Programs

The Watershed Watchers program is a partnership of the Santa Clara Valley Urban Runoff Pollution Prevention Program (SCVURPPP), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the San Francisco Bay Wildlife Society.

The purpose of the Watershed Watchers program and SCVURPPP is to prevent urban runoff pollution (pollution coming from a myriad of sources, such as oils from vehicles, detergents from washing things outside, litter, and pet waste) and increase the surrounding communities’ knowledge of such pollution, and how to reduce its harmful effects through personal behavior.

This purpose is accomplished through many avenues, with the most popular being the interpretive and stewardship programs offered at the Environmental Education Center.

CVWD Litterati™ Pollution Prevention ProjectThe Don Edwards San Francisco Bay NWR Clean up was the first project in the Refuge Complex to embed technology into a litter cleanup program and was funded by a Santa Clara Valley Water District (SCVWD) Project B3, Pollution Prevention grant in 2016. The Watershed Watchers Coordinator for San Francisco Bay Wildlife Society oversaw this project and partnered with San Jose Conservation Corps, Litterati, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Santa Clara Valley Water District. Funding was also provided in part by Clean Harbors Environmental Services, San Francisco Bay Wildlife Society, and Whole Foods Market - through their Nickels for Non-Profits program. We appreciate their generous support.

The purpose of the SCVWD Litterati™ Pollution Prevention Project is to prevent trash found in the Refuge from entering the local watershed system, and educate the public on pollution prevention utilizing a new technique in the way litter cleanups are conducted. The project involved using an app called Litterati to collect information on the trash found at Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge in Alviso, CA. The project team took photos using the Litterati app, wrote hashtags describing the type of trash photographed, and uploaded the photos to the Litterati database. This data has been collected since September 2016 by the Watershed Watchers team. It will be used by the Refuge and the Litterati team to educate companies and the public, with the goal of reducing the amount of trash entering our ecosystems.