COASTAL CONSERVATION

Restore, Preserve & Protect

Founded in response to this global crisis, ORCA envisions a totally new approach to ocean conservation— one that works “in-the-water” to directly protect these fragile habitats from the myriad of unseen water pollutants, toxic algae blooms and destructive invasive species.

A key priority is the ORCA FAST (Fast Assessment of Sediment Toxicity) Program™, a new and low cost method for rapidly identifying toxic hotspots devastating critically important coastal habitats. ORCA will then deploy its revolutionary ORCA Kilroy technology to track the pollution origin to its source. Next, the ORCA Land-to-Sea Program will uses its FAST and Kilroy data to implement tangible solutions that help coastal residents, governments, and industries dramatically reduce the impact they are all having on nearby water habitats.

The concept of protecting water as “habitat” requires innovative strategies instead of trying to apply what has worked for land conservation. Simply buying parcels of land and posting no trespassing signs can significantly protect terrestrial habitat. This is often not possible in the water, so tools like Kilroy and FAST must be implemented, so entire communities can understand the damage their collective actions can have on coastal environments. On the flip side, Kilroy and FAST allow these same communities to measure the positive impacts of their behavior-changing efforts from youth groups campaigning to reduce the use of phosphate soap to home owners and farmers agreeing to reduce pesticide, herbicide, and fertilizer use or community-wide activities to reduce polluted runoff- Kilroy and FAST will give feedback on the significance of their actions toward conservation success.