No river, no race.
Every USRA event depends on three things a racecourse can lose: water clean enough to swim, flows that still run, and a put-in the public is allowed to use. Protecting those is part of the job description for anyone who competes on American whitewater.
What racers stand to lose
Water quality
Raft racing is a full-contact water sport. Crews swim, flip, and take water in the face for a living, which makes bacteria counts, plastic, and runoff a competition-safety issue and not only an environmental one.
Flows
Most reliable American racecourses run on scheduled dam releases negotiated through federal relicensing. Those schedules are written in rooms most paddlers never enter, and they get rewritten every few decades.
Access
A course is unusable if the ramp is gated, the shuttle road is closed, or the bank is posted. Access is decided locally, one put-in and one landowner at a time, and it is the piece most easily lost while nobody is watching.
Standing
Agencies and host communities extend permits to user groups with a stewardship record. Cleanup hours and comment letters are what make a racing federation a partner at the table rather than another permit application.
American Whitewater does the access work
USRA is a governing body for competitive raft racing. We run events, certify officials, and select national teams. We are not the organization that keeps America’s whitewater open to the public, and we want our members to know exactly who is.
“to conserve and restore America’s whitewater resources and enhance opportunities to enjoy them safely”
American Whitewater’s mission statement
Founded in 1954, American Whitewater is the national nonprofit advocate for whitewater rivers and the paddlers who use them, working with a network of volunteers and more than a hundred affiliated paddling clubs on well over a hundred rivers at any given time. Its Access Program tracks access legislation, presses for public rights of passage on rivers crossing private land, builds and maintains river trails, and defends access in court when it has to. It also carries much of the load in hydropower relicensing, which is where recreational release schedules — the flows a great many races are scheduled around — are actually set.
That work is funded almost entirely by individual memberships and donations. If your club races on a dam-release river, someone at American Whitewater probably sat through years of meetings to put that water there. Joining is the cheapest river insurance in the sport.
- About American WhitewaterMission, stewardship approach, annual impact, and how to become a member or affiliate club.
- River Access ProgramHow access is secured and defended, plus the Access Toolbox on navigability law and landowner relations.
River cleanups across the country
Start with the three national clearinghouses — they will find an event on your home water faster than a search will. Below those are large regional cleanups that welcome paddlers, several of which put volunteers on the water in boats.
- 1Yuba River Cleanup — Nevada County, CA
- 2Great Sierra River Cleanup — Sierra Nevada, CA
- 3Riverkeeper Sweep — Hudson watershed, NY
- 4Potomac River Watershed Cleanup — DC, MD, VA
- 5Potomac Riverkeeper Network — Potomac & Shenandoah
- 6Sweep the Hooch — Chattahoochee, GA
- 7Rivers Alive — Georgia statewide
- 8Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful — TN, GA, NC, AL
Find one anywhere
National River Cleanup — American Rivers
The longest-running national program, started in 1991. Registered public cleanups are published to a national map you can search for events near you, and organizers get a handbook and promotional support. More than a million volunteers have worked hundreds of thousands of waterway miles through it.
americanrivers.org — find or register a cleanupFind Your Waterkeeper — Waterkeeper Alliance
An interactive map of local Waterkeeper organizations. Most run their own cleanup calendar, water-quality monitoring, and comment campaigns, and they are the right first call if your racecourse has a pollution problem rather than a litter problem.
waterkeeper.org — find your local WaterkeeperNational CleanUp Day
Held alongside World Cleanup Day, this is the single easiest date to hang a club event on — the publicity is already built and volunteers are already looking for something to join. A good default for USRA clubs scheduling their own river day.
West
Yuba River Cleanup — SYRCL
The 29th annual cleanup covers 30-plus sites across roughly 80 miles of the Yuba watershed, from the Sierra headwaters to the lower river, with a free volunteer meal afterward at Condon Park in Grass Valley. Registration is free and open to anyone.
yubariver.org — Annual Yuba River CleanupGreat Sierra River Cleanup
A Sierra-wide watershed cleanup coordinated by the Sierra Nevada Alliance as part of California Coastal Cleanup Day, with sites throughout the range. Useful if your club is nowhere near the coast but sits on the water that feeds it.
sierranevadaalliance.org — Great Sierra River CleanupNortheast
Riverkeeper Sweep
More than a hundred locations from New York City to the Adirondacks, drawing thousands of volunteers for shoreline cleanup, tree planting, and invasive removal across the Hudson watershed. Advance registration by site is required.
riverkeeper.org — Riverkeeper SweepMid-Atlantic
Potomac River Watershed Cleanup
Run by the Alice Ferguson Foundation on the first weekend in April, with hundreds of volunteer-led sites across the watershed. Site leaders are recruited months ahead, which makes it a straightforward event for a club to adopt a stretch of river.
potomaccleanup.org — Potomac River Watershed CleanupPotomac Riverkeeper Network cleanups
A rolling season of cleanups across the Potomac and Shenandoah watersheds rather than one flagship day, plus volunteer water-quality monitoring. Gear is supplied on site; volunteers sign a waiver in advance.
potomacriverkeepernetwork.org — volunteerSoutheast
Sweep the Hooch — Chattahoochee Riverkeeper
One of the best cleanups in the country for boaters: volunteers choose between wading and paddling, and the 2026 edition put roughly 1,400 people across 67 parks, creeks, and river access points. Sites fill quickly, so register the week it opens.
chattahoochee.org — Sweep the HoochKeep the Tennessee River Beautiful
A year-round calendar of cleanups across the Tennessee River watershed, much of it boat-based, including a multi-state summer series. Their volunteers have pulled more than a million pounds of trash from the watershed.
keeptnriverbeautiful.org — upcoming cleanupsRivers Alive
Georgia’s statewide volunteer waterway cleanup, covering rivers, streams, lakes, and wetlands through local host organizations. Many long-running county cleanups operate under its banner.
riversalive.georgia.gov — Rivers AlivePut your club’s name on a stretch of river
Racing clubs are the ideal cleanup crew: you already own the boats, you already know where the eddies collect trash, and you already have a roster of people comfortable working in moving water. Five steps from idea to event.
- Pick the reach you race
Choose water your crews already know, and scout it at the flow you expect on the day. The eddies and strainers where debris piles up are the ones you swim past every training session.
- Clear it with the land manager
Talk to whoever controls the put-in and takeout — Forest Service or BLM district, state park, county, utility, or private landowner. Most say yes, and many will haul the trash or supply bags.
- Register the event
Put it on the National River Cleanup map, or plug into the regional cleanup nearest you from the list above. Registered events get promoted to volunteers already looking for one.
- Run it like a race day
Safety brief, signed waivers, gloves and grabbers, adult supervision for minors, and a clear rule that nobody handles batteries, sharps, or drums — those get flagged for the land manager instead. Boat crews work the far bank; walkers work the access.
- Report the weight
Weigh the haul and report it to your host program, then send the figure and a few photos to USRA. Aggregate numbers are what we cite in permit applications and comment letters, and they are worth more to the sport than they look.
Tell us what happened on your river
If your club ran a cleanup, filed comments on a relicensing, or is fighting an access closure at a course we race, send it to USRA and we will carry it — on this page, in our reporting to the United Rafting Federation, and in front of the agencies that decide who gets on the water. Contact the USRA board through the contact page.
USRA is an independent 501(c)(3) national governing body and is not affiliated with the organizations listed on this page. Links are provided for the benefit of our members and clubs; inclusion is not an endorsement of any organization’s policy positions, and USRA does not engage in political campaign activity. Cleanup dates rotate annually — confirm details with the organizer before making plans. Page reviewed September 2026.