The Otter Project’s Top 2025 Priorities

We are proud of what we accomplished in 2024, and are now entering a year that will likely present many challenges for our environment, coast, and wildlife. In 2025, we will continue our advocacy for strong coastal and watershed protections that safeguard the health and habitat of California’s southern sea otter. Check out our top priorities for this year:

1.   Prevent ocean acidification dead zones and toxic algal blooms in sea otter habitat. Top scientists have demonstrated that nutrient pollution from wastewater facilities, farms, and dairies causes acidic hot spots and toxic algal blooms along the California coast - creating inhospitable ‘dead zones’ for marine life. We are working with state decision-makers to develop water quality standards that would limit nutrient inputs to the ocean in order to stop this pollution and protect sea otters.

2.   Protect California from federal attacks on clean water protections. The 2023 U.S. Supreme Court Sackett v. EPA decision stripped many California streams and wetlands of federal Clean Water Act protections, leaving state waters highly vulnerable to pollution. Less federally protected waters means more pollution will flow to the coast and into sensitive sea otter habitat. The Otter Project will defend California’s water quality protections through The Right to Clean Water Act – legislation that will protect California’s water quality by providing the state with the same Clean Water Act tools it had before the federal rollbacks. 

3.   Stop pollution from golf courses in the Monterey National Marine Sanctuary. The Central Coast boasts iconic and scenic golf courses, but those well-manicured greens come at a cost. The pesticides and fertilizers to maintain the course ultimately run off into the ocean, creating a toxic environment for the sea otter and other marine life. Golf is also a hard sport, and thousands of golf balls end up in the ocean where sea otters mistake the balls as clams and a source of food. To better protect the coastal habitat, The Otter Project is working to establish the first ever Clean Water Act permit to control golf course pollution.

4.   Prevent Central Coast farmers from polluting the waterways that flow into coastal ecosystems. Water discharges from farms on California’s Central Coast transport pesticides and fertilizers to the ocean, threatening coastal water quality within critical sea otter habitat. The Otter Project has filed a lawsuit against the Central Coast Regional Water Board to require more space between farms and waterways to help prevent pollution from entering our streams and rivers and flowing to the ocean.

5.   Establish and enforce water quality protections in sea otter habitat. Fifty years ago, California set water quality protections to prohibit polluted runoff in the sea otter’s ocean home. Yet today, we are still witnessing widespread pollution with no accountability. The Otter Project is urging the state to do better by improving enforcement against those who pollute protected ocean waters. At the same time, we will work to advance the first new ocean water quality protections in 50 years within the Point Sur Marine Protected Area.