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 consume water for everything, from energy to food and to the clothing we wear, for transportation, electronics and data centers
Do you know your water footprint?
In California, the first state in the US to codify that access to clean, affordable water is a human right, but did you know in California up to 1 million people may not have access to clean water during a year? Globally, 2.2 million people have no access.
Glaciers are a very precious resource that holds approximately 70% of all Earth’s fresh water stores, yet they are rapidly melting. Excessive rising temperatures are accelerating that decline, causing floods in one corner of the earth while there is drought in another, sea level rise and worsening King Tides with flooding are becoming commonplace events.
Commemorating World Water Day every year serves as a reminder that we all must play a part and do our part to slow down climate change by lessening both our carbon and water footprints.
This is also the time of the year that I take a moment to tell you what we water warriors have been busy doing, our successes, losses and what we hope to achieve.
We updated our Mission Statement and added a Vision Statement, but stopped short of changing our resolution, which is: “WE RESOLVE to strenuously advocate for permanent water conservation policy.’ We decided not to change it as yet, though in 2024, the State Water Board adopted the “Making Conservation A California Way of Life” regulations. Though many agencies are leading the way in conservation, they watered down the regulations, so we still have work to do in that area.
Another great milestone was the adoption of Direct Potable Reuse regulations – this is something our committee had worked on and have championed for many years. Many of our campaigns take many years to come to fruition, so we feel quite proud of these accomplishments. We continue to work on our other campaigns, such as protecting and fighting for imperiled water bodies such as Mono Lake, the Delta and the Colorado River, while holding water agencies accountable when they make bad policy decisions. We also continued our learning series of welcoming presenters from water agencies and beyond as our continuing education.
For 2025, we’ve added in outings to our learning roster, if we don’t see what we’re fighting for, how can we be better advocates? We hope to have at least 4 outings this year and to persevere on the campaigns in the works.
For a full list or our Accomplishments and 2025 Goals please visit our website. We meet on the 4th Thursday of every month; you can register to attend our meetings HERE and sign up to our email list from our website.
Like everyone else, we are keeping a close eye on the current political climate and preparing to act decisively to neutralize the threats coming our way. If you’d like to get involved with current coordinated actions being taken on several topics, please connect with the Sierra Club California Environmental Stewardship Program’s Education and Environmental Legislative Action group (ESP’s EELA); They meet every two weeks on the 1st and 3rd Wednesday of each month.
Next Meeting: Wednesday, April 2, 2025, email Sue (sue2042@gmail.com) for details.
Happy Trails!