San Diego Coastkeeper Accomplishments

BEACH ADVISORIES
San Diego Coastkeeper has helped reduce countywide beach advisories by 77 percent since 2000. We accomplished this through improving sewage and urban runoff policies.

MARINE PROTECTED AREAS
Led coalition effort advocating for adoption of strong marine protected areas (MPAs) in Southern California including Swamis, which is San Diego County’s largest MPA as a 12.6-square-mile conservation area, and south La Jolla, a 7.5-square-mile MPA complex that includes a 4.7-square-mile marine reserve where no fishing is allowed.

MARINE DEBRIS
Historically, San Diego Coastkeeper and its partner organizations have helped remove more than one million pounds of debris from area beaches and waterways.  Since 2007, San Diego Coastkeeper and Surfrider Foundation, San Diego Chapter have completed more than 200 beach cleanups and grown yearly volunteer numbers to more than 4,600

PROJECT SWELL
San Diego Coastkeeper has helped educate more than 210,000 children through Project SWELL; more than 60,000 students each year. Since Project SWELL was introduced in the San Diego Unified School District, along with other science reforms, science scores have increased dramatically throughout the district.

SHUT DOWN OF THE SOUTH BAY POWERPLANT
Supported coalition effort, led by Environmental Health Coalition, that resulted (after a decade of advocacy) in regulatory ruling that will allow for the closure of South Bay Power Plant. The plant has damaged the sensitive South Bay ecosystem for decades.

IPR DEMONSTRATION PROJECT
Forced City of San Diego to invest ~$14M in a demonstration project to prove the viability of reclaiming wastewater to augment local drinking water supplies and regional assessment to identify opportunities to develop water reclamation capacity throughout San Diego. Potable reuse could provide one of the most cost-effective and environmentally friendly options to enhance local water supplies.

SEWAGE SPILLS
San Diego Coastkeeper has helped the City of San Diego reduce sewage spills by 90 percent since 2001.

WATER QUALITY MONITORING PROGRAM
San Diego Coastkeeper’s program is the state’s largest volunteer water quality monitoring program. It trains more than around 100 volunteers yearly to test waters in nine of the 11 watersheds in San Diego County. To date, San Diego Coastkeeper has trained more than 1,000 water quality monitoring volunteers.

BEST STORM WATER MANAGEMENT PRACTICES
Coastkeeper played an important role in ensuring the Regional Board issued a strong stormwater permit for San Diego County in 2001. Coastkeeper helped the City of Encinitas, which formerly had no stormwater plan, to become a national leader in reducing and managing urban runoff.