quality monitoring and testing program was the first of its kind in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. Today, in its 23rd year of continuous operation, the program deploys 72 FOSR volunteers who wade in, literally, with bi-monthly water samplings along 150 miles of the Shenandoah and its tributaries, from Port Republic, VA to Harpers Ferry, WV. The samples are processed through a full-time FOSR laboratory at Shenandoah University, resulting in a huge and invaluable database of sampling
Is There a Problem?

Friends of the Shenandoah River believes that it is time for our beautiful river to be treated as something more than a means of carrying away the wastes of our society. The Shenandoah River has been adversely affected by point source pollutants such as industrial wastes, inadequately treated sewage, and solid wastes; and by non point source pollutants such as agricultural and urban run-off and erosion from poor sedimentation control.