Clean Streams/ Clean Bay Community Watershed Monitoring Project
Read the July 2004 report.
The Sustainable Water Program is dedicated to the elimination of persistent toxic contaminants from streams, groundwater and estuaries and the promotion of conservation, recycling and reuse of water resources in the San Francisco Bay region. The Program fuses activities in watershed protection, military base cleanup, emerging contaminants, pollution prevention, environmental justice, and the public right to know initiatives to improve the local, state and global environment.
Clean Streams/ Clean Bay Community Watershed Monitoring Project
Read the July 2004 report.
Program activities:
Watershed Protection
The Santa Clara Basin Watershed Management Initiative seeks to protect and enhance South Bay watersheds, creating a sustainable future for the community and the environment. SVTC staff serve on the Core (Executive) Group; Communications Subgroup, and the Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals and Guadalupe River Mercury Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) Work Groups of this multi-year Initiative.
The Clean Streams/Clean Bay Community Monitoring Project addresses the problem of mercury, PCB and PBDE contamination in the San Jose Guadalupe and Coyote watersheds and San Francisco Bay. The goal of the Project is to build community participation in solving pollution problems through educational and watershed monitoring activities.
Pollution Prevention
CLEAN South Bay coordination for community groups working to protect the Bay and upland watersheds of the Santa Clara Basin from toxic contaminants. CLEAN South Bay helps government agencies, businesses and the general public craft pollution prevention strategies to address pesticides, sediments and heavy metals that run off into urban waterways. SVTC advocates for adoption of closed-loop recycling technologies to conserve water and eliminate toxic discharges to the San Francisco Bay.
Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals -- Sustainable Water Program is working to provide current information to communities on endocrine disrupting chemicals, their pathways, and ecological and human health effects. Sustainable Water Program staff participate in the Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals Work Group of the Santa Clara Basin Watershed Management Initiative.
Closed Military Base Cleanups
Moffett Field Marsh Restoration Campaign Moffett Fields' Eastern Diked Marsh and Stormwater Retention Pond (known as Site 25) is heavily contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), pesticides (DDT), lead, zinc and total petroleum hydrocarbons. SVTC advocates for a cleanup that would support future restoration of Site 25 to tidal marsh and its reconnection to the San Francisco Bay Estuary.
The Cleanup Mount Umunhum Campaign seeks federal funding to complete cleanup of toxins at the abandoned Air Force installation at Mount Umunhum, at the southern end of the Sierra Azul Open Space Preserve. Cleanup of Mount Umunhum would allow the opening of the ridge trail connecting Loma Prieta Mountain to Almaden Quicksilver County Park and protect Upper Guadalupe Creek from PCBs believed to be migrating from the former military site.
Environmental Justice
The Environmental Justice Coalition for Water fights for the inclusion of Environmental Justice principles in California?s state and federal water programs. SVTC advocates for environmental justice in the CALFED Bay-Delta Program and is working to increase the participation of urban communities of color in the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) program.
Right to Know Initiatives
The Silicon Valley Environmental Partnership Project tracks regional environmental indicators to promote sustainable use of South Bay natural resources. The Project supports the research of the Silicon Valley Environmental Partnership (SVEP), publishers of the Silicon Valley Environmental Index and the CalEPA Sustainable Silicon Valley project.
Interactive Health Ecology Access Links (IHEAL) is an international NGO network created to support implementation of the United Nations Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision Making, and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (Aarhus 1998). IHEAL promotes community monitoring projects and electronic access to environmental health information worldwide. SVTC's International Campaign for Responsible Technology (I-CRT) represents IHEAL on the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UN ECE) Pollutant Release Transfer Registers Working Group and UN ECE Electronic Access Task Force.
The U.S. Access Initiative is a far-reaching examination of the public's right to access information and participate in environmental decision-making. As part of a global coalition conducting investigations in nine countries, the U.S. Access Initiative is documenting the practice of public access to information on safe drinking water, the environmental performance of high tech electronics manufacturers, public participation in power plant siting decisions, among other topics. The Global Access Initiative tracks progress toward realizing the principles of the Rio Declaration, Agenda 21 and the
Johannesburg Declaration.
Campaign on Persistent Bioaccumulative Substances - An outgrowth of SVTC's support for elimination of persistent organic pollutants, the Campaign on Persistent Bioaccumulative Substances cooperates with the International POPs Elimination Network on implementation of the Stockholm Convention on POPs.
