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What We Do

South Bay Clean Creeks Coalition is a 501(c)(3) organization chartered to Reclaim, Restore, and Revitalize our Santa Clara Valley watershed.
We do this work in a number of ways:

  • We conduct regular creek cleanup events on the Los Gatos Creek, the Guadalupe River, and on the Coyote Creek. These cleanups are usually organized under our TEAM 222 Program (two hours of cleaning on the second Saturday of every other month).
  • We draw attention to the trash polluting our watershed with "trash-art" projects, such as the one pictured here, which is a salmon made out of batteries found during cleanup events.salmon made from batteries Read More about our Trash Art.
  • We educate students with workshops, classroom visits, and with cleanups. We lead cleanup events near each school, and we conduct student field trips to study the types of the trash and location that it's found to determine littering implications and patterns (such as the impact of discarded single-use items). These programs are intended to cultivate young minds and bring awareness to just how fragile our ecosystem can be when it becomes polluted.
  • We promote the health of native wildlife such as beavers, otters, and spawning Chinook Salmon and Steelhead Trout, and we even installed cameras to follow the daily life our resident beaver family. During the 2017-2018 winter season, we had over 30 people regularly patrolling our waterways to count the number of spawning salmon in our creeks and to document their REDDs (REDDs are nesting grounds for salmon and trout eggs). We also created a wildlife brochure to draw attention to the native wildlife that relies upon and lives in our waterway corridors.
  • We also encourage and participate in invasive plant removal to promote waterway health. Invasive plants, such as ivy and bamboo, diminish limited water supplies, spread aggressively in our mild climate, and do not provide any shade, which enables water temperatures to rise above normal levels that are required for healthy conditions for species. On the other hand, native oaks for example, spread their limbs across the water, which promotes cooler waters for a much more conducive ecosystem for plants, animals, and for us humans.
  • We also regularly conduct water quality tests to track the overall health of our waterways in connection with DeAnza's College of Environmental Services Department.