History

2013

Opened our doors for business

We officially launched operations starting with a modest table along the Los Gatos Creek trail in Campbell which led to our first cleanup in May.

1st Creek Recruiting Event 4-13-13
2015

Expansion onto the Guadalupe River

We rebranded our group as “South Bay Clean Creeks Coalition”, a more inclusive name.

2016

Adding Guadalupe River

Our cleanups started to include multiple locations along both the Los Gatos Creek and the Guadalupe River.

clean up on park ave on the guadalupe river
2018

Expanded to Coyote Creek

We acquired the group “Friends of Coyote Creek Watershed” and expanded to include the Coyote Creek.

2019

Art Made from Trash

Our artistic efforts became more ambitious. We reached out to local artists to create murals, art contests, videos, and trash art.

2020

Pandemic Reset and Effects

Due to Covid our operations changed to meet the county requirements for the COVID protocol. We continued to clean up the waterways as they became even more heavily impacted by the unhoused.

2021

One Million Pounds Removed from the San Jose Waterways

We picked up our millionth pound of trash with over 327 cleanups.

2022

A New Hope for Salmon in San Jose

Our 2019 samples from our Salmon Monitoring efforts came back showing results of 2 fish possibly being native strains from the local watershed.

2023

An Increase in the Local Salmon Population

Best Year for salmon monitoring. We saw over a hundred fish in the Guadalupe River and Los Gatos Creek. It is estimated that there were over 500- 700 fish in the waterways of San Jose.

12-15 female by 17 freeway
2024

Local Confluence Between Groups

We received the Community Heroes Award from Mayor Matt Mahan’s office and have begun the process to increase communication between local environmental groups and agencies through creek partners meetings.