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MOREHEAD CITY, N.C. – Environmentalists celebrated National Estuaries Day Saturday. They say keeping estuaries clean is important to protect the fish and habitats they live in.

Volunteers gathered in front of the Division of Marine Fisheries building in Morehead City Saturday to plant a rain garden that will soak up water and help filter out pollutants so they don’t end up in the waterways.

“Keeping our estuaries and our beaches and our sounds and our waters safe and clean is very important, not only for people who come here that like to eat seafood out of our estuaries, but also for habitat,” Sarah Phillips, of the Coastal Federation, said. “A lot of our issues right now come from storm water runoff.”

Because North Carolina has the second largest estuary program in the nation, they’re more important in the state than in most other areas.

“Our estuaries are in trouble,” Dr. Louis Daniel, of the Division of Marine Fisheries, said. “With the development that’s going on along the coast, it impacts our fisheries resources, and that’s why we’re so interested in it. We know clean water and protected wetlands mean more seafood.”

Experts say National Estuaries Day’s importance should last through the future as well. They say you can also help keep waters clean by building a rain garden in your own yard.

National Estuaries Day is always the last Saturday in September.