California Water Issue 2025
Featured Articles
We Welcome World Water Day 2025
World Water Day as declared by the UN is March 22nd. This year the UN has named Glacier Preservation as the theme. We celebrate World Water Day to draw attention to the fact that water is finite, yet water is life, sustaining us all. How do we balance the two? We...
The Owens Valley Indian Water Commission & Walking Water Invites You
Water sustains life, connects communities, and shapes our future—yet Los Angeles has long relied on distant sources, often at the expense of Indigenous people, their sacred territories, and delicate ecosystems. It’s time to reimagine a future built on sustainable,...
New Water Protection Speaker Series
Save California Salmon is hosting a new webinar series on Water Protection and public processes. This series is focused on Northern California water use related to big Bureau of Reclamation Projects, public input processes, and tools to get involved. Feel free to...
Glaciers in the Time of Climate Change: California and Beyond
2025 is the International Year of Glaciers' Preservation (IYGP2025) by the United Nations General Assembly to "highlight the importance of glaciers and ensure that those relying on them, and those affected by cryospheric processes, receive the necessary hydrological,...
Let’s Get Outdoors and Have Some Fun: Inspiring Connections Outdoors
ICO’S MISSION STATEMENT The Los Angeles Inspiring Connections Outdoors (Angeles Chapter) serves as a bridge that enables underserved youth, disabled individuals, and others to visit and develop an appreciation for our natural environment. We work with schools,...
Touring the State Water Project (SWP)
Oroville Dam Spillway. Trees burnt during Woolsey Fire. As the chair of the Water Committee, I am always being invited to participate in something or show up somewhere. I try very hard to meet the demand, knowing that there is always a connection to be made when you...
A Water Conversation
This World Water Day, learn about the history of water in Los Angeles with Angeles Chapter Water Committee Chair and Co-Chair of the Sierra Club CA Water Committee Charming Evelyn, and California Naturalist and Environmental Educator Jason Wise. Directed and edited by...
The Wind-Driven Fires of January 2025: An Unprecedented Event, the Incredible Response, and the Recovery Ahead
Los Angeles Department of Water & Power On Monday, January 6, the first forecasted strong windstorm of the year was expected to bring damaging winds of 50-80 miles per hour. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) and our employees had prepared for...
A Bright Future With The Brackish Groundwater Reclamation Program
WRD’s service area map and the geographical locations of its facilities in Southern Los Angeles County. The Water Replenishment District (WRD) has a rich history of successful groundwater management, ensuring a sustainable water supply for 4 million people in Southern...
Fortune Favors the Bold and She Will Favor Gov. Newsom if He Stands Up to Trump
The Dust Bowl was one of the most difficult times in American history. Farmers had made some mistakes with their techniques, including believing that “rain follows the plow” and not using dry land techniques which led to an increase in soil erosion. When severe...
Water utilities can fight fire and maintain affordability
Photo: New generator being hoisted into place at one of Suburban’s pump station sites. The back up generators allow us to keeping pumping water for fire fighting even when utility power is cut due down powerlines (fallen branches or trees, burned poles, etc.), a...
Why Aren’t We Behaving Like Bermuda?
In 1906 after a horrific fire, San Francisco brought in urban planner Daniel Burnham and architect Willis Polk, taking tragic devastation as an opportunity for a reset. Present day Los Angeles is facing increased heat in the 21rst century, rain of higher intensity but...
Trump’s Wild Goose Chase: A 2.2 Billion Gallon Waste
Richard Garcia knows a thing or two about water in the Central Valley. A dedicated member of Sierra Club’s Kern-Kaweah Chapter and longtime resident of California’s agricultural hub, Garcia has lived around the region’s waterways, seeing them change over time as...
The Dangerous Push to Defund the California Coastal Commission
From the shifting sand dunes of Montaña de Oro to the lively shores of Venice Beach, California’s coastline has long been a treasure shared by all. At the heart of its protection stands the California Coastal Commission (CCC), an agency created not to stop progress,...
Sea Level Rise is Coming
If you love Malibu, you’re feeling the brutal loss of that row of beautiful houses burnt to the ground along Pacific Coast Highway. And… Sea level rise is coming. These days it’s hard in Malibu to do much of anything but feel the after image of fire, to see ruins,...
Defend the Deep
The dangerous impacts of deep seabed mining are revealed in this compelling documentary film about the unique unexplored ecosystems in our largest remaining wilderness. Enjoy a 20-minute global perspective about the emerging threat to our oceans at...
Bread, Circuses, and the Big Bang!
“Two things only the people anxiously desire — bread and circuses.” Juvenal, Roman poet. c. 55 – 127 AD Derived from Juvenal’s observation, the contemporary phrase “bread and circuses” means to gain public approval, not by excellence in public service or public...
Mountain Lion Research & Other Federal Funding Cuts
A mountain lion walks down a dirt path in the Santa Monica Mountains, her journey is followed by a national park service (NPS) mountain lion biologist from a tracking device on the lion's radio collar, her journey leads to her den of two kittens. This is new...
Bills, Bills, Bills! Water Bills to Watch in 2025
The 2025 California State Legislature is in full swing. Every year, hundreds of environmental bills are introduced in the state legislature, and Sierra Club CA- the legislative and regulatory branch of the Sierra Club in California- tracks these bills to ensure good...
Carbon Sequestration and Biodiversity
Reasonable minds recognize that climate change is occurring worldwide, and that we need to take steps to avoid its worst consequences. This involves both cutting down on fossil fuel use and capturing carbon that is still being generated. While the majority of...
Dams Out: Malibu’s Golden Opportunity to Restore an Urban Watershed
Rindge Dam. Photo by RJ Van Sant, State Parks. During the 1930s-1960s, large-scale hydroelectric dam construction surged across the United States. Today, California has thousands of these public and private dams, from small earthen barriers to large reservoirs...
2025 World Water Day Resources
Learn more about Glacier Preservation, World Day for Glaciers & World Water Day 2025: https://www.un.org/en/observances/water-day
[Top header image: Boy on Scooter at Whittier Narrows Lake. ©Mimi Fuchs and Chiara Scaramuzzino.]
Videos
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....