California Water Issue 2023
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World Water Day 2023: Accelerate Change – Be The Change
By Charming Evelyn The theme for World Water Day 2023 is Accelerate Change. As a long-time Sierra Club member, I think I can safely say being the change embodies the volunteers and staff who serve alongside myself within the Water Committee(s). The work we do and how...
Pacheco Dam: A Prop 1 Zombie Project
By Katja Irvin The Pacheco Reservoir Expansion project is a proposal to build a much larger new reservoir to replace the existing Pacheco Reservoir, located in Santa Clara County 60 miles southeast of San Jose. The existing reservoir, owned by Pacheco Pass Water...
Homage to George Courser: Water, Conservation & Environmental and Social Justice Warrior
By, William (Bill) Smith, Peter Anderson & Charming Evelyn George Courser, founder of Sierra Club California’s first Committee for Environmental and Social Justice, touched many Sierra Club members throughout California before he passed away in late 2022. Working...
R2T, Reclaimed Waters to Tap
By Tom Williams How Gross is Your Tap Water? A silly question and yet a significant concern worldwide: it's time to have a serious discussion about reclaimed waters. We are at the end of the snow drought, in the Sierra and Rockies, and as usual, we have come back to...
The Sordid Tale of Bottled Water In California
By Richard Freeman Before you purchase bottled water, have you ever stopped and asked yourself where did that water come from, where was it bottled, and if it is safe to drink? Did you know that bottled water is largely unregulated? Your tap water is more regulated...
The Interconnectedness of Sea Level Rise and King Tides
By Ray Hiemstra King Tides are a natural phenomenon that occurs every year around December and January. At this time the earth, sun, and moon align to create the highest and lowest tides of the year. While the term "King Tide" isn't scientific, it is commonly used...
A How To Guide on Desalination
By Charming Evelyn Chair - Water Committee, Sierra Club Angeles Chapter You are probably unaware that there are two types of desalination - brackish and ocean. Of course the one everyone is usually referring to is ocean desalination. An acquaintance of mine recently...
Greywater Explained
By Leigh Jerrard Guest Writer - Greywater Corps You’re probably irrigating your yard with drinking water, since the same water that comes out of your kitchen faucet also feeds your hose bibs. But do your plants need drinking water? It turns out that most plants are...
Be The Change!
by Cynthia Jackson The United Nations’ theme for this year’s World Water Day is a familiar one that, in my opinion, applies to all aspects of our lives and one I bet that you have even heard before. It’s “Be the Change (That You Want to See)”. It is so popular...
Atmospheric Rivers In a Time of Drought
By Erin Woolley Between December and mid-March, we've had an onslaught of eleven atmospheric rivers to California, which claimed several lives, and caused severe flooding, power outages, damage to infrastructure, and threatened the safety of several communities. After...
Sponge Cities – What Are They?
By Sydney Pitcher Scientists predict that if the world does not drastically reduce carbon emissions and prevent global temperatures from rising above 1.5°C\ 2.7°F, we will experience irreversible and catastrophic consequences of climate change that could make the...
Can We See A Return Of The Endangered Southern Steelhead Trout?
By Conner Everts It is difficult to perceive, the fish long associated with the big rivers of Northern California to the Pacific Northwest and all the way to the Russian Kamchatka Peninsula originated in the mountains of Baja California and migrated north to the...
Recycled Water is a Source of Water
By Caty Wagner Staffer Sierra Club CA Sierra Club California staff recently attended tours of both the Edward C. Little Water Recycling Facility (ECL) and the WRD Albert Robles Center for Water Recycling and Environmental Learning (ARC) to have a better understanding...
Edible Weeds, A No-Water Bounty in Urban Areas
Douglas Kent MS, MLA discusses the benefits of foraging edible urban weeds for personal health and sustainability. It provides tips for safe foraging and lists seven highly nutritious weeds that can be easily found and consumed. Doug is an experienced member of the Angeles Chapter Water Committee and has written several books on landscaping and foraging.
[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....