On May 17 th 2003, citizen monitoring groups along the entire coast of California joined forces to sample California’s coastal water bodies including bays, estuaries, rivers, streams, ocean and more. With funding from the State Water Resources Control Board and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Monterey Bay Sanctuary Foundation partnered with the California Coastal Commission and the Coastal Watershed Council to coordinate a single day of monitoring along the entire California coast.

The objective for Snapshot Day 2003, held on Saturday, May 17th, 2003, was to get volunteers, from the Northern California border to the Southern California border, into their coastal waterways to systematically sample the surface waters flowing off the California coast and into the Pacific ocean. Participants were trained how to monitor their watersheds using standardized protocols defined by the Snapshot Day Quality Assurance Project Plan and Monitoring Plan developed specifically for this event. Monitors measured water and air temperature, pH, conductivity or salinity, dissolved oxygen and transparency or turbidity in the field. At many of the sites, samples were collected for laboratory analysis of bacteria and nutrients. The 2003 event was orchestrated by eight Coastal Monitoring Coordinators responsible for organizing the event in each of eight sections of the coast. The event was supported by numerous state and local agencies. Sixty-nine individual watershed and citizen monitoring groups participated along with many new volunteers, working together to monitor water quality at 546 sites along the California Coast. Together, 637 participants worked to answer the question: What is the quality of the water flowing to the coast on May 17 th 2003?