The Biscayne Bay Alliance is a network of volunteers and organizations dedicated to protecting South Florida’s waterways. Volunteers participate in waterway and neighborhood clean-ups, native plantings, and coastal habitat restoration projects.

Coastal Restoration Projects

Volunteers can also join native plantings, biodiversity monitoring projects, and coastal restoration projects. Citizens is currently working with the City of Miami to remove exotic plants and restore native coastal habitat on Virginia Key.

Click here to restore Virginia Key.

Fishing Line Recycling

The Fishing Line Recycling Program is a statewide program to encourage recycling of fishing line through a network of line recycling bins, drop-off locations, and volunteer clean-ups. Citizens for a Better South Florida is partnering with the Florida Sea Grant Extension Office and Tropical Audubon to increase the number of bins along our waterways and encourage more volunteer involvement.

Water Quality Monitoring

Over the past two years Citizens for a Better South Florida partnered with FIU's Our Rivers and Coastal Ocean (ORCO) lab to engage South Floridians in protecting and enhancing our water quality. Community volunteers and students monitored water quality in canals feeding Biscayne Bay and within the Bay itself. After receiving training in sampling protocols, volunteers adopted a site, made regular observations, and retrieved samples. Their samples were then taken to the ORCO lab at FIU for analysis.

View 2004 Volunteer Data and Interpretation

Citizens is now recommending volunteers who are interested in monitoring to join LAKEWATCH, a 2000+ member strong network of volunteers monitoring water quality across most of Florida's lakes and freshwater waterways. As part of LAKEWATCH, volunteers can continue investigating the health of our local water supply and help protect our aquatic resources. LAKEWATCH volunteers undergo sampling training, adopt a monitoring site, and then sample their site once per month. LAKEWATCH supplies its volunteers with a monitoring kit, periodic reports on the volunteers' adopted waterway, and a yearly reception that includes data interpretation. To join LAKEWATCH, visit their website or call 1-800-LAKEWATCH.

Citizens values the knowledge gained about water issues through the science of water quality monitoring. We are continuing to raise awareness about our watershed and the science of water quality monitoring through educational presentations for local school groups. To schedule a presentation for your school group email Citizens or call the office at 305-648-0000.

Funded by

The South Florida Water Management District, Miami-Dade County Department of Environmental Resources Management, Miami-Dade County Water & Sewer, and Miami-Dade County Department of Solid Waste