Changes Coming to Weekend Support and Society Programs

by Ceal Craig

In 1992, the Society with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service worked with two partners to build and deliver two programs: Living Wetlands (formerly known as Slow the Flow) and Watershed Watchers. For 20 years, Living Wetlands and Watershed Watchers educated hundreds of thousands of students and adults about watershed health, wetlands, and habitat preservation through personal and hands-on programming.

The good news is that Watershed Watchers was renewed for this coming year (July to June). Thus, this program funded by the Urban Runoff Pollution Prevention Program will continue working to prevent runoff pollution, increase the surrounding communities’ knowledge of such pollution, and reduce its harmful effects through personal behavior.

The not so good news is that the City of San Jose declined to renew the Living Wetlands program contract. Our long-term partnership was a fruitful one and will be missed. Recent changes to priorities, grant program requirements, and outreach strategies at the City of San Jose and the Regional Wastewater Facility have resulted in the city’s decision to end the program. Read more here: http://sfbws.com/blog/2018/03/21/farewell-living-wetlands.

We are pursuing other grants to build a similar but different program. This loss will likely have other impacts that are not yet fully defined.