Projects
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.
ArcGIS
CCWI
will be setting up a GIS work station in the coming weeks.
GIS is mapping / database software used in all environmental
fields. It is also capable of creating professional quality
maps displaying an incredible array of information. The
CCWI GIS station will be open to stewardship groups and
students who would like to use this tool for water and natural
resource related projects and displays.
Laguna
Monitoring
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.
Voices
of the River
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.
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Data
Here's
a map showing Surface
Water Temperature for many of our monitoring sites during
June 09. Here's a map
showing Surface Water Temperature for many of our monitoring
sites during May 09. Yes, high temperature is considered a
polluntant, since salmonids require cold waters to survive
and thrive. The colored symbols on the map are based on temperature
grouping criteria from the State Water Quality Control Board's
Basin Plan Objectives. Any of the sites in orange and red
represent temperatures above Coho salmon's survival limit.
Optimum temperatures for rearing coho salmonids are generally
between 10° C and 16° C Welsh et al. (2001) and Hines
and Ambrose (1998). We will continue to map temperature data,
as well as other water quality parameters, around the county.
In
order to manage our growing number of water samples from local
watersheds CCWI has developed a relational database system.
To view our online database click here
and enter 'CCWI' as the account name and password.
When
one of our water quality monitors brings back a water sample,
the sample is given a sample number before the nutrient levels
are tested and documented. The sample number is the common
link between the field measurements, site location, time and
date, site weather conditions, lab results, and any other
information pertinent to this sampling event.
We've
created this format so it is compliant with Electronic Data
Format (EDF), which is the preferred data format for the Regional
Water Quality Control Board.This makes the data usable to
other organizations, agencies, and individuals who are interested
in local water quality status and our relational database
system makes CCWI more efficient at generating reports.
Reports
and data from CCWI projects are available on the Data
page. Data through 2007 is available through this site.
Winter 2006-2008
Pollution Alerts!
There are many more polluted
waters out there, these are just the few CCWI has found...
Nitrate-Nitrogen over 1.0
mg/L:
Americano Creek
Atascadero Creek
Blucher Creek
Colgan Creek
Cheney Gulch
Laguna De Santa Rosa
Mark West Creek
Salmon Creek
Windsor Creek
Total Phosphorous over
0.1 mg/L:
Americano Creek
Blucher Creek
Colgan Creek
Dutch Bill Creek
Green Valley Creek
Laguna De Santa Rosa
Mark West Creek
Santa Rosa Creek
Turbidity over 100 NTU:
Cheney Gulch
Salmon Creek
Green Valley Creek
Laguna de Santa Rosa
Mark West Creek
Russian River
E. Col over 235 MPN per
100 ml:
Atascadero in Ragle
Ranch Park
Windsor Creek at Windsor Road
Russian River at Johnson's Beach
Russian River at Odd Fellow's Park
Salmon Creek at Bodega
Dutch Bill Creek at Occidental
Conductivity over 500:
Runoff from Hageman
Quarry Hwy 1
Cheney Gulch
Americano Creek
Atascadero Creek
Colgan Creek
Dutch Bill Creek
Laguna de Santa Rosa
Mark West Creek
Winsor Creek
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News
Community
Clean Water Institute and the City
of Santa Rosa's Creek Stewardship Program will be co-hosting
a Water Quality and Flow
Monitoring Workshop and Training on Saturday, September
26th at 10am on Santa Rosa Creek!
Great skills for Green Jobs! Go here
for a full event description and for future workshops and
presentations on the First Saturday
of the month Cleanups.
Save
Waterfall Park! Bohemia Ranch is 862 acres of beautiful
wilderness, including redwood forests and an important watershed
for drinking water and endangered salmon. Save this property
from harmful subdivision and development by contacting the
Sonoma County Open Space District at 707.565.7360 or openspace@sonoma-county.org.
Let them know you support acquiring the park for public access
and camping! For a sample letter go here
or for our official comment
to the SCOSD
We
moved! We are now located at 500 N. Main st. suite 110. Sebastopol,
Ca 95472. stop by and visit us!
October
2008, CCWI recieved a grant from the Public Health Trust,
which is a project of the Public Health Institute that directs
settlement funds to programs that support public health. This
grant will allow us to develop and expand our citizen water
quality monitoring program, as well as our instream flow monitoring
program.
August
2008, We finished a collaborative project with the Laguna
De Santa Rosa Foundation. One of our volunteers performed
water quality testing for a fish survey in the Laguna. We
truly enjoyed working with the Laguna Foundation and look
forward to future collaborative efforts. To find out more
about this great organization go to http://www.lagunadesantarosa.org.
March
2008, CCWI Sonoma County Fish and Wildlife Commission Grant
for Turbidity Nutrient and Bacteria Monitoring Program of
Dutch Bill Creek near Occidental. The objective of the study
is to document turbidity and water quality parameters during
during storm and correlate the finding to flow.
April
2008, CCWI receives ESRI grant for ArcGIS software: ArcEditor
9.2, 3D Analyst and Spatial Analyst
Sonoma
CountyEnvironmental
Resource Guide, 2007
CCWI
2007-08 Annual Report (pdf)
CCWI
2006 Annual Report (pdf)
Dry
Farmed Grapes?
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