The creek is helped by many community organizations. The city of San Pablo has organized cleanups, as has the Friends of Orinda Creeks. The San Pablo Watershed Neighbors Education and Resources Society (SPAWNERS) goes further than just garbage and weed cleanups and includes restoration efforts and watershed studies. SPAWNERS has built and maintained a creek bank restoration site and California native plant demonstration gardens at the El Sobrante Library adjacent to downtown El Sobrante since 2000. SPAWNERS also maintains a creek re-vegetation site at the El Sobrante Boys and Girls Club as well as an outdoor classroom project along Wilkie Creek (a tributary of San Pablo) behind De Anza High School. The damming of the creek has limited threatened steelhead spawning sites but has allowed it to continue to survive there. Native Ohlone shell mounds were once found along the creek, especially near San Pablo Bay.