California Water Issue 2022
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Angeles Chapter Water Committee Celebrates World Water Day March 22nd 2022
What is World Water Day? World Water Day has been celebrated by the United Nations annually since 1993 to shine the spotlight on water use, water conservation, water innovation and the lack of access to water in many countries. Wars have been waged over water. Believe...
The Constant Threat Against California’s Human Right to Water
In 2012, California took the bold step of enacting AB 685, which declared that every person in the state has a right to clean, safe, and affordable drinking water. Seven years later, in 2019, Gov. Newsom signed SB 200 to provide funding to “provide safe drinking water...
No Delta (Tunnel) Conveyance Without Building Sites Reservoir
The Department of Water Resources (DWR) is considering letting California’s largest water users build a 1.5 million acre foot, or 20 sq mi, reservoir that would divert much more water from the Sacramento River. At 13,200 acres, Sites Reservoir (formally called the...
The REAL Truth Behind Carlsbad “Bud” Lewis Poseidon Desalination Plant. A Costly Mistake
The Carlsbad ocean desalination (desal) plant, the largest in the western hemisphere, was conceived as a futile scheme to beat the 1987-92' drought. The San Diego County Water Authority (SDCWA) was clashing with their supplier, the Metropolitan Water District of...
Should We Legislate or Ban Water Futures? A Closer Look
About a year ago, I reported on a new water futures market on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. The market is based on an index, which is based on the sales transactions of actual water in CA, including statewide and in 5 sub-basins in the Southern CA area. The index...
What is Sierra Club California and How Does it Protect the Environment?
As a newbie to Sierra Club, you hear all kinds of Sierra Club entities being thrown around. National, Sierra Club California, Sierra Club Angeles Chapter, Sierra Club Bay Chapter and the list goes on. We’re here to shed a little light today on Sierra Club California....
Water Conservation Tips
As you may know, it’s becoming more important for everyone to try hard to conserve water due to the increased frequency of dangerous droughts brought on by climate change. Here are some important water conservation tips individuals, including cities can implement on a...
What’s Up Poseidon?
In April of last year, the Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board voted to grant Poseidon a permit to move ahead with the construction of their ocean desalination plant. The next step of course is that Poseidon would have to come before the California Coastal...
Stormwater, what is it exactly; and why should we regulate it?
In Southern California, we have a storm drain system and a sewage system that are completely separate. The storm drain system is called the municipal separate storm sewer system (MS4). Two main types of water flow through the MS4: (1) Stormwater, which is rainwater...
South Orange County’s Water Woes – Residents Weep!
Water, water everywhere nor any drop to drink. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge While the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner tells of the misfortunes of a seaman and suggests that despite being surrounded by something, you cannot benefit from it, the tale of ocean desalination...
Groundwater: Making the Invisible – Visible In SoCal
The theme for World Water Day 2022 is, Groundwater: Making the Invisible – Visible. Have you ever taken the time to think about the groundwater beneath your feet? Or where your water comes from? Of course, depending on where you live in Southern California, your water...
[Top header image: Boy on Scooter at Whittier Narrows Lake. ©Mimi Fuchs and Chiara Scaramuzzino.]
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Water Committee 2025 Year in Review
Dear Readers, Every year when I decide to put pen to paper, it is usually difficult trying to decide where to begin. However, this year it’s very simple, we begin with the 2025 fires of Pacific Palisades and Eaton (Altadena & Pasadena). The devastation those fires...
In Memoriam – Chuck Gooley
This article is dedicated to Charles ‘Chuck’ Gooley. Chuck was one of the founding members of this Water Committee. From the beginning he helped set up our first website and handled all things HTML. He was also our map builder and the direct conduit to the GIS...
Water, Environmental Racism, and Reproductive Justice
The quality of water we have access to and drink is inextricably linked to our health, and many common drinking water contaminants can cause reproductive health impacts for women. Yet in Los Angeles, as across the Country and globe, communities of color and low income...
Tap Water is Affordable; Customers Cannot Afford to Defer Investment
Water is one of California’s most essential shared resources. Every day, communities depend on safe and reliable drinking water, yet the systems that make that possible are often overlooked. Keeping water affordable while strengthening these systems is one of the most...
Cadiz Inc.’s Painful Last Two Years
For two punishing years, Cadiz Inc. has watched the prospects of its desert damaging Mojave Desert water mining project steadily dim. Water districts have concluded that the water mining project is unsustainable since Cadiz Inc. would drain much more water from a...
With Snowpacks Shrinking, California Needs Local Water Solutions
For anybody who skis, the plight of California’s snowpack this year is no surprise. Resorts up and down the state closed sooner than expected this year, some as early as mid-March. Warmer than usual spring temperatures caused less precipitation to fall as snow, and...
Pure Water Los Angeles Women Leading a Sustainable Water Future
Pure Water Los Angeles is a transformative engineering initiative designed to provide a new, sustainable, local water supply for the City of Los Angeles. This effort is powered by people and a promise to the next generation. Today, women are leading many essential...
Wading into Data Centers
Data centers have existed since the Internet, but new ones are now being built in response to Artificial Intelligence (AI). Writing this article was a challenge since limited knowledge exists and there is a lack of transparency and regulations surrounding the new...
50 Years of Coastal Protection
The California Coastal Commission protects the state’s coast and ocean resources as well as public access to the shore so that current and future generations can experience the incomparable beauty, inspiration and joy of a healthy, vibrant coast. In 2026, we celebrate...
Have You Ever Heard of the Golden Trout – California’s State Fish?
Mountain meadows serve as a key habitat for many inland native trout species across the West. Unfortunately for California’s inland trout populations, some sixty percent of meadow habitat in the Sierra Nevada—home to eight distinct native trout species—is considered...
North vs. South – the Controversial Delta Tunnel Project
California loves a good rivalry—Bay Area versus Los Angeles, north versus south, mountains versus coast. Most of the time, it’s all in good fun. But when that rivalry enters into water discussions, it stops being playful and becomes a problem. The debate over the...
LA’s Hidden Watersheds: Connecting To Water Through SoCal’s Reservoirs
In the 1986 book Cadillac Desert, Marc Reisner talks about the whole history of the West being about, “moving water from where it is, and presumably isn't needed, to where it isn't, and presumably is needed. “ And dams and reservoirs have been one of the main tools...
Not Just A Flood Channel- Spending Time With Rivers in LA
“For Angelinos to care about conservation they first need to think of water as not just something that somehow gets piped in from wherever into their faucets and shower heads. They need to see it as part of what they love and want to preserve about this city.” This...
There’s A Freeway In The Creekbed! Finding The Wild Places Along The Arroyo Seco
“All freeways (in LA) were built not just on top of water, but from the history of water” –Charles Hood, A Salad Only The Devil Would Eat Do you ever wonder where all the water is in LA? In many cases we are driving on top of it. If you’ve been on the 110 freeway...
The Hippie Mayor and the Fight to Save the Coast: Inside the Early California Coastal Commission
By Frank Egger Born, raised and educated in San Francisco, my family Summered in Cazadero, Sonoma County. My Grandparents had immigrated from Bozano, Italy to the City in 1905 and in 1918, they bought a small ranch in Cazadero. I fished for steelhead, Coho &...
Protecting San Pascual Park: Draft EIR is out. Help us protect an irreplaceable environmental treasure
The Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) for the Pasadena/South Pasadena Arroyo Seco Water Reuse Project was released today. The 1300-page document shows a project that is basically the same as the one that the San Pascual Community of Highland Park sued to stop....