Featured IWRP Projects

Watershed Outreach & Education Program

This IWRP component is scheduled to begin scoping and development in Fall/Winter 2004.

While implementing restoration projects will help alleviate existing watershed problems, it is critical that county residents more fully understand the importance of watershed health and how they can modify their land uses and behavior to prevent watershed impacts over the long term. Changing perceptions will ultimately be the most cost effective method of restoration. Every watershed plan recognizes this as a high priority and recommends outreach measures. While each local watershed group can take steps to educate residents, the scale and impact of efforts is limited by staff and funding constraints and, since the outreach needs are similar in every watershed, there is a high risk of redundancy in efforts. A large-scale countywide campaign is needed, similar to the national anti-litter media campaigns in the 1970s or the recycling campaigns in the 1990s. This component will create an advisory committee comprised of staff from County and City environmental health and public works departments, the RCD, resources agencies, the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, local watershed groups, and media consultants to analyze the outreach recommendations from the county watershed plans and prepare a strategic plan for effective implementation. The strategic plan will include descriptions of outreach and best management practice goals, phased media campaigns and other implementation mechanisms, and identify long-term staff and funding resources and methods to evaluate program success. In addition to the outreach strategic plan, specific proposals for implementation funding will be prepared.

Additional details on this component will be posted here as they become available.

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