Watershed protection is a means of protecting a lake, river, or stream by managing the entire watershed that drains into it. Clean, healthy watersheds depend on an informed public to make the right decisions when it comes to the environment and actions made by the community.
The Watershed Protection and Flood Prevention Act (Public Law 83-566) authorizes the Secretary of Agriculture to provide technical and financial assistance to entities of state and local governments and tribes (project sponsors) for planning and installing watershed projects.
About Preserving the Watersheds and their Tributaries
This is a story about how a small group of people found a way to protect and preserve the Pajaro River that through neglect had become polluted, accumulated trash and debris and overgrown with vegetation. But, the group also, protected the river from those that would make it into a concrete aqueduct like those in Los Angeles. They proceeded into the fray armed with artistic talent and their slogan "Preserve history through Art." The California Stories Project funded the creation of a multimedia and art exhibit that told stories of individual and community relationships to a living river, the Pajaro River and tributaries that empty into the Elkhorn Slough which empties into Monterey Bay.
MMPublishing was selected to document “The Pajaro River Watershed Experience” exhibit Rumme (Ph, Ra-ma) by the Pajaro Valley Arts Council and Gallery as part of the Council’s statewide California Stories Initiative, “The California Council for the Humanities.” The exhibit featured the "River of Photos" by Janet Siino Martinez, a continuous montage of photographic evidence of good things and bad things along each portion of the river telling the story of the river and its inhabitants. the "River of Photos" covered the wall space of the entire gallery. Art exhibits were also installed on the ceilings and on the floor. Opening day of the exhibit boasted a full house where people were rubbing shoulders as they tried to move. Representatives of the Corps of Engineers, responsible for creating the aqueduct, also attended the exhibit. The exhibit was documented by MMPublishing as an interactive bilingual multimedia presentation that was presented locally and around the country. The Compact Disk, Rumme (Mutsen for Water) was distributed free to elementary schools within the Pajaro Watershed District to be incorporated into their curriculums.
As a result of a marketing strategy designed to inform people of the problems of the Pajaro River, a bilingual multimedia CD including videos were distributed to schools and libraries throughout the region. The exhibit was documented as an interactive bilingual multimedia presentation that was presented locally and around the country. A traveling “Road Show” was created to continue delivering the message of the exhibit throughout the region for the rest of the year 2004.The message continued to be delivered with CD presentations in Seattle Washington at the National Women’s Caucus for Art, in Long Beach California at the National Youth Leadership Conference and in Hebei Province China for a Cultural Exchange Program. A youth group from Liverpool U.K. heard about the project and came to a local high school to find out more about the “Watershed Experience” and to study the watershed first hand. This demonstrates the ability for a message that is effectively delivered to reach audiences around the world.
Dr. Jennifer Colby acted as Project Director and Exhibit Curator; Gopher Gold Productions created the original music; Janet Martinez created the layouts for each page; Ed Martinez programmed the software, added the multimedia elements and translation effects to each page; A. Dennis Gaxiola contributed digital images.
With regional, national and international interest and mounting pressure brought by river advocates in 2006, American Rivers proclaimed the Pajaro River "the most endangered river in the U.S."
This short video is a sample of the presentation on the multimedia CD titled "Rumme."
In 2008, MMPublishing partnered with the Watershed Institute at California State University Monterey Bay and Partners for the Advancement of Teaching at California State University Monterey Bay to document the story of the Gabilan Watershed as an art exhibit and multimedia presentation at the National Steinbeck Center. See more at The Creeks of Salinas: The Gabilan Watershed Experienceon the Classroom on the Bay website.
About Classroom on the Bay: Using a historic, repurposed fishing vessel (The General Pershing) The Classroom on the Bay’s mission is to develop an "Environmentalist Activist Program" utilizing science, art and storytelling; emphasizing the historical Monterey sardine fishing industry, the boat builders and boat building of the sardine fishing era, as well as, the negative impact to Monterey Bay, its tributaries and the Pacific Ocean. Classroom on the Bay will continue to build on the preservation of the watersheds and wetlands as documented with the help of the California Stories Initiative and with media inherited from MMPublishing.