Our mission is to preserve and protect habitat for endangered species of the Santa Cruz Mountain bioregion, focusing on the San Gregorio (SG) Watershed and San Mateo County coast. In addition to our Stream Monitoring and Watershed Education Programs, we sponsor Coastal Cleanup Days at our Adopt-A-Beach site, San Gregorio (SG) State Beach, and we clean 8 miles of Hwy 84 from SG State Beach to La Honda as part of the Adopt-A-Highway program.
SGERC provides the training and equipment necessary for our programs and occasionally appeals to the community for financial support and volunteers.
Our stream monitoring program measures water quality year-round to assess the health of waterways in the San Gregorio Watershed. San Gregorio, La Honda, and the surrounding areas are some of the only communities in the Bay Area whose local watershed is also residents' household water source. As members of these communities ourselves, we're ever vigilant over our watershed's health for all the plants, animals, and residents whose survival depends on it. Using field test kits, we measure five basic water parameters at various sites: dissolved oxygen (oxygen level in the water), water temperature, pH (acidity), conductivity (similar to salinity), and turbidity (water clarity). The data we've collected over the past 17 years is found on our Watershed Data page.
In 2017, SGERC initiated the Watershed Education Project (WEP) with teachers from the La Honda-Pescadero and Cabrillo Unified School Districts. The curriculum is geared towards 4th & 5th graders focusing on the watershed, scientific observation, stream monitoring (tests and measurements), and the life cycle of the salmonid. We also sponsor a local artist to guide the students in a salmonid-themed art project. The Program culminates with a field trip to two watershed sites with SGERC volunteers. Those sites include the Play bowl in La Honda, the lagoon in San Gregorio, and 2-sites in Pescadero including the Pescadero Marsh and Memorial Park. At each site, students make observations about the watershed, and we help them measure the temperature, depth, turbidity, conductivity, pH, and dissolved oxygen content of the water.
Another program we have sponsored in the past is Trout in the Classroom (TIC) offered through the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. The students at Pescadero Elementary loved watching the trout eggs hatch and develop into releasable fry. We hope to bring this program back to local schools soon.
Anyone can volunteer! Our volunteers spend 2-3 hours once a quarter collecting and analyzing water samples. Each team has a leader who oversees their site. You'll work with more experienced monitors and learn our methods for collecting, testing and recording water data. We work with other watershed groups to maintain equipment and quality control standards that make our data beneficial to a variety of users. If you're interested in becoming a stream monitor or helping in some other way (e.g., fundraising), please contact us.
The San Gregorio Environmental Resource Center was founded in 1988 by Dr. George Cattermole to provide environmental educational opportunities to school-age children. One of the Center's first programs was to bring students from Flood Elementary School in East Palo Alto to the coastside to experience rural life and the coastal environment. We feel it is important for young people to be exposed to the beauty and fragility of the area while learning how to assess and care for it.
The stream monitoring program was initiated in August 1998 in Whitehouse Creek; monitoring began in the San Gregorio Watershed in 2000. Between 2007 and 2010, we offered an educational water quality monitoring program to Pescadero High School students.
In 2010, we collaborated with the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB), local agencies, and the scientific community to create the San Gregorio Watershed Management Plan. The plan gives guidance for human use of the San Gregorio watershed while ensuring habitat for coho and steelhead is maintained, and can be downloaded here.
SGERC was also an important partner in the EPA grant, “San Gregorio Creek Watershed: Filling Critical Flow Needs” in 2010, along with American Rivers, Stillwater Sciences, and the USGS. This project provided important data to improve stream flows, and paved the way for three off-stream storage ponds to be constructed in the watershed without negatively impacting sensitive and endangered species.
In 2016, we designed and funded an interpretive panel for California State Parks to install at San Gregorio State Beach. The panel educates the public on the important role the seasonal lagoon plays as a fish nursery, and how artificially breaching the lagoon is detrimental to steelhead and coho salmon survival.
We officially adopted San Gregorio State Beach in 2018 through the Adopt-A-Beach program, and sponsor regular coastal cleanup events there. We are contracted through the Adopt-A-Highway program for invasive plant and trash removal along eight miles of Hwy. 84 from San Gregorio State Beach almost to La Honda. Our encroachment permits include litter removal and vegetation control, including the removal of invasive pampas grass, jubata grass, and stinkwort. We also work with Cuesta La Honda, the County of San Mateo, and California State Parks in their invasive plant removal efforts.
In 2017, SGERC began the Watershed Education Project (WEP) at La Honda and Pescadero Elementary. For two years (2018 and 2019), the WEP also included Trout in the Classroom.
The SGERC is a 501(c)3 nonprofit corporation. It has a Board of Directors which is responsible for financial oversight and approval of major projects. Active volunteers collect water quality data each quarter in the San Gregorio watershed, and help maintain the website and organization.
