Thanks for signing up for Santa Barbara County Action Network's Clean Water Team. We enjoyed meeting you at Earth Day in Guadalupe on April 22.

We just began forming the Clean Water Team in January as part of the Santa Maria River Healthy Watershed Initiative. Our overarching goal is promoting a healthy watershed for the Santa Maria River. There will be several components to the initiative.

Our first goal is to do water quality testing in the Santa Maria River Estuary. We had an online-training in January, which also explains more about our project. You can watch the recording of it here. We were unable to do in-field training in the estuary after flooding closed Rancho Guadalupe Dunes Park. We are looking at alternative routes to access the estuary.

We also plan to have educational programs on the watershed. And we are looking into how we might be able to help get Guadalupe Beach reopened and lessen the chances of flooding in and downstream of Guadalupe in the future. 

More information about our project is on our website at https://sbcan.nationbuilder.com/water_team.

Our partner, Creek Lands Conservation, also has information on its website at https://creeklands.org/projects/santa-maria-river-healthy-watershed-initiative/. 

We will be sending out an update on our project soon. Please look for an email from SBCAN in the coming days.

Thanks again for your interest.

Jeanne Sparks
Associate Director
Santa Barbara County Action Network
[email protected]

P.S. If this email was forwarded to you, and you are not signed up for email messages about this project, please sign up here.

Entrance to Guadalupe Beach on May 5, 2023

Map of the Santa Maria River Watershed

Santa Maria River Estuary flows to the ocean due to heavy flows in the Santa Maria River in January 2023.
Picture taken on Jan. 17, 2023.