Zone 7's work in the area of environmental stewardship comes in many forms -- aimed at protecting not only our local drinking-water supplies and flood-protection channels, but also the overall environment and quality of life.
We are actively involved in efforts to:
- Help protect, through management strategies, public education, community clean-up events and other means, our local watershed in order to reduce stormwater and other pollution in creeks.
- Along with other Bay Area agencies, work collaboratively with the National Marine Fisheries Service on its development of strategies for fisheries enhancement to protect a threatened steelhead trout population.
- Participate in Living Arroyos, a multi-agency partnership to enhance and maintain the urban streams and streamside habitats of the Livermore-Amador valley, while continuing to protect drinking water supplies and prevent flooding. The program relies on active community support and involvement.
- Do our part to address global climate change by exploring ways to reduce dependence on fossil fuels for electrical energy used in our water-treatment and groundwater-pumping operations. Zone 7 also has begun planning ways to adapt its existing water-supply and flood-protection infrastructure to respond to greater climate variability in the future.
- Increase energy efficiency.
- Work with local jursidictions, along with state and federal resource agencies, to develop a habitat conservation strategy for eastern Alameda County. The Eastern Alameda County Conservation Strategy (EACCS) will provide a collaborative and consistent approach to preservation of the area's biological resources. The idea is to help coordinate and streamline mitigation requirements associated with various development and infrastructure projects (including Zone 7s water-supply and flood-protection projects), and to help base those mitigations on areas of strategic biological value.
- Recently purchasing approximately 5,000 acres of rangeland near Lake Del Valle for the purposes of watershed protection:
