When residents of the Yuba River watershed northeast of Sacramento saw a stretch of the emerald-green river suddenly turn an alarming reddish-brown on a recent winter day, they knew immediately who to call.

Though water quality concerns are the purview of federal, state and county environmental agencies, they alerted the local South Yuba River Citizens League, confident its volunteers could get to the scene quicker and investigate the discoloration faster than any regulator.

Sure enough, the group found the likely culprit within hours. One of its trained river monitors took samples at the site near the Gold Rush-era town of Nevada City, ran a series of tests, then compared the results with those from samples volunteers had routinely collected for more than 20 years – from the same section of river and the same time of year.

“Our baseline data allows us to look back on how the river has behaved at certain points in time, and lets us quickly identify anomalies,” said Aaron Zettler-Mann, the league’s executive director, who develops stream-sampling tools for volunteers as part of his post-doctorate research in geography. “We worked backward and determined it was probably just a small landslide.”

“Their stories can be really important and powerful in the public policy arena.”
~Felicia Marcus, former state water board chair on the influence of streamkeepers

The league is among dozens of volunteer organizations that monitor the health of their local waterways and native fish populations across California and the West.

As new threats emerge, the community stream stewards bring their data and observations to the attention of environmental enforcement agencies. Colorado takes the relationship a step further by formally partnering with streamkeepers and using their data to inform decision-making. 

Often referred to as “streamkeepers,” the grassroots groups are meticulous chroniclers of river conditions – the Yuba league alone records water temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen and turbidity at 37 sites across 40 river miles – and are often the first to detect problematic trends.

Information from streamkeeper groups has influenced California policymakers in setting minimum stream flow requirements for native fish, establishing water quality standards for treated wastewater disposed in streams and designating stretches of rivers “wild and scenic” to keep them free of dams and diversions.

“These groups get the data from the ground level and make it real,” said Felicia Marcus, former chair of California’s State Water Resources Control Board, which polices water quality. “Their stories can be really important and powerful in the public policy arena.”  

Versatile Volunteers

Some larger groups like Los Angeles Waterkeeper have fundraising and public relations staff and are linked to larger networks while many of the smaller, more grassroots organizations like the Friends of the Shasta River monitor waterways in more remote areas.

Native American tribes are no less active in protecting their watersheds. Several tribes are the driving force behind the ongoing removal of four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River. At Clear Lake, just north of Napa Valley’s wineries, the Big Valley Band of Pomo Indians and the Elem Indian Colony are taking the lead on spotting toxic algal blooms that harm fish and taint water supplies.

Streamkeeper groups share similar core goals: reduce pollution, monitor stream conditions and gather data that can help officials make informed water policy decisions.

Mostly comprised of trained volunteers, the groups lead river clean-ups, survey locations for habitat restoration, conduct routine water quality testing and educate the public on the importance of healthy watersheds. Retired biologists, ecologists, conservationists and former employees of natural resource agencies are common in the ranks of volunteers as are riverside property owners.

Andrew Rypel, director of the Center for Watershed Sciences at the University of California, Davis and former member of a streamkeeper group in Alabama, cast these volunteers as the “ultimate transdisciplinary water professional.”

“They tend to know something about science, ecology, agriculture, the people who live along the waterbody and the economics of the situation,” he said. “They’re in the middle of everything.”

Punching Above Their Weight

Some California streamkeepers wield their local knowledge to spur regulatory changes.

One of the preeminent streamkeeper success stories comes from Putah Creek, an 85-mile-long stream that winds through parts of Northern California’s wine country before draining into the Sacramento River.

In 1990, the volunteer-led Putah Creek Council sued the Solano Irrigation District and Solano County Water Agency to release more water from a dam to sustain chinook salmon and other native fish species downstream. The city of Davis and UC Davis later joined the council as plaintiffs.

After a protracted legal fight, a state judge ordered a new flow schedule for the creek that requires the water agency to provide more water when certain species are spawning or migrating out to the ocean. As part of a settlement over the lawsuit, the water agency agreed to create a permanent streamkeeper position on staff.

Having a dedicated, long-term funding source for the streamkeeper position has been key to the creek’s recovery, said Max Stevenson, who assumed the full-time job in December 2021. He added that some of his most important work is done off-stream, engaging with interest groups.

“Long-term relationship building is the key,” Stevenson said. “All the users – landowners, regulatory agencies, the public and cities – they have to get along.”

“Long-term relationship building is the key”
~Max Stevenson, Streamkeeper with the Solano County Water Agency

The lower Putah Creek, which commonly ran dry during drought and was a haven for illegal dumping, has seen a resurgence in its salmon and steelhead trout populations thanks to consistent flows and habitat restoration, according to UC Davis researchers.

A similar effort is underway in the San Joaquin Valley, where local streamkeeper groups are among those pressing the city of Bakersfield to keep more water in the lower Kern River for fish. A state judge has ordered the parties to come up with a plan that ensures “public trust flows” to benefit fish while the case is pending.

Los Angeles Waterkeeper has routinely filed lawsuits over the past 30 years, forcing the state and local governments to curb sewage spills and reduce the flow of toxic urban runoff into streams and along the Pacific coast.

“While no one likes to go to court, a lawsuit is often the only way to get polluters and regulators to do the right thing,” said Kelly Shannon McNeill, the Los Angeles group’s associate director.

Streamkeepers are also known for rallying against new dams.  

The Yuba league was hatched in the 1980s primarily to fight proposals for more dams on the river. It swayed local politicians to fight against the projects and — after nearly 20 years of lobbying — state lawmakers gave the Yuba wild and scenic status, permanently banning new dams and diversions on nearly 40 river miles. The group now has about 3,500 members.  

Since then, stretches of several other rivers have been added to the state’s wild and scenic list, most recently a portion of the Mokelumne River in 2018.

Near the California-Oregon border, Friends of the Shasta River has had recent success in protecting salmon and other native species on a key Klamath River tributary.

The group formed in 2019 out of frustration over the lack of streamflow protections for a river that historically produced about 50 percent of the chinook salmon in the Klamath River basin. The group, comprised of local scientists, retired natural resource professionals and riverside property owners, documents water conditions and promotes the river’s values in rural Siskiyou County.

“The Shasta River is tiny, more of a creek running through a desert, but arguably for its size it was probably the most productive salmon-bearing stream on the face of the earth,” said David Webb, a Friends of the Shasta River board member.

The Shasta streamkeepers, the Karuk Tribe and other salmon activists filed petitions that prompted the state water board to temporarily limit water diversions during the last three years on the Shasta and nearby Scott River. Regulators are currently gathering scientific data and considering whether to adopt permanent minimum flow requirements to ensure the rivers don’t run dry during critical periods for native fish.

“We’ve waited long enough; we need permanent instream flows so that public trust resources are protected,” Webb said.

A River Turns Orange

For more than three decades, Colorado has relied on a virtual army of volunteers to track the health of the state’s more than 150 rivers.

Before 1989, conditions on most of the state’s 770,000 miles of river weren’t monitored. Important water decisions were made without reliable data. To better inform decision-makers, the state created a program that enlists streamkeepers, teachers and students to gather water quality data.

Today, the River Watch program managed by Colorado Parks and Wildlife and the nonprofit River Science has about 100 volunteer groups that monitor hundreds of streams. Revenue from the state lottery helps pay for the program.

Megan McConville, who manages the program for the state, says the thousands of volunteers serve as eyes and ears for Colorado’s streams, spotting trends unseen by environmental regulators.

“These students, these volunteers, they know their rivers better than I ever will,” McConville said. “What I love about this program is that I can call a volunteer and ask them ‘Hey, could you expand your monitoring to include two more locations? We want to figure out whether a culvert is introducing zinc into a waterway.’”

Streamkeepers came in particularly handy in 2015 when 3 million gallons of orange sludge spilled from an abandoned mine and tainted the Animas River, a Colorado River tributary. The state used the volunteers’ baseline data to track its progress on the river cleanup.

‘They Can Have Your Flank’

While streamkeepers have had legal fights with water suppliers and regulators, partnerships between them are becoming more common in California.

Both the South Yuba River Citizens League and the Yuba Water Agency are working with a broader coalition to restore 275,000 acres of forest in the river’s upper Sierra watershed. They are also cooperating on habitat restoration projects and a proposal to create a channel that will allow threatened green sturgeon to get around a dam on the Yuba.

Willie Whittlesey, Yuba Water Agency general manager, credited the 2008 Yuba Accord for fostering ongoing partnerships on the Yuba. 

“This is a new way of doing things,” Whittlesey said of the series of agreements among the agency, environmental groups, farmers and hydroelectric producers.

Meanwhile, in California’s capital city, streamkeepers are becoming effective advocates. Marcus, the former head of the state water board, said grassroots groups have figured out creative ways to draw attention to problems in ways that regulators can’t.

She credited groups, such as those that brought jars of tainted drinking water to public hearings and press conferences, for winning legislative support for more water board staff and resources to regulate rural drinking water systems.

“They can have your flank,” said Marcus, who in 1985 co-founded the grassroots Heal the Bay group to fight pollution in Santa Monica Bay and elsewhere along Southern California’s coast. “Sometimes they highlight a problem and then the agency can get the resources needed to address it.”

Streamkeepers can also aid regulators by carefully reviewing pending orders and rules. During her stint as state water board chair, Marcus said the California Coastkeeper Alliance was particularly adept at articulating the pros and cons of draft documents and then working with the regulator on useful changes. “It makes it easier for you as a regulator,” she said.

Joaquin Esquivel, the current board chair, said volunteer groups have been submitting critical water quality data to the board’s citizen monitoring program for years. The program helps streamkeepers choose monitoring techniques, perform quality control and find funding sources.

“Their concern is genuine,” Esquivel said. “Collecting and bringing in data helps us see that a watershed or stream is impaired.”

Back on the south Yuba, Zettler-Mann and his group have started monitoring the watershed for signs of emerging threats, including long-lived synthetic compounds known as PFAS and a rubber preservative in tires that federal regulators are examining for potential harm to salmon.

UC Davis’ Rypel, a professor of coldwater fish ecology who advocates “a streamkeeper for every stream,” said having passionate volunteers filling data gaps and looking out for emerging threats to streams like the Yuba and Putah can inspire neighboring watersheds to do the same.

“Of all the different management things I’ve seen tried,” he said, ”the streamkeeper thing might be the one that’s worked best.”

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Reach writer Nick Cahill at ncahill@watereducation.org

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