From the City of Santa Cruz Water Department to the Saw Mill River Coalition in New York’s Hudson Valley, Ann-Marie Mitroff has spent most of her life developing and running programs to steward water resources and reclaim rivers as community assets. That background drew her to the San Lorenzo River and inspired her support for the Coastal Watershed Council. She hopes it inspires you too!
“What excites me about CWC’s work is that they’ve become a trusted and effective partner to accomplish projects with the City of Santa Cruz,” Ann-Marie said. Successful efforts that stand out to her include meetings with Beach Flats community members, the construction of the Dragon Gate monument at Chinatown Bridge, and regular volunteer restoration events to improve the San Lorenzo River’s habitat. Now CWC is working with the City and other partners to envision new opportunities for how downtown Santa Cruz reorients itself to embrace its riverfront for the first time in 70 years.
“This is an exciting time because the San Lorenzo River has been hidden from the downtown,” Ann-Marie said. “CWC is facilitating physical connections between the river and downtown, so the river is ‘revealed’ as an asset, a hidden gem.”
Galvanized by this pivotal moment, Ann-Marie and her husband Norman E. Groner have provided a $15,000 donor match for CWC’s 2026 Spring Campaign. They are encouraging others to donate this spring to ensure CWC has the resources to help Santa Cruz community members, from residents to business owners, discover how the Riverwalk can connect to their homes, retail stores, and their lives.
Ann-Marie and a colleague pose as “Captain Hydro” and a “Water Bandit” to encourage consumers to save water during the the late ’80s and early ’90s.
“That connection to water has been a constant wherever I’ve lived, ever since I can remember,” Ann-Marie said. As a child in Springfield, Vermont, her house was high above the Black River. Later, in Brandon, Vermont, the Neshobe River skirted the family’s back field and flooded every spring. As a college student, she spent early morning crew class in Corvallis, Oregon, on the Willamette River. In subsequent moves, her bedroom in Seattle looked out on Lake Union, and she took morning walks along Sligo Creek while living in Silver Spring, Maryland. Then life brought her to Santa Cruz.
In 1987, Ann-Marie was hired as the Santa Cruz Water Department’s first Water Conservation Coordinator, right at the beginning of a seven-year drought. During that challenging time, she focused on keeping customers informed. “When people are given tough but understandable information, they rise to the challenge,” she said. “And if you include them in setting rules, they’ll set practical, sensible restrictions that will save water.”
Her tools included the Santa Cruz Municipal Utilities newsletter (the “SCMU Review”), in which she used a mix of levity, straight talk, photos, and illustrations to communicate water conservation actions. She also helped 6th graders paint signs with conservation messages (including some installed along Morrissey Blvd), and held award events and mailed award magnets to thank people who saved water. She’s particularly proud of co-developing a drought plan in 1988 that has stood the test of time. The plan established drought stages and actions for both the City and customers to take, and Ann-Marie saw the Water Department share similar water restriction actions with customers during a recent semi-dry year in 2020–2021.
A refrigerator magnet awarded to residents who saved water during a drought. Ann-Marie said she still sees these magnets when visiting people’s homes!
In 2003, Ann-Marie and Norman relocated to New York. Norman is a social psychologist who led the effort to conduct evacuation interviews of people who escaped the World Trade Center after the terrorist attacks on 9/11, and was recruited to be an Associate Professor at John J. College of Criminal Justice, part of the City University of New York. Following their move, Ann-Marie joined Groundwork Hudson Valley, part of the Groundwork USA Network of people-centered, place-based environmental justice organizations.
She spent the next 17 years at Groundwork Hudson Valley, eventually becoming its Director of River Programs and coordinator of the Sawmill River Coalition. In 2007, a $998,000 grant from the EPA catalyzed a once-in-a life time project: working directly with the Yonkers Development Director to “daylight” a section of the Sawmill River in the heart of downtown Yonkers. After being buried in an underground pipe for 90 years and paved over with a parking lot, the river again saw the light of day in 2011.
Volunteers at a 2013 Saw Mill River Cleanup
In just three months, the river had new life, including night herons, black-nose dace, muskrats, turtles, and American eels. Ann-Marie became an American eel champion, helping to facilitate projects like engineering design for safe eel passage, a habitat plan, and an outdoor classroom complete with a mosaic of the eel life cycle. In 2012, a beautiful park opened and welcomed people to the river in a revitalized downtown. Ann-Marie was interviewed about the work for NPR’s Morning Edition in 2014, and featured in a Canadian documentary Lost Rivers.
Ann-Marie and Norman returned to California in February 2020. Informed by her work in New York, she sees so much potential in the Santa Cruz Riverwalk as businesses and residents discover the value of investing in the lower San Lorenzo River. “CWC has been a catalyst in working with all parts of the community,” Ann-Marie said. “They’ve focused on caring about the river, and how the community can work together to protect it, even if we all don’t always agree on other things. We need more of that everywhere.”
You can join Ann-Marie and Norman in supporting a once-in-a-generation transformation for the San Lorenzo River by donating to CWC’s Spring Campaign. Donate by June 30, 2026, to have your contribution doubled by their matching gift!