Inspire the next generation of environmental stewards and motivate students to care about stormwater and their local streams! StormFest and the Highline School District is seeking applicants to support StormFest, an interactive stormwater festival for Highline Public Schools 6th grade students June 10th-12th.
StormFest is recruiting both educators (stipend available) and volunteers. No experience as an educator is necessary as training will be provided. Applications are due May 12th. Head to the StormFest website to learn more!
We had a wonderful time at the 2025 Green Infrastructure Summit of the Salish Sea on March 14th! This was a landmark year for the Summit, being the 10th year of coming together as a community, collaborating across sectors, and connecting our Salish Sea region. We saw an unprecedented number of fantastic speakers along with the highest number of student attendees in all 10 years.
Many thanks to our wonderful speakers, host committee, sponsors, advisory committee, volunteers, Cascadia Consulting, and everyone who was able to attend. We recognize and appreciate the time and energy you put in. You all make this event what it is!
Stay updated on GSI and the Summit by following Stewardship Partners on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and signing up for our Green Infrastructure email list.
We’d like to take a moment to acknowledge and thank all of our 2024 sponsors, in-kind donors, and volunteers that supported us throughout the year. Special shout-out to the hundreds of individuals who donated to Stewardship Partners or volunteered with Snoqualmie Stewardship! We look forward to partnering with you all in 2025.
The 10th annual Green Infrastructure Summit of the Salish Sea will be held in person on March 14th, 2025, at Cascadia College in Bothell, WA. The Summit convenes green infrastructure thought leaders across the region to share and inspire research and innovation.
Sponsors support the behind-the-scenes work necessary to make the Summit a success. Past sponsors include The Boeing Company, The Nature Conservancy, King County, City of Seattle, and more. View the Sponsorship Flyer & Benefits.
The 2024 Summit included discussions on long-term maintenance, monitoring, indigenous perspectives and approaches, and addressing 6PPD-quinone. We saw so much engagement and networking between attendees, excitement for future research and partnerships, and a real commitment to increasing the green job workforce. Our team is looking forward to what the 2025 Summit will bring!
If you’d like more details and a first chance at tickets when they are on sale, please sign up for our green infrastructure email list!
On May 18th Stewardship Partners joined The Alliance for Pioneer Square and over 250 volunteers participating in multiple projects for their annual Spring Clean event. Our group was small but mighty as we maintained the four rain gardens on Occidental. We cleaned up the gardens, installed 30 plants and added mulch to top them off. There’s nothing more gratifying than creating a positive impact in your community especially in a spot you walk by each day. Thank you, volunteers!
Thank you to all who attended the Green Infrastructure Summit of the Salish Sea at Cascadia College on Friday, March 29, 2024! This year, the theme of the Summit was Shaping Infrastructure through Collective History, Learnings, and Big Ideas. We have historic work ahead of us if we want to see change. This year included discussions on long-term maintenance, monitoring, indigenous perspectives and approaches, and addressing 6PPD-quinone.
We saw so much engagement and networking between attendees, excitement for future research and partnerships, and a real commitment to increasing the green job workforce. We hope you all went back into the world feeling inspired to continue the critical work that you do!
Many thanks to our wonderful speakers, host committee, sponsors, advisory committee, Cascadia Consulting, and everyone who was able to attend. We also want to give a big shout out to host committee member, Jesse Williams from Jacobs, who provided the content for the “Charting the Waves of Time” timeline, as well as to all of you who provided additional events and reflections.
As 2023 comes to a close and we reflect on the year behind us, we are so grateful for the opportunity to continue creating meaningful impacts in the Puget Sound area, the traditional lands of the Salish people. We were able to accomplish so much this year with the help and support of our communities. Stewardship Partners led the 8th Annual Green Infrastructure Summit of the Salish Sea, launched the Adopt-a-Downspout program in Seattle, began the biggest rain garden installation in the Snoqualmie Valley, and led volunteers in restoration efforts. These accomplishments, among many other green initiatives, have in part been made possible by people like you. Thank you for your support!
The Snoqualmie Stewardship Restoration Team enjoyed working with a full crew again starting in April. Among their many projects, this year was the biggest rain garden they’ve installed to date at Griffin Creek Farm in Carnation. The 3,000-square-foot rain garden will manage stormwater and water runoff from the farm’s vegetable processing plant. This was the first rain garden we have installed at a Salmon-Safe certified farm, but certainly not the last. We are looking forward to a new series of rain gardens going in at Carnation Farms next year.
Researchers have determined that the chemical 6PPD-quinone in tires causes pre spawning mortality in coho salmon in urban streams. Capturing stormwater and using green infrastructure has been proven to remove this chemical. Stewardship Partners has installed four aboveground stormwater biofilter boxes on two downspouts from the I-5 ship canal bridge to treat 1 million gallons of runoff. The goal of this pilot project is to monitor the results of treatment and also determine feasibility and assess scalability and replicability. Thank you to Boeing, The Rose Foundation, WSDOT and TNC for supporting this project.
Feast on the Farm is always a highlight of our year. This year at Griffin Creek Farm the weather was gorgeous, the food was delicious, and the company was superb. We are deeply grateful for the generosity of our donors, attendees, and volunteers. We hosted 125 people at the farm and raised $65,000. This goes directly towards supporting salmon habitat restoration in the Snoqualmie Valley and rain garden installations.
We were saddened by the passing of a beloved partner and pillar of the Seattle community, Bill Ranniger. Bill was a dedicated steward of the environment, committed to sustainably sourced seafood and salmon recovery. Chef Bill and Duke’s Seafood have been longtime sponsors of the Adopt-a-Buffer program. This year, with 20 staff members from Duke’s, we rededicated “Duke’s Point” to “Chef Bill’s Point” in his memory. Next year, in April, for an Earth Month Celebration, we are planning a sign dedication in his honor. We are inspired by stewardship partners like Chef Bill!
The mission of Stewardship Partners is about bringing communities together so that we can all be better stewards of the land and sea we live, work, and play on. Important parts of this vision are access and a sense of belonging. When people understand the role they can play and feel connected to their community, positive change happens. We wouldn’t be able to continue this work without support from folks like you. We invite you to consider Stewardship Partners in your annual giving this year.
It seems like absence really does make the heart grow fonder. After 3 years of virtual Summits, on March 17th, we were finally able to gather about 230 leaders of the green infrastructure movement together in person (with a couple dozen more joining us online). It was great to see everyone (and the sunshine didn’t hurt either)! Faces and perspectives new and old gathered at Cascadia College in Bothell for the 8th annual Green Infrastructure Summit of the Salish Sea. The host committee’s chosen theme of “money as medicine, historic investments are a historic opportunity for healing*”, helped us all consider our work with shared goals of healing harms, environmental, social, and otherwise.
Over the course of 8 summits in 8 years, a lot has happened. But one theme has persisted throughout: How can we repair environmental damage in a way that heals our social wounds as well? Or put in the terms that Host committee member Bridget Ray spoke, the people here belong to this land, are of this land, not the other way around, and when we work to heal and care for one, we must keep that relationship in mind. This is happening. Investments in green infrastructure are taking community-identified goals and needs into account. Some of those goals relate to workforce and career pathways. Others talked about the very rich complexity of community-centered strategies. Green infrastructure is increasingly helping create accessible outdoor spaces in the form of stormwater parks.
Most of the sessions (all the ones in the auditorium) were recorded and will remain available for you to watch and share with your colleagues on the summit webpage (along with content from past summits).
“While I didn’t know it at the time, this summit was my last in my current role. I couldn’t have asked for a more rewarding send off than that. I am profoundly grateful for this community, your vision, your love for this land and all the people that belong to it.” -A note from Aaron Clark
*Acknowledgement to Edgar Villanueva who popularized the concept ‘money as medicine’ in his important book, Decolonizing Wealth.
