Water Quality Program

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Citizen Water Quality Monitoring Program - Home2Ocean Program

One of the main goals of Mission RCD is to prevent and control soil erosion and sediment damage caused by agricultural and other land use activities through public education and working with local residents.  Mission RCD has developed several programs to address water quality issues that pertain to the Santa Margarita River and its tributaries.  One of these programs is the Santa Margarita River Home2Ocean Citizen Water Quality Monitoring Program (or the Home2Ocean Program). 

The Home2Ocean Program was managed and coordinated by Mission RCD.  This program was funded by the State Water Resources Control Board, Riverside County Department of Flood Control’s Storm Water/Clean Water Program, and the County of San Diego. The participants of the program were the State Water Resources Control Board, Riverside County Flood Control, San Diego State University (SDSU), San Diego Stream Team, Riverside County Resource Conservation District, the County of San Diego, and (last, but certainly not least!) citizen volunteers.

The goals of the Home2Ocean Program were to implement a citizen-based volunteer water quality monitoring and to increase public awareness of Santa Margarita River watershed issues through the following activities:

  •   Develop a citizen-based water quality monitoring program;

  •   Solicit and train volunteers to carry out 14 months of water sampling and four bioassessment procedures to monitor the physical habitat and biological condition of significant tributaries of the Santa Margarita River;

  •   Use the monitoring program and the information it generates to educate the general public about the current state of the watershed; and

  •   Assess watershed awareness of targeted groups through the implementation of a watershed questionnaire before and after outreach efforts.

The Final Data Report .pdf for the Home2Ocean Program is available here (6.9 Mb).

Visit our photo gallery of water quality monitoring volunteers by clicking here!

                                                Last Updated: June 10, 2008