All About San Diego Coastkeeper’s Stewardship Towards Healthy Water with Matt O’Malley and Phillip Musegaas

The Finest City

In this episode of the Knowledge to Action series, Executive Director Phillip Musegaas and former Executive Director and managing attorney, Matt O’Malley, from San Diego Coastkeeper, discuss how their organization uses a combination of science, advocacy, education, and community engagement to address various water-related issues. They talk with host Jen Whitelaw about Coastkeeper’s history and efforts to restore drinkable water to San Diego, as well as the challenges they face and work to change. They also touch on topics such as environmental justice, engaging youth in their mission, and starting with simple actions like beach cleanups.

Timestamps:

[1:44] Matt and Phillip introduce themselves and discuss their affiliation with Coastkeeper.

[2:04] What is a waterkeeper and how did the word inspire the name of the organization?

[4:42] What makes San Diego’s coastline distinct from other California coastlines?

[6:51] On the Coastkeeper website, it mentions protecting and restoring fishable, swimmable, and drinkable waters. What needs to be restored to make these things happen?

[12:41] Coastkeeper is using water monitoring and scientific inquiry to inform its program. Is this done by staff or do they have strategic partners?

[15:15] Phillip and Matt discuss examples of advocacy groups and associations they work with to create synergy and work together.

[18:31] What do you think San Diego is doing right in its watershed regions and what needs to improve?

[20:20] How did the water quality map come about?

[31:03] What does Coastkeeper do to move environmental justice to priority status?

[35:00] What if any cross-border relationships is Coastkeeper working on or has been working on?

[39:59] Phillip and Matt discuss Coastkeeper’s outreach to young people.

About C-3

In its 60 years of existence, Citizens Coordinate for Century 3 (C-3) has brought together local thought leaders from planning, design, policy, academia, community development, and more to address our region’s distinctive and pressing land use challenges. In founding C-3 almost 60 years ago, architect Lloyd Ruocco’s vision was to bring together our region’s most creative minds from the arts, sciences, academia, and government to share ideas, learn new perspectives, and build fellowship around the idea of creating livable communities.

Opportunities for Advocacy and Engagement:

C3sandiego.org

San Diego Coastkeeper

Surfrider

Groundwork

San Diego Audubon

Quotes:

• “The most successful lesson we’ve seen is when we really focus locally, and we really try to involve local communities and local partners in our advocacy.” — Phillip [5:18]

• “I tend to think the city and those within it very much identify with their love and caring for the coast here, which makes Coastkeeper’s mission more than just environmental stewardship, but also human health stewardship for swimmers, surfers, kayakers, and whale watchers to safely use our water.” — Phillip [6:17]

• “I hate to go negative, but I think there are just some hard realities that we’re facing when it comes to water and water supply, water pollution, and our water quality.” — Philip [21:17]

• “I think, at its core for us as water advocates, it’s about a few things. It’s about access to clean water, working on investing in improvements to water quality, improvements to our infrastructure to reduce flooding, and to make drinking water more reliable.” — Phillip [31:00]

• “Those benefits that we’re working toward should be shared by everyone equally. It should not be a case where some neighborhoods and some communities in our region are getting the benefits of this public investment, and others are being neglected and ignored.” — Phillip [31:33]