Collection Description
Santee is a thriving family-oriented community with a population of just under 56,000. The community enjoys a small town atmosphere with a vision of being the city where people want to live, work and play. The City Council focuses on smart growth and development. Additionally, through the City’s Sustainability Project, Santee is committed to saving taxpayer money through improved energy and water conservation; responding to legislative mandates to reduce air emissions; and implementing best practices for the environment and the future by becoming more sustainable. Because of these efforts, Santee maintains a high quality of life for its residents and visitors, strong retail activity, successful recreation programs and community events, and safe neighborhoods with low crime rates.
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- A Geospatial Approach to Santee Parks: Park Asset Data Collection, Correction, and Submission
- This report is a reflection of the work of numerous students in Geography courses at SDSU which incorporate real–world issues into the classroom curriculum. The City of Santee, in collaboration with the Sage Project, developed three focus areas for this project: park asset geodatabase creation; storm water inlet collection and hydrological analysis; and using geospatial technology to improve compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The park asset portion of the project is a large portion of this document. Improvement of process management is a key feature of this section. Creating a geodatabase of park assets across eight different parks and over 70 acres of land is difficult and technical. This document provides a step–by–step approach for future users to recreate the process for any geotagged image collection project, not limited to park asset data. A majority of the process is reliant on technology produced by Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI), using their line of Arc products. As a result of this project, over 2,000 data points now have representation in the custom geodatabase for the city. In addition to the park asset project, storm water inlets also incorporated the concepts and technology for geotagged data collection. Using a set of boundaries defined by Santee, students split up to collect data on missing storm water inlets. The San Diego River divides the City of Santee, making tracking of waterborne pollutants across the surface a hot topic. Using the data collected on missing storm water inlets, the city is better prepared to manage their runoff and track sources of pollution. In addition, advanced datasets were created, including a Digital Elevation Model (DEM) and hydrological analysis toolboxes. Finally, the City of Santee placed adaptation to the new standards set out by the ADA revision in 2010 as a high priority. Looking at over 115 roadways ranging in size and age, the group conducted a sweep to identify issues with ADA compliance standards, such as missing sidewalks or sidewalk ramps. The report concludes with considerations for environmental responsibility and social and economic equity., San Diego State University, GEOG 584
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- Santee Water Quality Project
- The results presented in this report were created in partnership with City of Santee and the Sage Project during the spring of 2016. Students in Environmental Engineering 363 collected and analyzed water samples from areas of interest within the City of Santee. To address the City of Santee’s plan to offset the pollution load to the San Diego River, samples were analyzed to improve understanding of environmental conditions around areas of interest. This report presents data collected from six different sites for ten different constituents under both wet and dry weather conditions. It com¬pares measured values to the Water Quality Benchmarks from the San Diego River Watershed Management Area Water Quality Improvement Plan to determine whether pollutant concentrations are of concern. Findings are divided by site. Each section begins with a brief description of the site and surrounding areas. Pollutants out of compliance are highlighted, and hypotheses for measured values are provided. Weather conditions and sampling dates are taken into consideration., San Diego State University
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- Santee Water Quality Project
- The principal objective of the Santee Water Quality Project is to identify hotspots of water contamination in Santee and determine if these hotspots change over time. To this aim, researchers in the Environmental Hydrology class at San Diego State University pursued existing water quality data and accessed digital elevation models and land use shapefiles to evaluate spatial and temporal patterns in water quality in Santee. The researchers were divided into four groups: bacteria, nutrient, urban trash, and hydrology. The data analyzed by the bacteria, nutrient, and trash groups consisted of spreadsheets documenting, from 2003 to 2014, water quality at different locations in Santee. The water sampling was conducted by D-Max Engineering, Inc., a San Diego–based environmental consulting firm specializing in storm water services. The hydrology group found that the alteration of streamflow is positively linked with land use change, the spread of urbanization, and the increase in impervious surfaces. Baseflows, peak flows, and flood magnitudes have steadily increased while precipitation levels have remained within the bounds of natural variation. The bacteria group found that concentrations of total coliform, fecal coliform, and enterococci were significantly higher than the permissible limits set in place by the California Regional Water Quality Control Board. Further research should follow regarding the sources of the bacteria and mitigating practices should be considered in an effort to reduce the delivery of the bacteria to the waterways. The nutrient group found that concentrations of ammonia, phosphate, and nitrate, were high during the sampling period. The concentration levels should be of concern and mitigating the effects should be a priority. The group recommends limiting access to the river by increasing restrictive measures and maintaining the existing infrastructure that prohibits access to the river., San Diego State University
