Blue Water Baltimore

(from our 2019-2023 strategic plan):
A. Demonstrate hands-on leadership by monitoring water quality challenges and directly implementing solutions
B. Advocate for leadership on water quality from the private, public, and nonprofit sectors
C. Educate people on the threats to our waterways and how they can help.
D. Strengthen our organization to fulfill its mission

Providing reliable, scientifically accurate information about the health of our waterways and effective actions for improvement.

Reducing pollution by combatting illegal activity and implementing new green infrastructure to reduce the impact of stormwater runoff.

Advocating for the adoption of policies that protect water quality and use of proven best practices by public authorities, businesses, institutions, land owners, and residents to restore it.

Educating residents and other stakeholders about the unique challenges facing our waterways and water-based infrastructure of Baltimore City and County and the roles they can personally play on addressing them.

Our work is grounded in Science. We take our lead from the scientific evidence and regard it as the last word on whether something is healthy or unhealthy, working or not, for the watershed.

We focus our efforts in Baltimore. We are about the Baltimore region and its water quality.

We strive for visible change. We have a bias to tangible, visible projects that educate and engage people.

We rely on partnership. We collaborate with community-based and other partners to understand their priorities and ensure that the plans, work, and results have local approval and stewardship.

We prioritize respect. We respect the diversity of experience and identity among the people who live in the Baltimore region and work to be aware of and responsive to the practices and beliefs of all cultures and traditions.

We are always learning. We strive to better understand our waterways, our partners, and our communities, and to better serve and fulfill our mission.

In the past 10 years since our founding, we have planted thousands of trees with the help of thousands of volunteer hands; collected seven years of scientifically rigorous water data; launched a real-time public website to access that data; installed dozens of rain gardens, bio-retention facilities, permeable pavements, and cisterns for local congregations and businesses; and educated hundreds of children and adults about their waterways. We have contributed to significant policy wins on behalf of our neighbors and our environment, including a ban on plastic bags and expanded polystyrene foam containers in Baltimore City and parallel legislation at the state level. We intervened on behalf of Baltimore City's environment in the sewer consent decree renegotiation to ensure action and accountability. And we've taken that accountability directly to the source by bringing lawsuits against industrial polluters.

Now, we are striving to deepen our connections to the people who live in our watersheds, to shift power to residents and community members, and to strengthen the coalitions that will protect and restore our waterways for the next decade.