Partners
Photo Credit: Jeff Folger
Partners
Photo Credit: Jeff Folger
Collaborating with Organizations on Local Initiatives
Partners
Salem Sound Coastwatch works with government agencies, businesses, other non-profit organizations, and residents through municipal partnering, scientific investigation, education, and stewardship. By collaborating with these entities, we undertake important local and regional initiatives to protect and restore our natural resources.
Municipalities
Since its founding in 1990, Salem Sound Coastwatch (originally named Salem Sound 2000) has worked with its watershed communities, local officials, boards, and commissions to foster responsible and sustainable resource management practices in the Salem Sound Watershed. With increasing sea level rise and more intense storms, we are committed to helping communities adapt and improve their resilience.
Greenscapes North Shore Coalition
In 2007, Salem Sound Coastwatch, Ipswich River Watershed Association and the Merrimack Valley Planning Commission formed a partnership called the Greenscapes North Shore Coalition. As an alliance, we deliver outreach and education across the North Shore on environmentally friendly landscaping, an important practice for our watershed. Sustainable landscaping practices reduce water usage, encourage groundwater recharge, protect our water supply, and reduce stormwater pollution.
North Shore municipalities join the Greenscapes North Shore Coalition to receive outreach and education services for their students, residents, and businesses that support municipal compliance with water-related regulatory requirements. These requirements include the MS4 Stormwater and the Water Management Act permits. By working together, we take advantage of economies of scale, share new ideas and perspectives, and enjoy many other benefits.
Massachusetts Bays National Estuary Partnership (MassBays)
Salem Sound Coastwatch is one of five Regional Service Providers for the Massachusetts Bays National Estuary Partnership. MassBays was named an “estuary of national significance” in 1990, shortly after Congress established the National Estuary Program (NEP) under Section 320 of the Clean Water Act in 1987 (reauthorized in 2016). MassBays is one of 28 NEPs across the U.S., and one of two in Massachusetts (the other is the Buzzards Bay).
As the MassBays Lower North Shore Regional Coordinator, we respond to local needs, convene stakeholders and decision makers, provide technical and hands-on assistance, and conduct education and outreach to engage volunteers and inform citizens in the six Salem Sound communities and Swampscott, Lynn, and Nahant.
Greening the Gateway Cities Program (GGCP)
Increasing tree canopy cover has many environmental benefits, including improving the condition of our watershed. The City of Salem has been selected to receive 2,400 new trees as a part of the Massachusetts Greening the Gateway Cities Program (GGCP).
Salem Sound Coastwatch is Salem’s non-profit partner in GGCP to encourage people who live in Salem’s designated planting zone to get free trees planted in their yards. Increasing tree canopy cover in urban environmental justice neighborhoods reduces cooling and heating energy use, lowers energy costs, and improves environmental health conditions. GGCP is a state-funded initiative designed by the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EOEEA), Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR), Department of Energy Resources (DOER), and the Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD).