By Paula Urtecho The holidays are upon us and many of our holiday traditions include gift giving. In this modern age, when we have more awareness around the impact of synthetic materials and greenhouse gases on our environment, gift giving can be tricky. We want to do right by the environment, but so many items are constructed of plastic or packaged in plastic and to further complicate matters, if you order the item online it arrives along with a significant carbon footprint! Gift giving does not need to be so guilt-inducing - consider sustainable gift giving! According to Adam Minter, …
Let it rain! Support The Watershed Project with your year end gift
After a long dry spell, the state has been blessed with much-needed rain to recharge our aquifers and get our creeks flowing again. The Watershed Project is so grateful for our faithful supporters who help us do the work we do. We have already received over $5,500 in donations this month and our first ever online silent auction raised over $2,300~a big thank you to all who participated! But we still have a long way to go to achieve our goal of $30,000 by the end of the year. Each year we bring hundreds of students to regional parks and other areas around the Bay Area. Some of these …
Playgrounds and Plants DO mix!
By Kat Sawyer and Juliana Gonzalez Last year, The Watershed Project partnered with the Oakland Unified School District and the Trust For Public Land on a school greening project at Melrose Elementary in Oakland. Asphalt was removed from the school’s barren playground, and TWP led volunteers from the school community to plant the new spaces after heavy construction was complete. A year later, we led a follow-up effort to replant an area where some of the plants had become overwhelmed by foot traffic. It’s not surprising that new plants would need some extra protection given their proximity …
Crabby for the Holidays
By Dan Kirk ‘Tis the season to...crab! And by proxy, to eat crab too. And like always, just to look for crab. The majority of crabbers will be out on the waters for Dungeness crab, Metacarcinus magister, which are rich in flavor and robust in economic revenue. If you are a crabber, one hot tip for bait is to batter raw chicken with cherry Kool-Aid packets. I heard this from a friend of a friend and it sounds like it passed through the game of telephone, but who knows, if you try this you might hit the jackpot in your crab-pot. If you’re not crabbing and just on the shoreline, you may (if …
Thanksgiving Tuesday : ‘Tis the Season to Give Back
Thank you for being a part of this inspiring community of watershed stewards – of volunteers, students, teachers, partners and leaders. We are so grateful. Over the years, you have played a key role in building The Watershed Project into a trusted local powerhouse for environmental education, urban greening, climate resiliency, and shoreline stewardship for the San Francisco Bay Watershed. If you're a nature-lover, advocate for children, or supporter of education, please make a donation before 2019 ends or jumpstart your holiday shopping with a great gift from our silent auction. Whether it …
Planning for Water-Related Improvements in North Richmond
By Anne Bremer The Watershed Project is part of a regional effort to coordinate and improve drinking water, stormwater, wastewater, and the health of waterways, particularly in communities that are most vulnerable to climate change impacts. As a long-time community partner in North Richmond, The Watershed Project worked to identify which types of water-related improvements are of greatest priority to the North Richmond community. Our assessment evaluated four areas of need: 1) sea level rise and stormwater, 2) habitat protection and access to recreation, 3) water supply, and 4) wastewater and …
Daylight Savings Adored by the Great Horned Owl
By Dan Kirk You know when you’re driving with a passenger in the front seat and stop suddenly and do the “mom” thing where you instinctively slam your arm in front of their chest to “save” them from shooting out the window? Same thing happens when I see something special, say, some wildlife in an urban environment. The other night, as the sun was setting on the Napa River near the San Pablo Bay in Vallejo, I happened to do this to my friend as I saw the silhouette of a Great Horned Owl fly up from some shrubs on the ground to the top of a street lamp. I knew it was an owl by the rounded …
Youth activism on climate change : Reactions to Greta Thunberg’s Friday for Future march
By The Watershed Project’s Albany High School EdSet team, and by Green Collar Corps team member Gabriela Suarez-Cruz and Outreach Coordinator Sara Gurdian Climate change activist Greta Thunberg is making waves across the world. Her message of defiance against the inaction by world leaders and denial of the impacts of a changing climate has struck a chord with the youth around the world as well as those who contribute their talents to The Watershed Project. We feature their voices in this article. Gabriela: I first learned about Greta while she was traveling from Sweden to the US. It …
