The Application of Citizen Monitoring to Inform Citizen and Government Enforcement Actions

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• published: 20 Apr 2017
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California Water Quality Monitoring Collaboration Network Citizen Science & Watershed Stewardship Webinar Series The Application of Citizen Monitoring to Inform Citizen and Government Enforcement Actions Critical to the success of Wishtoyo’s legal, advocacy, and restoration work is Wishtoyo’s Ventura Coastkeeper’s volunteer watershed monitoring program. The program has over 50 river, estuary, wetland, storm channel, and coastal monitoring sites in Ventura County (the Calleguas Creek, Santa Clara River, Ormond Beach, and Ventura’s Coastal Watersheds) and they have mobilized hundreds of stream team volunteers to assist with sampling and monitoring them. Several years ago Ventura Coastkeeper (VCK) and California State University Channel Islands successfully collaborated to create a scientific research and education partnership. This partnership provided CSUCI students with enhanced hands on professional and educational experiences, research opportunities, and internships, while providing VCK’s Watershed Monitoring Program with an on campus laboratory, an increased capacity to monitor and protect Ventura County’s waterbodies, and access to the student body for community mobilizing. VCK’s field and water quality analysis (fecal indicator bacteria (total coliform, E. coli), nitrate, phosphate, dissolved oxygen, water temperature, flow, turbidity, trash, conductivity, pH) is done in accordance with a Quality Assurance Project Plan (“QAPP”). This data been used by state and regional water quality agencies to determine water quality impairments and to formulate remediation plans for swimming, fishing, wildlife, and other uses. Wishtoyo and its Ventura Coastkeeper program has also used this actionable data to bring polluters into compliance with applicable state and federal regulations, to support our legal and advocacy efforts to improve water quality, and to work with land owners to stop water pollution at its source. www.wishtoyo.org/venuturacoastkeeper-vck Presenter: Jason Weiner Jason Weiner is the General Counsel and Water Initiative Director for Wishtoyo Foundation and its Ventura Coastkeeper Program. Jason has been a member of the California Bar since 2008, and earned a Masters of Environmental Management with a concentration in water resources science, policy, and management from the Yale School of Forestry and Environment Studies (F&ES;) and a law degree from Vermont Law School. He also serves as an Adjunct Faculty Member at California State University Channel Islands, where he teaches Environmental Law and Policy. In 2016, Jason was awarded the Daily Journal and callawyer.com Clay Award for an environmental attorney of the year. In his eight years with Wishtoyo, Jason has advocated tirelessly before administrative agencies, and has prosecuted over 20 legal actions under the Clean Water Act, California Environmental Quality Act, National Environmental Policy Act, National Historic Preservation Act, the Endangered Species Act, the California Public Trust Doctrine, and the Reasonable Use Provisions of the California Constitution and Water Code to protect the environment and tribal cultural resources. Clean Water Team www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/swamp/cwt_volunteer.shtml