California Water Issue 2024

Dear Reader, Welcome to the Water Committee’s annual water issue which we put together in honor of World Water Day, which is Friday, March 22nd, 2024. Water - one of my favorite topics, though it is a very volatile business here in California. I’m often asked about...

By Charming Evelyn On a recent trip to Los Angeles City Hall, I couldn’t help but stop in wonder at the beautiful sight of the Los Angeles Native Toyon trees filled with red berries that populated the front lawn of City Hall. The Toyon is the official plant of the...

By SK Bulander With half of the world’s population experiencing water scarcity for at least a month a year,1 we are teetering on the brink of a global crisis. Our freshwater sources are stretched thinner and thinner as our populations grow and climate change...

By Leslie Purcell The United States Space Force recently released a Draft Environmental Assessment (EA) for a proposal by the Phantom Space Corporation for up to 48 launches a year, from Vandenberg Space Force Base (VSFB) in Santa Barbara County, of expendable rockets...

By Erin Woolley Last week, Governor Newsom released a strategy aimed at reversing the decline in California’s salmon population. The document sets forward six priorities and lists 71 actions to build healthier, thriving salmon populations in California. Many of the...

 An overview of growing an edible garden with limited water. Minimal Water, Maximum Food Production (at home or for the home gardener) By Kalyn Simon We all (hopefully) know the moment of bliss when you bite into a fresh plum or pick the first vine-ripened tomato of...

By Water Hub @ Climate Nexus The Color of Water Initiative was created by the Water Hub to build voice and visibility for people of color in the water movement. Our goal is to connect reporters with a more diverse set of experts, and build capacity for these experts...

By Mahtisa Djahangiri What is 30x30? 30x30 is the global movement to protect 30% of our planet’s land and water by 2030 as a stepping stone toward protecting at least half of the Earth by 2050. 30x30 aims to protect and restore biodiversity, expand access to nature,...

By Alec Mackie, Guest writer After two years of hefty rainfall, our reservoirs are refilling and California’s water outlook is looking better. Our next big water challenge is a shrinking workforce as specialized workers have reached retirement age and are leaving....

By Jackson Goulding “There it is. Take it”. William Mulholland, mastermind behind the now 110 year old Los Angeles Aqueduct, spoke these words as water first surged down through the channel and began to make its way towards Southern California. Now over a century...

By Teresa Cheng, California Field Manager Hydrogen has been touted as a clean energy panacea to replace polluting sources including gas plants, airplanes and heavy industry. The Biden administration has infused billions of dollars to kickstart the budding hydrogen...

By Caty Wagner Metropolitan Water District (MWD), the water wholesaler for Southern California, whose 19 million residents make it the largest wholesaler in the country, has a budget proposal up for a vote on April 9. MWD is proposing a whopping 21% increase in water...

By Dr. C. Tom Williams, PhD Real Time Experience with Putting the LID on Runoff – Where to put the runoff? As part of a settlement regarding the pollution of Santa Monica Bay, the County and City of Los Angeles developed the concept of collecting and reducing surface...

By Conner Everts & Kellie Prather Southern California Cities are moving towards independence from imported water from faraway watersheds and the Bay Delta Estuary. Given the extremes of dry and wet weather with climate change, forward thinking Southern California...

Angeles Chapter’s Water Committee’s newer member Shirley Nixon, a former public interest environmental lawyer from WA state, ponders her continuing discoveries of differences between Washington & California’s approaches to water management. As I drove south from...

By Bryan Baker To the untrained eye and incurious, the California desert may seem a barren wasteland. When I was a kid, my family would drive across the desert toward points east or north, and I’d be bored through the hours it took to get through the seemingly endless...

By Yvonne Martinez Watson The Whittier Narrows Dam is an earthen dam constructed in 1957 by the United States Army Corps of Engineers. The dam stretches across a narrow gap between the Montebello Hills and the Whittier Hills at the confluence of the Rio Hondo and San...

Why isn't the LA Regional Board Doing More to Protect Groundwater? Protecting Groundwater Through the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board By: Annelisa Ehret Moe, Heal the Bay & Charming Evelyn From the mountains, through our streets, rivers, and...

By Evelyn Wendel WeTap and the Sierra Club are the perfect ‘water partners.’ Collaboration and communication are the keys to healthy communities and a clean environment. The mission of WeTap is to: Bring greater awareness to the high-quality, publicly provided...

By Sydney Pitcher and Barry Pulver For decades, raw sewage from Tijuana, Mexico has, and continues, to flow across the border into San Diego, California.  This discharge flows into the Tijuana River Valley, and ultimately to the Pacific Ocean.  This pollution has...

[Update: Because of this article, BAWSCA's CEO, Nicole Sandkulla, reached out to Sierra Club California staff to share an update on the Board's progress to return remote participation. They shared that technical difficulties have delayed their efforts but that live...