Channelkeeper has been an active partner in the California Coastkeeper Alliance's Regional Kelp Restoration, Monitoring and Education Project. This Project, which spans the coast from Santa Barbara to San Diego, is funded in part by NOAA's Community-Based Restoration Program and the California Coastal Conservancy. Four southern California Waterkeeper organizations, including Channelkeeper, are involved in the multi-year project, which began in 2002.

The project has two facets: classroom education and hands-on restoration and monitoring of kelp beds by trained volunteers from the local community. Throughout the region, the project has involved thousands of students and volunteers and includes collaboration among Waterkeepers, state and federal government agencies, private donors, and corporate and foundation supporters.

Locally, Channelkeeper has established a kelp restoration site at Carpinteria Reef, located a half-mile offshore of the Carpinteria Salt Marsh.

The proportion of education to field work had been dependent upon local need: here in Santa Barbara we have mostly concentrated our efforts in the classroom. Since 2002, nearly 7,000 school children from Lompoc to Oxnard have participated in our Marine Education program.

In addition to our work on the Coastkeeper Alliance kelp project, we are also monitoring kelp at “Bird Island.” Bird Island is a remnant oil pier off the beach in Ellwood (Goleta), and was removed in October 2005, along with other oil industry debris that litters the seafloor in the area. The California Department of Fish and Game and the California State Lands Commission required that both a bird roost and artificial reef be built as mitigation for the disturbance to marine life that the removal will cause. Channelkeeper has worked with the agencies to design a five-year monitoring program for the new reef, which will be built from quarry rock and will cover about .05 acres. Our program will begin once the reef and roost construction are completed. The intent of this program is to monitor for kelp recovery, as well as other common local species. In addition to monitoring, we propose to employ various restoration techniques, as needed, to speed up kelp recruitment to the reef. A major component of this program will be to involve volunteers from the local community in the monitoring process, and to engage students with classroom education