About Us
San Francisco Estuary Partnership Planning Area
Our Story
The San Francisco Estuary Partnership is part of the National Estuary Program, a non-regulatory program of the EPA created through the Clean Water Act. Our planning area encompasses the San Francisco Estuary and its watersheds, from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to the San Francisco Bay.
Who We Are
We lead a regional strategy, the Estuary Blueprint (also known as the Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan, or CCMP) to protect and restore the water quality and ecological integrity of the Estuary from the Golden Gate to the Sacramento Delta.
Catalyst: The San Francisco Estuary Partnership convenes agencies and organizations in the region, catalyzing regional work toward our collective vision of a healthy Estuary. We work hand-in-hand with communities, funders, and other key vested parties to collaborate, innovate, and adapt to the dynamic needs of the estuary and its watershed communities in response to sea level rise and increasingly intense weather events.
Scale: The San Francisco Estuary Partnership builds partnerships and leverages federal funding with millions of dollars in state and local funds for regional-scale restoration, water quality improvement, and resilience-building projects.
Unique Structure: San Francisco Estuary Partnership is a part of the National Estuary Program, a place-based program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The Estuary Partnership sits within the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), the regional housing, land use, and transportation planning agencies. We are a regional governmental organization with a federal mandate to protect and restore the nationally significant San Francisco Estuary.
What We Do
The San Francisco Estuary Partnership and its collaborators are meeting the moment of climate change in the San Francisco Estuary. We take a community-centered approach to improve water quality, increase the quantity of fresh water available to the area, improve habitat for wildlife, and help the Estuary become more climate resilient in a way that promotes equitable and just outcomes.
Impact
We secure funding, oversee implementation, and protect this natural resource for the region. Our impact can be seen in the volume of federal and state funding going to local projects in the region to maintain a healthy Estuary and advance environmental justice.
Estuary Blueprint
We lead implementation of the Estuary Blueprint (also known as the Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan, or “CCMP”), a comprehensive, collective vision for the Estuary’s future. All National Estuary Programs across the US are required to create their own respective CCMPs through the Clean Water Act. The most recent 2022 Estuary Blueprint features 25 urgent, priority actions. These include actions in the areas of climate resilience, community-informed adaptation planning and implementation, water conservation, stormwater management, and more to preserve the estuary.
Resilience Building
Our work seeks to bolster the resilience of Estuary ecosystems, shorelines, and communities to climate change by: increasing resilience of tidal habitats and tributaries; increasing resilience of communities at risk; and promoting integrated, coordinated, multi-benefit approaches.
Stewardship
Our work champions the Estuary by: building public support for protection and restoration with information, outreach, and education, including providing opportunities to directly engage with the Estuary; strengthening regional leadership in support of Estuary health; and promoting efficient and coordinated regional governance.
Habitat Restoration
We seek to sustain and improve the Estuary’s habitats and living resources by implementing projects that: protect, restore, and enhance ecological conditions and processes that support self-sustaining natural communities; eliminate or reduce threats to natural communities; and conduct scientific research and monitoring.
Water Quality & Quantity
Our work seeks to improve water quality and increase the quantity of fresh water available to the Estuary with projects that: increase drought resistance and water efficiency; reduce reliance on imported water; improve freshwater flow patterns, quantity, and timing to better support natural resources; and reduce contaminants entering the system.