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Water Resources

Creek Stewardship Guide for San Luis Obispo County – A useful guide to give rural and urban landowners a sense of their place in the many watersheds found in SLO County. The Creek Stewardship Guide promotes practical creek care information and offers a host of resources to help with the maintenance and preservation of creek-side property.

Upper Salinas River Watershed Action Plan (WAP) – A comprehensive planning document, a management plan, for the use by landowners, agencies and groups in their individual and collective efforts to improve and restore natural resources within the 2,000 square mile area of the Upper Salinas River Watershed. The planning area comprises approximately one-quarter of the watersheds that affect the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary (MBNMS). This document includes the input from hundreds of persons, agencies and organizations.

The primary objects of the WAP are:

  • To improve water quality and to ensure adequate water resources to meet the various needs within the watershed
  • To foster the future well-being of agriculture
  • To reduce the loss of soil
  • To enhance habitat condition
  • To improve land use policies

Quality Assurance Project Plan (QAPP) – developed from the Watershed Action Plan to provide detailed protocols for stream water quality, channel morphological characteristics, vegetative cover and condition and stream flow. The QAPP provides measures that will insure that each monitoring activity is consistent and accurate.

Upper Salinas River and Tributaries Watershed Fisheries Report and Early Actions report – examines the current conditions of Southern steelhead in the Salinas River. The Salinas has been listed as a “Category 1, Impaired Watershed” and is one of the most critical rivers in California by the State Water Resources Control Board due to its degrading condition and the impacts of nonpoint pollution on water quality. During the 1900’s the Salinas River supported large numbers of steelhead. Today steelhead populations have reduced considerably as a result of damming of the river, urbanization and agriculture.