West Coast Water Justice

We interview Jesus Alonso and Ngodoo Atume from Clean Water Action in California. Ngodoo is a Senior Water Policy Analyst and Jesus serves as Clean Water Action’s Kern County Gas and Oil Organizer. We learn about California’s Central Valley communities that do not have safe drinking water, some that have to pay for contaminated water, and others whose wells have been poisoned or sucked dry. Jesus shares stories from his community, in Kern County, we hear about what it's like living and attending school next door to an oil pumpjack and the health risks associated. We learn about the fossil fuel industry’s chemical and radioactive-laced wastewater and how it is sold to farmers and used to grow food in five California water districts.
Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed in this program do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Save California Salmon or any entities mentioned. 

Get involved

• Clean Water Action
• California State Water Board's "White Paper" a paper about fossil fuels wastewater used to grow food

Episode credits

• producer: Natalie Kilmer
• production support: Save California Salmon, and Kendall Crakow
• episode music: Atomic Tide 
• theme music by Tony Bald, Adam Inguiez, and Danny Snyder

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This is part 2 of a 2-part interview with Food and Water Watch (FWW) and the second in our Fossil Fuels Series.  In this episode, we interview (FWW) National Policy Director, Jim Walsh, and Tomás Morales Rebecchi, California's Central Coast Organizing Manager. They continue to discuss current issues with the oil and gas industry and its impacts on our clean water and environment. We learn more about the fossil fuel industry's practices that pollute our water, food, and communities and the industry's efforts to roll back environmental regulations throughout California.  

Food and Water Watch fights for safe food, clean water, and a livable climate for all of us, protecting people from corporations and other destructive economic interests that put profit ahead of everything else.

Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed in this program do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Save California Salmon or any entities mentioned. 

Get involved

• Food and Water Watch 
• National Pipeline Awareness 

Episode credits

• producer: Natalie Kilmer
• production support: Kasil Willie, and Kendall Crakow
• episode music: The Pleasure Kills 
• theme music by Tony Bald, Adam Inguiez, and Danny Snyder

Support the show

Support the show

This is part 1 of a 2-part interview with Food and Water Watch (FWW) and the first in our Fossil Fuels Series.  In this episode, we interview (FWW) National Policy Director, Jim Walsh, and Tomás Morales Rebecchi, California's Central Coast Organizing Manager, they catch us up to speed on the oil and gas industry and its impact on our clean water and environment.  We also learn about the future of fossil fuels and the false hope of hydrogen and what's at stake. 

Food and Water Watch fights for safe food, clean water, and a livable climate for all of us, protecting people from corporations and other destructive economic interests that put profit ahead of everything else.

Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed in this program do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Save California Salmon or any entities mentioned. 

Get involved

• Food and Water Watch 
• National Pipeline Awareness 

Episode credits

• producer: Natalie Kilmer
• production support: Kasil Willie, and Kendall Crakow
• episode music: The Pleasure Kills and Strange Cities
• theme music by Tony Bald, Adam Inguiez, and Danny Snyder

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In this episode, we interview Laurel Firestone, a member of the State Water Resources Control Board. We learn about the organization and its work to ensure that every person in the state has a right to clean, safe, and affordable drinking water.  We discuss how far we still have to go to meet California's Human Right to Water.

Governor Gavin Newsom appointed Laurel Firestone to the State Water Resources Control Board in February 2019. Prior to joining the Board, Laurel co-founded and co-directed, from 2006-2019, the Community Water Center, a statewide non-profit environmental justice organization based in California’s Central Valley and Central Coast. Her career has focused on building increased diversity, equity, and inclusivity into water decision-making.

Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed in this program do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Save California Salmon or any entities mentioned. 

Get involved

• California State Water Resources Control Board 
• Attend a Water Board Meeting
• SAFER
• Report air, water, toxic substances, pesticides, or solid waste at CalEPA reporting system
• Report a suspected Harmful Algal Bloom (HAB) at CalEPA HABs system
• Learn more about Groundwater contaminants, including PFAs at GAMA Groundwater
• Learn more about the location of oil and gas wells visit CalGEM at Geologic Energy Management Division
• Learn more about the CalEPA generally, gather data, or find information resources at CalEPA | California Environmental Protection Agency
• For a directory of California’s nine regional water quality control boards (and branch offices) visit the Regional Water Quality Board Directory | California State Water Resources Control Board
• For public documents related to the water board visit the Public Records Center | California State Water Resources Control Board
• For more information on the State Water Board Meetings, including the upcoming calendar and agenda items visit Board Calendar | California State Water Resources Control Board

State Water Resources Control Board Phone Contacts:

• Office of Public Affairs: (916) 341-5254
• Office of Legislative Affairs: (916) 341-5251
• Office of the Ombudsman: (916) 341-5925
• Drinking Water information: (916) 449-5577
• Water Quality information: (916) 341-5455
• Water Rights information: (916) 341-5300
• Financial Assistance information: (916) 341-5700

Episode credits

• Producer: Natalie Kilmer
• Production Support: Kasil Willie, Kendall Crakow, and Regina Chichizola
• Podcast Music by Tony Bald, Adam Inguiez, and Danny Snyder

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In this episode, we interview Danielle Frank, a Hoopa Valley Tribal Member, activist, and youth coordinator with Save California Salmon. Danielle shares her story of growing up in Hoopa Valley along the banks of the Trinity River near its confluence with the Klamath River. We hear how speaking up for her beliefs, community, and way of life helped her find her voice and become an empowered youth leader and public speaker. At nineteen years of age, some of her accomplishments include leading Native Youth programs, creating informed Native American curriculum for schools, assisting with California State legislation, being a featured Vogue climate activist, and a speaker at the United Nations Climate Change Summit COP 27.

Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed in this program do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Save California Salmon or any entities mentioned. 

All music is the property of the artist/s and may not be reproduced or shared without their consent.

Get involved

• School Curriculum: Advocacy and Water Protection in Native California
• Save California Salmon 
• DONATE- It is Native American Heritage Month and these funds go directly towards education events and travel funds for Northern California Native youth and Water Protectors, and Klamath Dam removal celebrations for our communities who have worked for 20 years to remove Klamath Dams.
• Protect ICWA
• Stop the Delta Tunnel Petition
• Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival
• Vogue Article

Episode credits

• Producer: Natalie Kilmer
• Production Support: Carrie Tully, Kasil Willie, Kendall Crakow, Regina Chichizola
• Podcast Music by Tony Bald, Adam Inguiez, and Danny Snyder
• Musical break Clip: Maymi Preston-Donahue 
• Photograph of Danielle Frank by Carlos Jaramillo; Styled by Marcus Correa. Reprinted from Vogue

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In this episode, we follow up with Clifford Lee, retired Deputy Attorney General with the California Department of Justice. We dive deeper into water policy and hear about critical changes needed to protect our most valuable resource: water! We are faced with a 27-year delay in the adoption of new scientific recommendations and species protections for the SF Bay Delta, the lifeblood of our state.  While at the same time critical aquifers across the state are being over-pumped and going dry.

We learn that California needs to catch up with other Western states on the regulation of groundwater extraction and quantifying river diversions. Clifford, a public servant of 40 years is sounding the alarm and urging us to educate ourselves about our water resources before they are gone. This episode is packed with the information we need now, so we can reform water policy in California for a sustainable future.

Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed in this program do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Save California Salmon or any entities mentioned. 

Get involved

• Updating California Water Laws to Address Drought and Climate
  Change, PCL Recommendations
• "Federalism and Water" by Clifford Lee
• Save California Salmon
• California Water Justice
• California State Water Resources Control Board
• Twitter  
• Instagram  
• Facebook 

Episode credits

• Producer: Natalie Kilmer
• Production Support: Kasil Willie and Kendall Crakow
• Music by Tony Bald, Adam Inguiez, and Danny Snyder

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Currently, California is on track to lose most if not all native fish species within this century if we don't adapt to climate change.   We talk with Clifford Lee;  retired deputy attorney general with the California Department of Justice who served the state for 40 years.  Clifford shares his expertise and recommendations for updating California's water policy to mitigate the effects of climate change. He explains some of the policies that got us here and the nuts and bolts of the agencies that regulate and move water throughout the state.

Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed in this program do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Save California Salmon or any entities mentioned. 

Get involved

• Updating California Water Laws to Address Drought and Climate
  Change, PCL Recommendations
• "Federalism and Water" by Clifford Lee
• Save California Salmon
• California Water Justice
• California State Water Resources Control Board
• Twitter  
• Instagram  
• Facebook 

Episode credits

• Music by Tony Bald, Adam Inguiez, and Danny Snyder

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Keith Parker, Senior Fisheries Biologist for the Yurok Tribe explains some of the basics that make up a healthy fishery and river ecosystem.  We learn about the different salmon runs and basic salmon genetics. He shares his background in Indigenous ecological knowledge and Western science and how together they inform the Klamath Dam Removal process.  Keith makes it clear that the loss of these fish and traditional foods are as much a social justice issue as a biological issue. To lose species like salmon is more than just a loss of biodiversity, it is a loss of cultural heritage.

Get Involved

• Yurok Tribe Fisheries
• Save California Salmon
• California State Water Resources Control Board
• Petition to Stop Salmon Fish Kills  
• Instagram  
• Facebook 

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In this episode, we interview Doug Obegi, Senior Attorney at Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Doug shares his expertise about the history of our archaic and inequitable water rights system and how protections for fish and wildlife, and the tribes, fishing jobs, and communities that depend on these environmental protections, are constantly under threat from industrial agriculture and large corporations. He explains how California's water rights and diversions are over-allocated and under-reported, and discusses how the mismanagement of our most precious resource has made some people billionaires while over 1 million Californians lack access to clean drinking water. We discuss how to protect California's rivers and fisheries from excessive water diversions, and Doug makes it clear that we all need to participate in public comment periods, reach out to our representatives and the State Water Board because it really does make a difference.

Get Involved

• Doug's Blog
• Restore the Delta 
• Save California Salmon
• California State Water Resources Control Board
• Petition to Stop Salmon Fish Kills  
• Instagram  
• Facebook 

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We follow up with hereditary Chief Caleen Sisk about the expansive watershed of the Sacramento River from the headwaters of the Winnemem Waywayket all the way to the Bay-Delta and the Pacific Ocean. We learn about the history of this once epic fishery and what it will take to bring the Salmon back home over the Shasta rim dam, and how New Zealand can help.

The management of California's Bay Delta and its tributaries is complicated. The Sacramento and San Joaquin River watersheds and Delta have a complicated series of dams and diversions that feed the state and federal Central Valley Irrigation projects. The Shasta and Trinity dams are federal dams, while many of the other dams in the watersheds such as the Feather, Pit, and American Rivers are either primarily part of the state water project or private PGE dams. The state of California and the Federal Bureau of Reclamation manage flows, irrigation water deliveries, and operations from their dams and diversions, through water operations plans and a complicated water rights system. These operations are subject to Endangered Species Act Biological Opinions for endangered species such as winter and spring-run salmon and Delta smelt.  

Recent Biological Opinions have not only estimated how much water can be diverted,  without species in rivers below the diversions going extinct, but they also have called for the return of winter-run salmon to their traditional habitats upstream of these dams, such as the McCloud River. This is because spring run and winter-run salmon traditionally used the upper reaches of the cold tributaries of the Delta watersheds. Almost all of their spawning habitat has been blocked by dams. Unfortunately, these Biological Opinions have been subject to political interference by several presidents and many of the runs of endangered salmon have been killed over the last ten years and fish passage efforts have not moved forward. 

Get Involved

• Winnemem Wintu Tribe 
• Run 4 Salmon
• Petition to help the McCloud River
• Restore the Delta 
• Save California Salmon
• Maven's Notebook
• California State Water Resources Control Board
• Petition to Stop Salmon Fish Kills  
• Instagram  
• Facebook 

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