Public funding and water coalitions: Do they improve water quality

This report seeks to surface any possible environmental benefits from a locally based watershed coalition and public funding in California's Santa Ana Watershed. Chartered as a "Special District" with a focus on clean water, the Santa Ana Watershed Project Authority is a regional coalition that works with water planners and lawmakers. The regional coalition is important as it ensures the implementation of regulations based on science and the distribution of funding needed for water projects. Santa Ana River water quality data archived by the United States Geological Survey presents an opportunity to evaluate the accomplishments of this watershed coalition from 1975 to 1985.;The second part of the thesis focuses on the benefit of public funding - both federal and state - to the watershed from 1971 to 1999. This is an important topic as infrastructure investment becomes central in the 111th Congress and different programs are audited to ensure they are not wasteful. There are several federal programs that have been used in the Santa Ana Watershed: the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund and environmental education grants program. On the state level, California's programs include: the Nonpoint Source Pollution (NPS) Control and Watershed Protection grant program, Southern California Integrated Watershed Program (SCIWP) and Proposition 50 Integrated Regional Water Management Implementation Grant Program.