The Watershed Project

Description

The Watershed Project is an environmental nonprofit organization that works to inspire San Francisco Bay Area communities to understand, appreciate and protect their local watersheds.

It runs programs on healthy watersheds, coordinating pollution-prevention education and cleanup events, including Coastal Cleanup Day activities across the region. Its Greening Urban Watersheds program builds and maintains low-impact development projects such as rain gardens and bioswales, including work on the Richmond Greenway. Its Living Shorelines program restores and monitors the Bay Area’s native oyster habitats, including artificial reefs and volunteer reef monitoring.

The organization also partners with local schools on environmental education field trips, and employs high school and college interns to support its programs and to open pathways into environmental careers.

It started in 1987 as the education department of the San Francisco Estuary Institute, became its own nonprofit in 1997 as the Aquatic Outreach Institute, and took its current name in 2004. It serves the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California and is based at the University of California’s Richmond Field Station.