Tennessee Rivers, Wildlife, & Recreation

The Harpeth River is our namesake river and our home base. Our organization was founded in 1999 as the Harpeth River Watershed Association and focused specifically on issues of pollution and degradation in the Harpeth River Watershed. Read more about the successes of our policy- and science-based approach to clean water protection and river conservation over the past 25 years here.

Today, we continue our work in the Harpeth River Watershed, while expanding our policy- and science-based approach to watersheds across the state of Tennessee. In 2020, we launched our Citizen Water Quality Monitoring Program with four sampling sites on the Harpeth River and continue to monitor water quality at those sites. The Harpeth River is 125 miles long with over 1000 miles of tributaries. There are five major tributaries: the West Harpeth, the Little Harpeth, the South Harpeth, Turnbull Creek, and Jones Creek. The Harpeth River meanders through agricultural, forested, and suburban areas of six counties in the greater Nashville region until it joins the Cumberland River. The Harpeth River watershed refers to the total area of land — 870 square miles — which drains into the Harpeth River. The Harpeth is one of a system of unique freshwater rivers in the Southeastern United States, which contains a greater variety of aquatic life than anywhere else in the world.