Water is a Human Right.
Access to clean, safe, and affordable water is a fundamental human right essential for a healthy population, environment, and economy. Many communities, particularly those of low-income and communities of color are under-served. Unlike other groups, these communities lack access to safe, affordable water for drinking, subsistence, cultural, and/or recreational uses. Water justice will only be achieved when inclusive, community-based forms of water management are developed and we address the health and environmental burdens low-income communities and communities of color bear.
Protect and Preserve the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA)
For over 50 years, CEQA has protected public health and the environment, given underserved communities a voice, and helped Californians combat climate change. 100+ groups are asking the Legislature and the Governor to keep CEQA strong in 2024.
California’s most improbable water project rebrands itself as a crusader for environmental justice
It’s hard to think of a California company that carries more toxic baggage than Cadiz Inc.
The Los Angeles firm has been trying for more than 20 years to advance a plan to siphon water from under the Mojave Desert and pump it to users throughout Southern California. It has long been stymied by environmental objections, but kept on life support by wielding political influence and regular financings such as private stock placements and junk bond-rated debt.
Clean drinking water is a human right. Why are so many California communities without it?
Barely a month after he took office in 2019, Gov. Gavin Newsom journeyed to a rural school in the Central Valley and stood by chance against a backdrop more prescient than he had planned: a classroom whiteboard that posed the “Essential Question — How do you respond to challenges?”
The governor had chosen Riverview Elementary School, in Parlier, to dramatize his first bill-signing, an interim fix to provide tens of millions of dollars to buy bottled water for communities with contaminated wells. “We can’t even provide basic drinking water to a million-plus Californians?” Newsom said, before posing for photo ops where drinking fountains had been sealed for more than a year. “Pathetic.”