Clean Water Act violations can make polluters liable for civil penalties of over $51,000 per violation, per day. Because, under the law, violations that occurred in prior years are also subject to enforcement, these fines can add up to millions of dollars over the course of several years. Rather than seeking to have polluters pay large fines into state or federal accounts and that are rarely used to actually address pollution impacts locally in San Diego, Coastkeeper prefers to have dischargers instead pay a smaller portion of those total fines to a local non-profit environmental organization doing good work in the watershed that the polluter has harmed. In this way, we are able to channel support to a variety of environmental projects (called “supplemental environmental projects,” or “SEPs”). Through Coastkeeper’s numerous enforcement actions, we have been able to direct hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding to other local non-profits, including San Diego Audubon Society, San Dieguito River Valley Conservancy, Ocean Connectors, and Preserve Calavera, among others, for use in important watershed enhancement and environmental restoration projects. By using citizen suit provisions to enforce environmental laws, Coastkeeper is able to stop pollution, protect and restore local waters, and direct much-needed funding through SEP settlements to support other local non-profits that work hard to protect our environment.