Engaging Community to Protect the Pinole Creek Watershed: Assessment of Trash Impacts to Inform Policy and Promote a Thriving Ecosystem

Pinole Creek, beloved by the California community adjacent to the San Pablo Bay that it runs through, is beset by a problem common to this era. Trash has contaminated its waters, affecting its vitality. A team of community leaders collaborated to address this problem within the community science model offered by AGU's Thriving Earth Exchange (TEX). Our proposal was accepted in 2020 and with the assistance of a Community Science Fellow and a Community Scientist with expertise in plastic pollution in the environment, we refined a trash assessment project as part of TEX's Science, Policy, & Engagement cohort of community science projects. Utilizing the California Trash Monitoring Methods and Assessments Playbook, we trained community members who collected data from 23 randomly selected sites along the main stem of the creek, and then analyzed the data and presented our findings to various audiences. The diverse collaboration of adult volunteers, high school students, and 6th graders at one elementary school developed data-driven policy and action recommendations, which were presented to the Pinole City Council in May, 2022. In this session we as community leaders reflect on the power of community science, our lessons learned, and next steps for continued engagement and action.