Clean Water Program Now Accepting Grant Applications

The Clean Water Program is inviting applications for its 2014 Community Stewardship Grants, designed to facilitate community-based actions that enhance and protect the health of local waterways. Proposed projects must be aimed at storm water pollution prevention in Alameda County and contain a community or public outreach element. This year’s grant cycle focuses on litter reduction projects in particular. Funding requests between $1,000 and $5,000 per project will be considered, for a total available budget of $20,000. Eligible applicants include teacher and student groups, youth organizations, homeowners associations, community groups, environmental groups and other non-profit organizations. Deadline for submissions is April 10, 2014.


“The Clean Water Program’s mission is to protect creeks, wetlands and the Bay. One specific goal is the reduction of the amount of litter entering local creeks and the Bay by 70% by 2017, compared to 2009. That’s why we’re particularly interested in anti-litter projects for this year’s grant cycle,” explained Clean Water Program Manager Jim Scanlin.



Community Stewardship Grants support community-based projects designed to protect waterways in Alameda County, like this creek cleanup organized by a past grantee.Since its beginnings in the late 1990s, the annual grants program has funded some 100 grassroots projects. Activities range from creek cleanups and restoration, wildlife habitat improvement and rainwater harvesting to outreach and education. Outreach projects typically address practices to reduce storm water pollution such as litter prevention, Integrated Pest Management, proper household hazardous waste disposal etc. Outreach methods include art projects, events, trainings, videos and printed materials, among others.



Sample projects funded in recent years:

• Alameda Point Collaborative, a low-income housing community in Alameda, is developing an after-school program for its resident youth that teaches watershed pollution prevention and involves kids in monthly cleanups and anti-litter outreach to the community.
• Cycles of Change in Oakland trained high school students as “watershed ambassadors” who led groups of 3rd through 8th graders to educate small businesses near Lake Merritt about their shared watershed and how to prevent storm water pollution.
• The Alameda Creek Alliance recruited and trained volunteers to monitor, clean up and restore creek habitat, and reach out to creek-side residents through the StreamKeeper Program, aimed at the restoration of salmon and steelhead trout to Alameda Creek

For more information about the Clean Water Program Community Stewardship Grants and projects funded in the past, and to download an application packet please click here.


The Clean Water Program Alameda County is your local government and community working together to protect creeks, wetlands and San Francisco Bay. Zone 7 is a member agency. The Program educates the public on how to keep businesses and homes from contributing to storm water pollution, and also coordinates its activities with other pollution prevention programs, such as wastewater treatment plants, hazardous waste disposal, and water recycling.