In January 2018 Biodiversity First!, a local nonprofit working to preserve and protect wildlands and species, agreed to fund a position for a Watershed Coordinator to develop a watershed management plan for the Salinas. The Coordinator, who will be overseen by the Upper Salinas-Las Tablas Resource Conservation District (RCD), will work closely with government agencies, non-profits, and individual citizens in the community to develop the plan. Devin Best, Executive Director of the RCD, who has been involved with the Dreaming the Salinas initiative since the beginning, made the successful request for the grant. “The partnership between Upper Salinas – Las Tablas RCD and Biodiversity First! will provide the opportunity to develop a comprehensive Salinas Watershed Management Plan by having a Watershed Coordinator tasked with coordinating and developing this effort,” says Devin. “Although other efforts have been underway, those efforts were limited in scope; either in geographic boundaries or consideration of natural resource management issues. With my knowledge and input from stakeholders in the Salinas, the need for a comprehensive watershed management plan is real and likely overdue. It’s a great privilege and honor to be able to work with the stakeholders, BDF!, and the watershed coordinator to tackle this issue.”

 Steelhead Conceptual Model (Stillwater Sciences, 2020)