Discover our successes in safeguarding San Diego's waterways. From clean water initiatives to marine conservation efforts, see how we make a difference.
San Diego Coastkeeper periodically seeks to add talented individuals to our passionate team of educators, advocates, scientists, outreach specialists, and non-profit professionals.
The people behind our organization make our vision for clean water, vibrant communities, and a healthy environment possible. Learn more about our board of directors and staff.
We train community volunteers to conduct monthly water quality sampling which provides vital data to understand water quality issues and inform decision makers.
Annual Report Part II: San Diego Coastkeeper's 2012 Accomplishments
San Diego Coastkeeper
May 7, 2013
Part two of four in our Annual Report blog series highlighting everything Coastkeeper in the year of 2012.
Restorable – Coastkeeper Helps Clean San Diego Bay Coastkeeper, along with Environmental Health Coalition, played a huge role in the Regional Water Quality Control Board ordering a cleanup of 143,000 cubic yards of toxic sediment from San Diego Bay. Coastkeeper continues to monitor the process to ensure those cleaning the bay follow the plan the Regional Board set, properly communicate with the local communities about the plan and clean the bay with minimal impacts to local communities and the environment.
Knowledgeable – Project SWELL Expands its Teacher Resources Coastkeeper began training teachers to help them incorporate environmental science principles into their instruction with small group workshops. Coastkeeper partnered with the City of San Diego and San Diego Unified School District to update Project SWELL’s website with online resources so teachers can access environmental science lessons, student materials and evaluation tools from any place they have an internet connection.
Shareable – Coastkeeper Publishes Watershed Report Transforming our volunteers’ passion for the environment into knowledge and action, we published our State of the Watersheds Report to inform community groups and decision makers about water quality in their watershed of interest. We published this report based on data from our Water Quality Monitoring Program that trains volunteers to collect samples monthly and analyze them in our professional lab.
Protectable –Partnership Brings Technology to Marine Protected Areas San Diego’s new marine protected areas (MPAs) became official in January 2012. As a key player in development and adoption of our local MPAs, Coastkeeper wanted to collect data on how folks use these underwater parks. We partnered with Global TIES, an undergraduate engineering program at the University of California, San Diego, to develop a mobile web site that allows volunteers to input observations into our MPA database.
Empowerable – Coastkeeper Launches Community Advisory Council We launched our Community Advisory Council to unite ten diverse individuals in helping us find and fix water quality problems in San Diego County over the course of a year. As our eyes and ears on the ground in their distinct communities, these environmental leaders will unveil a unique education project in 2013.
Cleanable – Volunteers Storm the Beaches for Trash While most of San Diego slept late on their Saturday mornings, Coastkeeper, Surfrider Foundation, San Diego Chapter and almost 4,000 volunteers, cleaned beaches throughout the county and collected nearly 76,000 pounds of trash. Cigarette butts continue to be a huge debris problem.
Swimmable – Check the SwimGuide for Safe Waters San Diego Coastkeeper brought the county its own version of the Waterkeeper SwimGuide, a free app that uses daily data to identify beaches safe for swimming and recreation and includes a way to report pollution concerns. From our long-standing partnership with the County Department of Environmental Health, we publish their beach water quality data for 80 beaches countywide on our interactive map and in the SwimGuide to ensure residents can know before they go.
Fixable – Find and Fix Empowers Residents Pollution is prevalent, but stoppable. Through the “find and fix” approach that we established in 2012, members of the community can report pollution to us and we will ensure it gets to the people with the power to address the problem. Our pollution report hotline has already helped fix pollution problems in communities.
Attendable – Events Bring Water Quality to Life Coastkeeper brought you fun and educational events focused on protecting and restoring San Diego’s waters. From our quarterlySigns of the Tide to our 5th Annual Walk the Watershed and 11th Annual World Water Monitoring Day , Coastkeeper hosted highly attended events to show kids and adults how they play a role in protecting San Diego’s waters.
Honorable – Coastal Champions Crowned at World Oceans Day San Diego Coastkeeper presented Coastal Champion awards to eight environmental leaders across San Diego County for their efforts to protect fishable, swimmable and drinkable waters. Hosted at Birch Aquarium on World Oceans Day , Coastkeeper’s yearly awards program honored individuals and organizations for their contributions in the categories of Runoff Rockstar, Find & Fix, Marine Conservation, Water Wise, Blue Tech, Lighthouse Lifetime Achievement, Volunteer of the Year and ASBS Special Recognition.
