A few weeks ago I was invited to attend a workshop hosted by the EPA called Technology to Empower Citizen Scientists. About 60 people from NGOs and state and federal agencies got together to discuss how we can work better together and how new technologies can help, especially in the area of bioassessment.

First, let me describe what bioassessment is. Our current water quality monitoring program looks at several very specific chemical concentrations in the stream. Among other things, we look at dissolved oxygen, nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus, and dissolved metals.  Our rivers and streams are not to exceed very specific limits of these chemicals, and we directed our program's efforts to identifying if San Diego County’s rivers and streams are exceeding pollutant regulatory thresholds. Measuring these chemicals can give us a rough picture of stream health, but it isn't complete without bioassessment.

Bioassessment measures the health of the stream by measuring algae and aquatic insect communities.  This gives us a more holistic view of the health of our waters. First, if the river is full of pollutant tolerant insects, but no pollutant sensitive species, pollution is most likely affecting stream health. Second, if algae are growing out of control, nutrients are affecting stream health. Chemical monitoring measures pollutants, then bioassessment measures the effects that those pollutants have on the aquatic ecosystem. We need more of these bioassessments in order to get a better picture of the health of our waterways. San Diego Coastkeeper will be starting our own volunteer-powered program next Spring '14.

What struck me at this meeting, which was attended by folks from all over the country, was how comparatively open California is in utilizing volunteer-generated data.  We in California have a statewide database that anyone can upload into. We can also include our quality assurance data to show that the data generated is of good, useful quality. The Regional Water Quality Control Board as well as various municipalities around the county actively solicits us to send data to them so they can include it in their analysis and reports.  The new draft of San Diego's stormwater permit has a section encouraging stormwater departments to partner with programs like ours to conduct special studies on water pollution. In short, our data is recognized for what it is: high quality and useful.

Unfortunately, most other states have put up roadblocks to utilizing volunteer generated data. For example, Ohio has this ridiculous law they call the “Ohio Credible Data Law.” Instead of letting the data speak for itself, volunteer data must pass various certification tests before it is considered. This is an expensive roadblock to utilizing good data.  A certificate may "certify" one's data but it does not guarantee that the data is good. This is why it is imperative to look beyond a certification and directly at the quality assurance data to make a sound judgment about how useful one's data is.

Anyway, sorry for the mini rant. Most of the nation is not yet at a point where we can talk about cool, new technologies, volunteer-generated data is still sometimes relegated to the margins of the regulatory community. We in San Diego have it a bit easier- our data is actually used. So the morals of this blog are:

1. Good job, California- by being open with volunteer data, we really set the bar for the rest of the country.
2. Other states need to get their act together and stop putting up ridiculous roadblocks to volunteer-generated data.
3. Keep your eye out for our new bioassessment program coming next Spring '14. We’ll be stomping around creeks and collecting bugs. It should be super fun.

How You and IPR Can Save the Colorado River

In its annual list of America’s Most Endangered Rivers of 2013, American Rivers has named the Colorado River as the number-one Most Endangered River in the country. Bob Irvin, President of American Rivers, identified that the Colorado River is “so over-tapped that it no longer reaches the sea.”

The Colorado River is, simply put, the lifeline of the Southwest. It supplies drinking water to 36 million people from Denver to LA, irrigates four million acres of land and supports a 26 billion dollar outdoor recreation economy.

Yet it currently stands as the Most Endangered River in America because of outdated water management that can’t respond to the pressures of over-allocation and persistent drought. This led American Rivers to sound the alarm for Congress to support state-of-the-art water supply programs that can positively and sustainably impact how the water in the Colorado River is managed.

This also highlights to the significance of what we can do in San Diego—both as a region through potable reuse and individually as water-conscientious citizens and community members.

Currently, the City of San Diego is deciding whether to move forward with full-scale water purification projects in San Diego. San Diego Coastkeeper and the Water Reliability Coalition—a groundbreaking collaboration between environmental and business-oriented groups—are encouraging the San Diego City Council to approve full-scale water purification projects to create more potable water in San Diego. Creating a reliable, secure local water supply is both good for the environment and good for business.

Potable reuse projects use special technology to purify water, leaving it extremely clean. Just how clean? The ultra-purified water is actually cleaner than the water we import from the Colorado River or the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. The ultra-purified water can then be mixed with imported water either at a reservoir or at a drinking water treatment plant before it gets another round of treatment.

The City of San Diego has run a pilot project of this technology since early 2012. When they tested the ultra-purified water for over 300 compounds, the purified water met all drinking water standards. Not only that, but the purified water contained only two of the 91 Chemicals of Emerging Concern, while imported water that makes up the bulk of our drinking water contained 13 of these chemicals.

While the City of San Diego is working to implement potable reuse projects, there are a lot of things that we can do, both large and small, that can make an impact on water conservation efforts like that of saving the Colorado River. See what positive changes you can make to reduce your daily water use. And please contribute to Coastkeeper’s efforts with the City and other decision makers.

Together, we can make a lasting impact on San Diego’s water supply and save the Colorado.

About a year ago I was surfing off the shore in La Jolla on a relatively quiet morning when a baby sea lion popped its head out of the water to check me out. “Cute!” was my first reaction. Then it started swimming closer. And closer. Finally, it got close enough to bump its nose to my neoprene encased leg. At that point, “cute” battled in my mind with “please don’t bite me; please don’t bite me” and “where’s your mamma and is she feeling nervous?” I never saw mamma sea lion and the baby hung out for a while then cruised off to explore something else. But all day I felt like my presence in the ocean had been approved. (Yes, I realize that’s silly.)

That encounter is what comes to mind when I read about the alarming increase in stranded sea lion pups washing up on our local beaches. More than 1,000 baby sea lions have been stranded in Southern California since the first of the year.  Normally that number would be less than 100. The federal agency that oversees ocean related issues, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), took the step of declaring an Unusual Mortality Event for California sea lions. In 20 years, that has happened less than 60 times in the entire United States. Though researchers have no conclusions yet, "[t]hese strandings are accompanied by observations of underweight pups on the breeding rookeries, signs that typically occur in association with food shortage," said U.S. National Marine Mammal Commissioner and NMMF Scientific Advisory Board Member Dr. Frances Gulland. The increase in sea lions washing up on local beaches intensified over the Easter weekend and scientists have expressed serious concern since the traditional peak stranding season is just now beginning.

I took a call this afternoon from someone at Sunset Cliffs who found a stranded pup and didn’t know what to do. Although I spend my days at San Diego Coastkeeper working towards fishable, swimmable, drinkable water in San Diego County, I feel a little helpless about this. Luckily we have experienced partners who are the first-responders for this type of issue and are on the beaches right now to save the pups and in the labs trying to figure out how to stop the strandings. They need our support.

San Diego-based National Marine Mammal Foundation is helping rehabilitate the pups and you can help provide the funds they need to continue the work. Not only that, but the La Jolla-based Waitt Foundation issued a challenge grant in partnership with the San Diego Foundation that lets you increase your impact by joining a larger pool of funds.

Donations to the NMMF Emergency Fund will go directly to fund sea lion care and medical support.  And please, if you see a stranded seal or sea lion, please do not approach or attempt to aide it. Contact our local stranding network or local lifeguards or harbor police. For live animals, SeaWorld responds (800-541-7325) and you find a dead animal, call NMFS Southwest Fisheries Science Center (858-546-7162).

On a normal day, I encourage you to donate to San Diego Coastkeeper to help us continue our work. Today, I am sharing this information because when that baby sea lion nuzzled my leg, I took away the message that I am welcome in its home and have a responsibility to protect it any way I can. Today, donating to the NMMF Emergency Fund is what we can do.

All photos credit: Marine Mammal Care Center (Fort MacArthur)

Last week, San Diego Coastkeeper and Think Blue San Diego hosted their second set of professional development workshop for the 2012-2013 academic year. During the two-day event over 20 elementary school teachers from San Diego Unified School District were trained to use  Project SWELL in their classrooms effectively.

Thanks to our three fantastic professional development instructors, countless students will be exposed to the hands-on lessons that center around the preservation and betterment of our local waters.

Project SWELL was developed through a ground-breaking partnership between San Diego Coastkeeper, Think Blue (the City of San Diego) and the San Diego Unified School District. Project SWELL is a school-based science curriculum that teaches children about the importance of the San Diego region's waterways.  Project SWELL helps teachers empower students about water quality issues and helps them to understand how to improve  the condition of San Diego waterways.

Each SWELL unit of study (grades K-2 and 4- 6) consists of five or six age-appropriate, standards-based lessons that build student understanding of San Diego's aquatic environments and emphasize the actions that students can take to improve them.

More information about Project SWELL can be found on our website: www.projectswell.org.

Who: The contest is open to all high school students and all college students in the cities of San Diego, Coronado and Imperial Beach.

What: Create a 30-second Public Service Announcement

When: Entries due April 10, 2013

Where: All contest entrants will be recognized, and the finalists' films will be shown at a special “Red Carpet Premiere” at the IMAX Theater at the Rueben H. Fleet Science Center in Balboa Park

Why: The film contest creates an opportunity to engage students directly about the importance of using water wisely, allowing the creativity of the students to inspire the rest of our community to use water more efficiently.

Theme: Storylines must use one of the following “how-to” messages:
How to “waste no water” by planting native or California-Friendly® plants.
How to “waste no water” by using a rain barrel.
How to show that “wasting no water” is important to San Diego’s economy.
How to create a sustainable world by “wasting no water.

This is part 3 of a 5 part series of results from our water monitoring lab. If you haven’t read our watershed report, head over here and check it out. In this third part, we are going to take a look at the Pueblo watershed.

The Pueblo Watershed is San Diego County’s smallest, and most urbanized, watershed. This roughly 60 square mile watershed drains into San Diego Bay. The Pueblo Watershed runs through the heart of the City of San Diego and it’s boundaries overlap with portions of the Lemon Grove, La Mesa, and National City. The main creek running through the watershed is Chollas Creek, which has two main forks that run through the most densely populated part of the City. As a result, we have altered and lost much of it’s native habitat. Chollas Creek is straightened, channelized, or driven underground in various places.

Prior to development, the watershed supported a coastal scub habitat that was home to plant and animal species that were tolerant to the long dry seasons we have in San Diego. Much of this habitat has been developed away, transforming to heavy and light industry, parking lots ans strip malls, and houses with irrigated landscapes. Chollas creek itself was straightened, channelized, or driven underground in various places through pipes and culverts.

The extensive hydromodification of the creek has resulted in the loss of almost all of the natural habitat associated with the creek. In fact, the creek is so altered that nearby residents often don’t know there is a river flowing through their neighborhood. Now, only the tributary canyons offer some habitat for animals like the threatened Cactus Wren.

In general, our monitoring program found the creek has high levels of ammonia, phosphorus, fecal bacteria and trash. These pollutants are signatures of dense urban development. During the rainy season, these pollutants are carried from inland sources into the creek and out to the bay. The nutrients contribute to an excess of of algae growing in the creek and the trash contributes to our marine debris problem. For an good visual of how nutrients can affect water quality, check out this youtube video I made last year. Look at what a difference of a few drops of fertilizer can do water quality.

Fortunately there are a number of organizations trying to reverse this declining trend. Groundwork San Diego, Chollas Creek; The Jacobs Center for Neighborhood Innovation; and San Diego Canyonlands are working to restore the watershed’s natural hydrology and habitat. See what they are working on here . The Environmental Health Coalition is working hard on environmental justice issues in the area which will help abate some of the problems the area’s residents face by living so close to industrial and transportation centers.

Local municipalities are a part of the solution, as well.The city of San Diego has developed the Chollas Creek Enhancement Plan to guide it's and other organizations efforts for repairing the creek. The local cities have also developed an urban runoff management plan for watersheds draining into San Diego Bay that sets up the programs for reducing the urban pollution.

There is a lot of work to be done in this watershed. It's going to take many years of effort, but I have a vision of a vibrant creek supporting native habitat with parks and trails right in the middle of our city.

An aquifer is an underground layer of rock, gravel, sand or silt through which water can easily move. This water can be extracted for human consumption through the use of a water well. Aquifers provide natural filtration that helps to purify the groundwater flowing through them. However, not all contanimants are rendered harmless by this purification process, and some pollution can still be found in the groundwater, making it unsafe to drink.

You can make your own model of an aquifer from things found in your grocery store. To start you need the following:

Materials Needed

• Blue/red food coloring
• Vanilla ice cream
• Clear soda pop (7-Up, Sprite, etc)
• Small gummy bears, chocolate chips, crushed ice or other material to represent sand and gravel
• Sprinkles
• Drinking straws
• Clear plastic cups
• Ice cream scoop
• Spoons

Activity Steps

1. Fill a clear plastic cup 1/3 full with gummy bears, chocolate chips, or crushed ice. This represnts sand/gravel in your aquifer.
2. Add enough soda to just cover the candy/ice.
3. Add a layer of ice cream to serve as a "confining layer" over the water-filled aquifer.
4. Then add more "sand/gravel" on top of the "confining layer."
5. Add a layer of sprinkled over the top to create the porous top layer (top soil).
6. Now add the food coloring to the soda. The food coloring represents contamination. Watch what happens when it is poured on the top of the "aquifer."
7. Using a drinking straw, drill a well into the center of your aquifer.
8. Slowly begin to pump the well by sucking on the straw. Watch the decline in the water table.
9. Notice how the contaminants can get sucked into the well area and end up in the groundwater by leaking through the confining layer.
10. Now recharge your aquifer by adding more soda which represents a rain shower.
11. Eat and enjoy your aquifer!

Lesson adapeted from the Groundwater Foundation.

Beach cleanups are one of our volunteers' favorite programs. Who doesn’t love a morning on the beach with friends and family while helping to solve our global marine debris issue? So far this year, more than 1,000 Coastkeeper volunteers have removed over 2,736 pounds of trash from our coastline.

Impressive work, but still troubling.

Even with many responsible and concerned individuals keeping our beaches free of trash, there’s always more to remove. So where is it coming from? Were all 2,615 plastic bags collected this year intentionally or accidentally left at the beach? Most likely, no.

San Diego is home to 11 watersheds, areas in which all water from rain, creeks, rivers and streams drains into the same location. For San Diegans, that common location is the Pacific Ocean. Water moving through our watershed transports trash left on the ground and moved out of trash bins by wind or animals to the ocean.

To address some of our inland pollution sources, San Diego Coastkeeper and UCSD Environment, Health & Safety teamed  for a cleanup of the UCSD campus. Opting for a morning in a parking lot and inland canyons over a Southern California beach may not seem a fair trade, but what we found might convince you otherwise.

Twenty-one volunteers removed 31 pounds of trash. This included 4,201 cigarette butts. Just as a reference, our 150 volunteers at our Coastal Cleanup Day site at Tourmaline Beach found 130 pounds of trash. They collected 672 cigarette butts. Inland pollution needs a little more credit than we’ve been giving it.

Trash left behind at UCSD can travel all the way to La Jolla Shores. Here, trash entering the ocean is unsightly and directly impacts an Area of Special Biological Significance (ASBS) where pollutants are banned. This area is considered so ecologically important that the state gave this designation to 88 acres at Scripps and 450 acres at La Jolla.

Maintaining the health of our ASBS regions in San Diego is critical but difficult to manage. Impacted by actions not only along the coast, but throughout the watershed, each individual living here has a role in protecting them.

Given the success of our event with UCSD Environment, Health & Safety, Coastkeeper is looking forward to more programs focused on our inland areas to protect our water and coastline. In the meantime, do your part. Help protect the unique and fragile ecosystems we have in our backyard by remembering your actions have an impact, even far from the coast.

The water cycle, also known as the hydrological cycle, is the process in which water moves and changes on Earth. All the water on Earth, whether it's the water that we drink, the water that sustains the ocean or the rain that falls from the sky, has been around for millions of years. Because of the atmosphere, water molecules are trapped here on Earth for us, and all other life forms, to drink, use and enjoy.

There are three states of water: solid (ice), liquid and gas (water vapor). Water changes from one state to another because of the application of heat.  As you heat up the molecules in ice, it melts and becomes water and eventually evaporates into water vapor. Removing that heat causes water to condense and reverse this process.  This is the water cycle.

You can easily make your own mini water cycle at home using just a few materials. Here is what you need:

• 1 plastic tub
• 1 plastic cup
• 1 small rock or marble
• 1 roll of cling wrap plastic (or similar)
• 1 roll of wide tape to seal the still
• Soil or sand
• 1 – 2  cups of water

Directions:

1. Add your soil to the plastic tub.
2. Position the plastic cup in the center of the tub, partially submerged in the soil for stability.
3. Sprinkle 1-2 cups of water over the soil.
4. Seal the tub with cling wrap and tape. Add a pebble or large marble directly above the cup forming a depression in the cling wrap.
5. Place the solar still in a still and sunny location. Observe your still throughout the day. What do you notice happening?

Follow-up Questions:

1. How does water get into the oceans?
2. What are clouds? What are clouds made of?
3. How does rain form?

Did you build your own water cycle? We want to see! Send us a picture at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and be featured on our blog.

Are you a teacher who wants to use environmental education lessons in your classroom? Checkout Project SWELL: a school-based science curriculum that teaches children about the importance of the San Diego region's waterways. The project helps teachers empower students about how to understand and improve the condition of San Diego waterways.

While San Diego has a variety of climates, it is overall fairly arid and cannot sustain a significant human population without importing massive quantities of water from other regions. With a population of just over 3 million, San Diego must import approximately 70 percent of its water, mostly from the Colorado River. Our demands for water, however, already exceed the Colorado River’s supply. Compounding matters, anticipated climate change and population growth will combine to exacerbate San Diego’s water supply issues.

Climate Change: Climate change is expected to reduce the Colorado River’s water flow and could have a drastic impact on the supply to San Diego. A study performed by the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation projects a nine percent decrease in the River’s water flow over the next 50 years, and anticipates that 40 percent of the time, the region will be subject to droughts spanning five or more years. According to the California Climate Change Center, the availability of water imports from the River to San Diego may decline by 20 percent, with models estimating the actual decline will be anywhere from 6 to 45 percent.

Population Growth: If current population growth trends continue, another 1.5 million people will reside in the county by 2050, bringing the total number of residents to 4.5 million. Increasing humans means increasing demand for water. By 2050, desired water use is likely to exceed current demand by 37 percent increase.

The increasing demand for water, combined with the decreasing supply, makes conservation more important now than ever. There is a lot you can do, including utilizing low-flow showerheads and ultra-low-flush toilets, remembering to turn the water off while brushing your teeth and reducing shower times, or turning the shower off while you suds up. Outdoors, use a pool cover to reduce evaporation, water your lawn in the hours between sunset and dawn when the water is less likely to evaporate and, importantly, make sure you’re watering your lawn instead of the sidewalk or driveway. These are just a few of the ways that you can help conserve water. Click here for more.

Additionally, the City of San Diego provides certain rebates and incentives to residents who implement water-efficient landscaping or rainwater harvesting. Through their program, you can not only save money, but you can also become part of the effort to reduce San Diego’s water demands to sustainable levels.