Watershed Management Group Inc

Watershed Management Group (WMG) helps people make small, meaningful changes in their backyards to create larger change in the world.  

We envision a world where the relationship between communities and the environment creates prosperity for all.

WMG’s programs include: 

The Green Living Co-op helps people transform their yards with rainwater & greywater harvesting, native & edible gardens, soil building, and passive solar.  It’s all done through fun, barn-raising workshops led by experienced WMG project managers.  We run about 50 Co-op workshops a year in the Tucson and Phoenix region.

The Green Streets Program works with neighborhoods, businesses, & municipalities to promote & install green streets – streets that capture stormwater to grow urban forests – conserving water, reducing flooding & stormwater pollution, cooling our cities, and making our neighborhoods more bike and pedestrian-friendly.  We have found 2/3 of the volunteers who attend our Green Streets workshops subsequently implement green infrastructure at their homes. 

WMG created the manual, Green Infrastructure for Southwestern Neighborhoods, which provides standard designs for implementing green infrastructure in the desert. 

Schoolyard Water Education provides customized programs for K-12 Students, focusing on water conservation & wildlife habitat through water harvesting & native gardening activities on school campuses.

The Soil Stewardship Program teaches people to protect & enhance soil, and create soil from traditional sources of “waste.”  We are piloting site-built composting toilets and green waste mulching programs working with neighborhood, university, and state government partners.

Advocacy & Public Policy: In 2013, Watershed Management Group led a collaborative process to develop and implement a Green Streets policy for the City of Tucson. The policy requires all new and re-developed City streets to be Green Streets – harvesting stormwater to grow streetside urban forests.  WMG also continues to lead the way as a founding member & fiscal sponsor of the Community Water Coalition, a group that provides leadership & guidance toward water policy that sustains healthy ecosystems & quality of life.  

50 Year Program: Restoring Tucson’s Free Flowing Rivers:  WMG is working with community partners on a variety of initiatives to start restoring Tucson’s heritage of year-round, flowing rivers.  We are a founding member of Conserve to Enhance, a program where Tucson residents contribute dollars saved from water conservation to river restoration projects.  We are developing a youth advocacy program to help restore areas of shallow groundwater that still support essential riparian habitat. 

Green Workforce Development: WMG conducts job training for a variety of professions in water harvesting, green infrastructure, stream restoration, eco-sanitation, and more.     

International Programs: WMG works with partners in Mexico and India to offer training and create demonstration projects in watershed restoration, green infrastructure, and eco-sanitation.