Working in partnership primarily with the City of Richmond and the County of Contra Costa County, SFEI is developing a new GreenPlan-IT Tracker. The new tool comprises another module within the GreenPlan-IT Toolbox which, along with its three other modules, helps to plan, assess, optimize, and track municipal efforts to reduce stormwater run-off and reduce pollutant loads to the Bay.

The Lahontan Water Board (Regional Water Board 6) has formally adopted EcoAtlas and the California Rapid Assessment Method (CRAM). This will enable the Water Board to visually track and assess the extent of project impacts on a watershed basis throughout the region.

Beginning August 1 of this year, 401 Certifications and Waste Discharge Requirements will require applicants to upload project information into EcoAtlas. Applicants will be encouraged to use CRAM in pre- and post- project assessments.

Interviewed by Molly Wood, host of Marketplace, SFEI's Executive Director Warner Chabot describes how the San Francisco Bay Area must work with natural processes, rather than against these processes, to ensure the health and safety of coastal environments. This emphasis on restoring natural processes to, in turn, restore habitats dovetails with some of the primary messages in the Baylands Goals Update, issued late in 2015 to great impact among the media, the public, and decision makers.

Eelgrass (Zostera marina and Z. pacifica) is recognized as an important ecological resource in nearshore open coast areas, shallow bays, and estuaries throughout coastal California. Access to regional maps and related monitoring reports for eelgrass is crucial to monitor the extent of eelgrass habitat and how it is changing over time, evaluate the effects of coastal development projects on eelgrass habitat, and inform interested stakeholders and the public about eelgrass distribution.