In partnership with the Natural Resources Conservation Service, Sustainable Conservation developed a one-stop permit process to make it simple for farmers to implement conservation practices on their land. The project has been so successful that we are replicating it in the Morro Bay, Salinas Valley, Navarro River, and Marin Coastal watersheds, with plans to expand it statewide to over the next three years. Sustainable Conservation coordinates and facilitates the Brake Pad Partnership, a multi-stakeholder effort to understand the impacts on the environment that may arise from brake pad wear debris generated in the use of passenger vehicles. Working together, manufacturers, regulators, storm water agencies, and environmentalists are developing an approach for evaluating potential impacts on water quality, using copper in South San Francisco Bay as an example. Brake pad manufacturers have committed to adding this evaluation approach to their existing practices for designing products that are safe for the environment while still meeting the performance requirements demanded of these important safety-related products.
Dairies are California's largest agricultural industry and a significant source of polluted runoff.
Our new dairies project will create and implement economic incentives that will motivate dairy farmers to adopt environmentally sound management practices to control pollution from animal waste. We are working with the University of California, Davis, industry representatives, environmental organizations, and regulators to protect California's water resources and the livelihoods of dairy farmers. Auto recycling keeps discarded vehicles and their accompanying fluids out of landfills, but rain can wash contaminants from these cars into local water bodies. To maintain the momentum we've been building in our projects, we will need to add at least five new project staff members in 2001.