OnBuoy, SPC is a Washington State Social Purpose Corporation committed to preserving and restoring the marine environment by increasing the availability of safe mooring options for recreational boaters, so they are not forced to drop anchor.
Each time an OnBuoy moorage owner hosts a fellow boater on their tie-up, the host earns money to offset the cost of maintaining their equipment and OnBuoy donates a percentage of its proceeds to marine conservation or restoration organization operating in the region where the host moorage is located.
By facilitating this virtuous cycle between moorage owners and boaters, OnBuoy seeks to provide a sustainable funding source for marine restoration while also cultivating an abundance of safe moorage options for boaters.
OnBuoy takes great pains to ensure that the funds we generate go to reputable organizations that are actually doing work in the areas we serve. Below is a list of organizations that OnBuoy is proud to support. We encourage our community members and visitors to learn more about these organizations and consider donating to them to further the work they are doing in our community.
Friends of San Juans
Preserving the beauty, character, and wildness of the San Juan Islands
A citizen group formed Friends of the San Juans in 1979 to help preserve the beauty, character, and wildness of the Islands in the face of increasing development. Our first major effort was helping the County adopt its first Comprehensive Land-Use Plan.
Friends’ primary goals are to foster wild and healthy shorelines, promote thriving and sustainable communities, conserve forests, farmlands, freshwater and prairie habitats, and ensure the health of the marine ecosystem. Friends uses science to inform decisions that conserve the county’s environment and economy.
Friends works locally and throughout the region using innovative public-private partnerships, applied science, legal advocacy, and community-based initiatives to protect the land, water and sea for those of us here today and for future generations.
Links
- Donate
- YouTube channel
- Action Center - news, events and volunteer opportunities
- Volunteer
- Anchor Out brochure - best practices to protect eelgrass
- Living with the Shoreline guide
Puget Soundkeeper Alliance
Puget Soundkeeper’s mission is to protect and enhance the waters of Puget Sound for the health and restoration of our aquatic ecosystems and the communities that depend on them. We monitor Puget Sound water quality, help set strong policies and regulations that protect our waterways and our health, enforce environmental regulations, engage citizens and businesses in waterway cleanups and recovery projects, educate and involve the public in local water pollution issues, and partner with local and regional groups to advance solutions that protect Puget Sound.
The Clean Water Act of 1972 grants individuals and communities the power to sue under provisions of the Act to bring egregious polluters into compliance with the law. Soundkeeper has a nearly 100% success record in Clean Water Act cases and has filed over 170 cases. A 1993 settlement with the City of Bremerton is directly attributable to the Dyes Inlet shellfish beds reopening for the first time in 40 years. On average, Soundkeeper’s settlements control over 120 million gallons of stormwater annually.
To date, Soundkeeper’s enforcement team has awarded over $10 million to third party restoration, education and water quality mitigation projects to heal the damage in the affected watershed and provide an incentive for future compliance. Soundkeeper does not receive any settlement money from Clean Water Act cases.
Founded in 1984 as the Puget Sound Alliance (PSA), Puget Soundkeeper was the first grassroots organization to focus exclusively on protecting the marine environment of Puget Sound. The organization was a founding member of the international Waterkeeper Alliance. Today, Waterkeeper Alliance and its member organizations are the fastest growing environmental movement in the world with over 300 licensed Waterkeepers and affiliates on six continents.
Since 1984, Puget Soundkeeper has…
- Completed over 1600 patrols of Puget Sound waterways
- Facilitated development of more than a dozen new or improved water treatment facilities in the Puget Sound region
- Taken legal action against more than 170 Clean Water Act violators
- Certified 71 Clean Marinas through the Clean Marina Washington program
- Created the Puget Sound Stewardship and Mitigation Fund and awarded over $7.4 million in settlement funds to Puget Sound restoration projects
- Engaged over 18,000 volunteers in cleanups, outreach events and advocacy
- Removed more than 145,000 pounds of marine debris from Puget Sound waterways
- Set national precedent for industrial stormwater treatment, green infrastructure and low-impact development regulations
Links
Donations can be mailed to:
Puget Soundkeeper
130 Nickerson St, Ste 107
Seattle, WA 98109
Northwest Straits Foundation
At the Northwest Straits Foundation, we’re Restoring the Future. One beach, one acre, one project at a time for a healthy and vibrant Salish Sea.
Our mission is to protect and restore the health of Northwest Straits’ marine resources by promoting and implementing science-based restoration and stewardship, enhancing collaboration, and attracting resources for the work of the Northwest Straits Initiative. Since being founded in 2002, we’ve invested millions of dollars of private and corporate contributions in education, protection, and conservation across the seven-county region of the Northwest Straits.
We work with a multitude of partners including tribes, nonprofit organizations, federal and state agencies, the Northwest Straits Commission and seven Marine Resources Committees (MRC) representing Clallam, Island, Jefferson, San Juan, Skagit, Snohomish and Whatcom counties.
The Northwest Straits Foundation leads marine restoration projects in those counties. We mobilize local support and volunteers, work with the MRCs, and fundraise to support our work. Our Foundation provides project planning and management, technical and scientific guidance, and field support.
We serve a diverse population based upon the rural reach of our work, from socially and economically diverse rural communities to tribal coastal areas, and urban cities such as Bellingham and Everett.
Our marine restoration work serves everyone because the marine environment is a public resource.
Since 2001, Northwest Straits Foundation has...
- Restored 870 acres of marine habitat
- Logged 4701 volunteer hours
- Removed 5800 derelict fishing nets
- Protected 4.5 million marine lives annually
- Saved 470,000 birds saved annually
Links