About Us
The Center for Urban Watershed Renewal is a charitable, non-profit organization that works as an advocate and agent for the transformation of stigmatized and degraded sites into ecologically, economically and socially viable amenities. Since 1999, we have encouraged solutions that integrate natural resource management and infrastructure development to create environmentally sustainable and economically prosperous communities. CUWR uses the expertise of board members and advisors as well as outside teaming partners and consultants to achieve the best possible outcome for sites, and is actively seeking new projects and partners for watershed remediation and restoration.
About Our Logo & Name: The image we chose - a river framed by a cityscape - reflects the interdependency of our built environments with the watersheds they occupy. We envision restoration projects that support thriving ecological health alongside important ecosystem services like erosion control, stormwater filtration and attractive open space. As a nod to this remedy for decaying infrastructure and degraded environmental conditions, we pronounce our acronym "CURE" and do our best restore contaminated sites with ecologically sound planning principles.
Areas of interest include:
River Corridors: riparian restoration, regional detention ponds, treatment wetlands, habitat enhancement, stream daylighting
Site Repair: phytoremediation, renewable construction materials, former military sites, soil reclamation, mine and slag drainage, restoration of hydrologic balance
Open Space: green space and greenways, recreation and natural science education, community gardens, municipal composting, urban microclimate management
Policy & Compliance: natural resource zoning, stormwater utilities, decentralized wastewater treatment and reuse, combined sewer separation, stormwater sewer overflow elimination, low impact development, building code and ordinance coordination