When over 60 people showed up at Centennial Park in Howard County on a rainy April Saturday to collect trash along the shoreline, Center for Watershed Protection organizers were pleasantly surprised. The park’s well-maintained appearance suggested there wouldn’t be much to find… but the group collected more than 50 pounds of trash hidden along the waterline and throughout the grounds.
That successful first watershed walk—combined with a similar event in New Orleans that drew 35-40 participants—demonstrated something important: people want to protect their local waterways. They just need opportunities to get involved.
At Full Sail Media, we’re honored to spotlight Center for Watershed Protection as our April 2026 Changemaker community partner. This month, we spoke with Hye Yeong Kwon, Executive Director, about an organization that’s spent more than three decades proving that effective watershed protection requires both boots-on-the-ground community engagement and sophisticated national policy work.
Kwon has led the organization’s evolution from a small operation to a team of nearly 30, diversifying funding and expanding Center for Watershed Protection’s reach across the country while maintaining their commitment to protecting the Chesapeake Bay region.
The Watershed Reality: Everything the Water Touches
Before diving into what Center for Watershed Protection does, it helps to understand what a watershed actually is. Kwon offers a clear explanation: “It’s a drainage system or the land, the surrounding land and all the streams and rivers and bodies of water that drain to a particular point.”
The key insight is that watersheds vary in size, functioning as a sort of Russian nesting dolls. “The Chesapeake Bay watershed is huge, but within it, there are smaller sub-watersheds—the Patapsco, the Patuxent, and all of that,” Kwon explains. “Once people understand there’s smaller watersheds and the big one, which is the Chesapeake Bay watershed, they get it.”
Understanding this concept matters because it reveals an important truth: many of us actually live in a watershed, and our actions affect water quality downstream.
Four Programs, One Mission
Center for Watershed Protection tackles watershed protection through four interconnected program areas, each designed to inform and strengthen the others.
Membership: Building a National Network
With 2,600 members nationwide, Center for Watershed Protection connects professionals, organizations, and advocates working on stormwater management and watershed protection. This network creates opportunities for sharing best practices, staying current on research, and building collaborative solutions to complex water quality challenges.
Training and Education: Building Local Capacity
The organization provides education for people working directly in communities, including the practitioners who implement stormwater solutions, manage green infrastructure, and work with residents on watershed protection.
One standout initiative is the Clean Water Certificate Program, which trains underemployed and unemployed individuals for careers in stormwater management. “We looked at the number of people who graduate from our program. We’ve looked at the number of people who are able to obtain jobs and keep those jobs,” Kwon explains. The program not only creates workforce opportunities but also builds local capacity for watershed protection.
Research: Grounding Policy in Reality
Center for Watershed Protection’s research program ensures their guidance documents reflect actual conditions across diverse regions. “We have to know what we’re talking about,” Kwon emphasizes. “What is one of the best ways that you can do that? It’s certainly working in those regions, finding out what some of the issues are, because they do really differ across the country.”
The differences are significant. “In the Southwest, it’s very dry. They’ve got different sets of issues than the Southeast or the Chesapeake Bay,” she notes. “We use a lot of the project work that we do to inform what we put out there at a national level.”
Watershed Consulting: Testing Solutions on the Ground
Their consulting arm allows the Center for Watershed Protection to work directly in communities, testing approaches and understanding real-world implementation challenges. This hands-on experience provides crucial feedback that shapes their national guidance documents.
“Our thinking is if we’re going to provide national guidance documents
or state or regional guidance documents, we have to know what we’re talking about,”
Kwon explains. “We need both to do national guidance.”
Making Watersheds Matter to Regular People
Beyond technical work with professionals, the Center for Watershed Protection increasingly focuses on public engagement, which centers on helping people understand why watershed health matters to their daily lives.
“It’s important for us to make sure people who enjoy the outdoors—fishing, hiking, all of those—understand that having a healthy watershed is really essential to enjoying those things and activities,” Kwon says. “So that’s the message I give. Go outside. Go have fun. Think about what it means for watershed protection.”
This philosophy drives events such as the watershed walks, designed to make environmental stewardship accessible and enjoyable rather than abstract or overwhelming.
The Volunteer Ecosystem
Center for Watershed Protection engages volunteers across multiple levels of their work, creating diverse opportunities for involvement.
Their volunteer board of directors provides organizational oversight and strategic planning. Community members can organize their own stream walks in their areas as part of resource development efforts. The Clean Water Certificate Program uses volunteer panels. Conference volunteers help with events. Some volunteers contribute resources to their free online watershed library.
“It really has varied in terms of volunteer opportunities, but they are there if you’re interested and have some skills,” Kwon notes. “We usually say yes to volunteers.”
Nearly Three Decades of Evolution
Kwon has been with Center for Watershed Protection for nearly 30 years, starting as assistant director when the organization was just a small team. Today, the team is closer to 30.
“This organization is not what it was when I started out. It had to evolve over the years,” she reflects. Her initial task was diversifying funding for the organization, a challenge she’s successfully met as the organization has grown its reach and impact.
The evolution reflects changing approaches to water quality protection. The Center for Watershed Protection has adapted alongside shifts in stormwater management practices, green infrastructure adoption, regulatory frameworks, and understanding of watershed dynamics.
Maryland’s Unique Water Reality
Working from her Howard County base, Kwon appreciates Maryland’s distinctive hydrology. “Maryland has no natural lakes, so they have to have these dams,” she explains. “We don’t have any natural lakes, so it’s unusual as compared to some of the other states out there.”
This reality makes reservoir management and watershed protection particularly crucial for the state’s water supply, and makes organizations such as the Center for Watershed Protection essential for both technical guidance and public education.
How to Support the Mission
Attend Events: Join the Chesapeake BaySox Chesapeake Day fundraiser on June 6th for baseball, community, and watershed education.
Volunteer: Opportunities range from organizing stream walks to serving on panels for the Clean Water Certificate Program to contributing to the online watershed library.
Donate: As a 501(c)(3) organization, Center for Watershed Protection accepts tax-deductible donations to support their growing community engagement and education programs.
Join the Network: Professionals working in stormwater management and watershed protection can join the 2,600-member network to access resources and connect with peers nationwide.
At Full Sail Media, we’re inspired by organizations such as the Center for Watershed Protection that understand effective change requires working at multiple scales simultaneously. Their work reminds us that protecting natural resources is about more than just science and regulation. It’s about helping people understand their connection to the land and water around them, then giving them practical ways to make a difference.
To learn more about the Center for Watershed Protection, upcoming events, volunteer opportunities, or ways to support their work, visit cwp.org.
