Community Clean Water Institute

First Saturday Cleanup

Community Clean Water Institute is excited to announce that we received a grant from the Royal Bank of Canada's Blue Water Project to provide watershed education and monitoring training to the youth volunteers of First Saturday Cleanup!

First Saturday Cleanup is a great mentoring and stewardship program where youth of Chops Teen Center work with the community in cleaning up Santa Rosa Creek. The teens and supervising adults pick up trash, plant native vegetation, and remove graffiti. CCWI will be training everyone involved with on how to monitor water quality of streams and will be coordinating educational presentations on watershed science.

On Saturday, July 11th Community Clean Water Institute (CCWI) will be presenting a hands-on training course in testing the water quality of local rivers and streams.

First Saturday Cleanup happens every first Saturday of every month and will always be a combination of cleanup and restoration projects, and water science trainings and presentations. On August 1st there will be a workshop and presentation on the macro invertebrates of Santa Rosa Creek by Kelly Dabney of Sonoma State University's Entomology Outreach Program. Check out our events page for a more complete listing!

Thanks RBC! To learn more about the Blue Water Project go here

To learn more about First Saturday Cleanup go here

Water Quality Monitoring in Lower Russian River

We are expanding our water quality monitoring efforts into the region where Mark West Creek flows into the Russian River. This program will help the local communities of this area become involved in water testing and watershed stewardship of the Russian River and Mark West Creek.

CCWI recieved a grant from the Rose Foundation to purchase more monitoring equipment and to recruit local residents to be involved in water quality monitoring and watershed conservation.

Instream Flows

CCWI in partnership with local watershed groups and volunteers plans to broaden our flow monitoring program of local creeks over for the coming summer. Data will be used to develop minimum flows required for fish survival.

CCWI has received funding from American Water to conduct a summer study of flow and water quality at Mark West Creek. The PDF version of the report we completed can be viewed here.

CCWI plans to increase our water quality monitoring of the impaired Laguna De Santa Rosa. Excessive nutrient concentrations are causing many problems in the Laguna including algal blooms, low dissolved oxygen concentrations and the spread of invasive species. CCWI plans to work in collaboration with other groups to assess what are the primary sources of nutrients and can these sources be controlled.

CCWI and West County Community Services successfully developed and finished an after-school program in Monte Rio at the new Youth Center. West County youth between the ages of 11 and 18 learned about water testing, organized a creek clean up and a restoration project.