Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Co. will donate a hefty check and a bit of staff volunteer muscle to help revive the struggling Santa Fe River.

The company is donating $150,000 over the next three years to support projects by the nonprofit Santa Fe Watershed Association. Among the projects the money will help are some community meetings, signs to mark the river and studies to analyze ways of restoring flows.

Rick Sanders, Santa Fe Natural Tobacco's president and chief executive officer, said helping the river is in keeping with the 25-year-old company's philosophy of helping each other and the environment.

"We agree with the long range goals of the Santa Fe Watershed Association — a healthy, living river," Sanders said. "We feel they have a comprehensive view of the river from its headwaters up at Lake Peak down to where it joins the Rio Grande. And we think they aren't pre-wed to any solution for how the river should be restored to its natural state."

David Groenfeldt, executive director of the Santa Fe Watershed Association, said the donation was "by far" the single largest gift the group had received. "The thing I like about this money, other than the amount, is it helps projects that we've already identified as important to the watershed," he said.

Some of the money will help promote and conduct two public meetings to gather public comment on how the river could best be restored. The first of those meetings, scheduled Dec. 8, is sponsored jointly by the association, the Santa Fe River Commission and the city's water division.

Money will also go toward publishing studies on the various ways groundwater, storm water and treated wastewater could be managed to augment water in the river.

And some of the funds will help complete a project already under way by the association, the state Department of Transportation, the city and the county — creating signs to mark the boundaries of the watershed and the river. "People still don't know where or what the Santa Fe River is or if it exists," Groenfeldt said. "At the moment, the only sign that demarcates the entire 46-mile length of the Santa Fe River, is in Cochiti Pueblo."

Sanders said the company will look at adopting several stretches of the river and encouraging staff to help clean up or work on restoration projects in those stretches. He said he hopes his company's contribution will stimulate other businesses and individuals to get involved with the river in some form.

Sanders acknowledges the company's product is highly controversial, but said he still tries to run the business as one committed to staff, customers and the environment. He took over managing the company, now a subsidiary of Reynolds American and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Holdings, in 2002.

He said they've worked with tobacco growers in the South to develop growing methods that use little or no pesticides. The company uses biodegradable potato-starch utensils in its lunchroom, has 100 percent of its Santa Fe-based building powered by wind and starts even its lowest paid employees at $13.50 an hour. The company employs about 130 people in Santa Fe.

"Pretty much throughout the company, we try to think of what can we do to reduce our environmental footprint," Sanders said. "We believe we have an obligation to treat each other fairly, equitably and with respect."

And the Santa Fe River has definitely lacked for some respect in the city that grew up along it, he said. "Fifty years ago, the city had the foresight to pass an ordinance to protect historic buildings," Sander said. "It's been widely successful but unfortunately only applied to buildings. The Santa Fe River is the only reason the city is here, but its preservation has been largely ignored. We think that needs to be addressed."

He said hundreds of vendors, sales people and others connected with the company visit Santa Fe each year, many for the first time. "Almost invariably I'm asked what the ditch is," Sanders said. "I'll tell them that's the Santa Fe River. The next question always is: "Where's the water?"

Contact Staci Matlock at 470-9843 or smatlock@sfnewmexican.com.