Weekly Estuary Update
Greetings from the estuary! Below, we share events, initiatives, and training and collaboration opportunities scheduled to benefit the waters, ecosystems, and communities connected to the San Juan Bay estuary.
Support the Estuary with your Refund
This tax season, we encourage you to donate a portion of your refund to efforts to eliminate sewage discharges into beloved bodies of water like Condado Lagoon and beaches. You'll also be supporting the restoration of San Juan Bay, the canals connecting the lagoons in the San Juan metropolitan area, and management projects for this vital ecosystem.
Look for the option “Contribution to the Special Fund for the San Juan Bay Estuary”, which you will find on the line 1B of the boxing “Refund” from your form.
This method is possible thanks to Law 48 of 2009, which establishes the Special Fund for the San Juan Bay Estuary.
Learn about the different methods available to donate to the Estuary at estuary.org/donate/.
Family day out at the County Lagoon Estuarine Nature Reserve
Don't miss the next Estuary Family Day Out at Jaime Benítez Park in the Condado Lagoon Estuarine Nature Reserve on Saturday, March 1, 2025. We'll have several activities to earn community service hours or Green Contact, including a cleanup at the Reserve and a talk about the Estuary watershed's wildlife, followed by trivia. Then we'll have Estuary Movie Night. See more information at: estuary.org/events. We will wait for you!
Estuary Cinema presents: Wicked
Estuary Cinema presents: Wicked; Saturday, March 1, 2025, at 7:00 pm at Jaime Benítez Park in the Condado Lagoon Estuarine Nature Reserve. The film will be shown in Spanish with English subtitles. This screening is free. Bring your blanket or chair!
5K Estuary in the Botanical Garden
The first Estuary 5K will be on March 23, 2025, at 7:00 am in the Río Piedras Botanical Garden, San Juan! You'll run along trails, enjoying streams and lakes, and listening to birdsong under the shade of native and centuries-old trees.
Registration includes a commemorative shirt, a medal upon completing the 5K, a race number, a chip to record your race duration, hydration, and access to educational tables after completing the race.
For an additional cost, you can get the opportunity to enter the raffle for the VIP Concert Experience of No me quiero ir de aquí, by Bad Bunny.
The Estuary 5K is carried out with the endorsement and close collaboration of the Botanical Garden of the University of Puerto Rico.
Puerto Rico Water Quality Day
The 17th Annual Puerto Rico Water Quality Day will be held on Saturday, April 5, 2025, from 9:00 am to 11:00 am. Registration for the event opens in early March. Mark your calendar!
We are still recruiting volunteers to help with tasks such as providing training workshops, distributing kits, and setting up public water quality monitoring stations. If you would like to participate as a Water Quality Day volunteer, see more information. here.
Estuary present at the Recycling Pop-Up in Loíza
The Estuary was present with its educational table at the most recent Recycling Pop-Up in Loíza, with LimPiaR and the Municipality of Loíza, on Saturday, February 15, 2025.
Through our educational table, we are highlighting the collaborative campaign with LimPiaR: Leave a clean footprint in Piñonesas well as the vegetable oil diversion program and the impacts of plastics and microplastics on our ecosystems.
The Loíza Recycling Pop-Up takes place every month, on the third Saturday of each month. See more information here.
Planting in the Guajataca River in Quebradillas
On Saturday, February 15, the citizen scientists trained by the Estuary participated in planting red mangrove trees in the Guajataca River in Quebradillas, in collaboration with the Surfrider Foundation.
Our goal is to provide our citizen scientists with the field experience they need to continue efforts to restore the shorelines of the San Juan Bay estuary system.
We thank all the citizen scientists who accompanied the Coastal Resilience Coordinators of the Estuary, Andreína Alexatos and Agnes Pagán, and the Surfrider Foundation for the opportunity to collaborate. Congratulations!
Citizen Scientist Certification
Below are the events scheduled for the coming weeks. See more information at: estuary.org/ccc.
Participatory Bird Census Module
Participatory bird census workshop; on Thursday, March 6, from 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm via Zoom
Field experience; Sunday, March 9, from 7:00 am to 10:00 am at Central Park in San Juan
Register today at: estuary.org/ccc.
Weekly bacteriological monitoring
Assessment conducted on Thursday, February 20, 2025. We have a GREEN flag for County Lagoon. We recommend avoiding the area that exceeded the Beach Action Value water quality parameter of 70 CFU/100 ML. Remember to avoid the water during rain events.
