What We Do

Environment Now fights for clean, accessible, sufficient water for human and ecological needs. We advance water policies that recognize water as life, and that prioritize implementation of the rights of both humans and nature to water. We do this by supporting advocacy, capacity building, and litigation to prevent pollution of California’s surface waters and groundwater, ensure healthy flows in California’s rivers and streams, and promote sustainable, equitable water use.

Challenges

Water is the lifeblood of California’s people, ecosystems, and species, yet surface waters and groundwater continue to be polluted, overdrawn, and misused. Poor water management has led Sacramento River salmon runs (the largest in the state) to crash 96% in 20 years and left nearly a million Californians with unsafe drinking water.

California’s water problems are largely self-inflicted. In some areas, the state’s fundamentally inequitable water management system allocates five times more water rights than waterways can support. State and federal agencies have failed to protect clean water, waiving standards during droughts and issuing weak pollution permits. Climate change presents even more problems, causing historic megadroughts and increasing temperatures that dry out landscapes and waterways.

In the face of inadequate state standards, weak enforcement, and tepid implementation, organizations representing community, tribal, conservation, and fishing interests step up to compel compliance and ensure California water governance prioritizes the fundamental clean water needs of people and natural systems.

Our Partners

Santa Clara River & Tributaries (INTERNAL RIGHTS/IN-HOUSE RIGHTS) Image of Santa Clara River snaking through vegetation, with exotic species in the foreground. The Nature Conservancy has played in a large role in protecting the Santa Clara River (SCR) and its tributaries in Southern California. 1/3 of the river that winds through Ventura County and TNC is taking on the LA portion of the river to reach the goal of protecting 30,000 acres. SCR is one of the most important and intact river systems in So. CA and offer some of the last riparia and freshwater habitat for wildlife in So. CA within hundreds of miles. © Barbara Wampole

Environment Now’s partners work in three areas to protect California waters:

  1. Clean Water – Partner advocacy and litigation reduces industrial, stormwater, sewage, and agricultural runoff, oil and gas extraction, and other pollution. The federal Clean Water Act and state water quality laws provide key tools. Examples: California Coastkeeper Alliance, Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability, Center for Biological Diversity, Environmental Defense Center.
  1. Healthy Flows – Partners apply innovative strategies to prevent excessive water withdrawals and secure needed water in natural systems. Tools include federal statutes such as the Endangered Species Act, state statutes such as Fish and Game Code protections for fish passage, and the Public Trust Doctrine, which requires California to safeguard surface waters and interconnected groundwater for people and nature. Examples: Save California Salmon, Friends of the River, Golden State Salmon Association, Environmental Law Foundation.
  1. Equitable, Sustainable Water Use – Environmental justice and tribal communities address systemic inequities in California water governance and advocate for just, sustainable water use. Partners utilize traditional environmental advocacy tools while also advancing innovative strategies that protect civil rights and tribal water uses.  Examples: Restore the Delta, Ridges to Riffles, California Indian Environmental Alliance.

Successes

Since its inception, Environment Now has supported community capacity building that protects local waters. This includes creation of a “picket line” of local Waterkeeper groups in California and Baja California, Mexico, working to identify and stop pollution by enforcing clean water laws. Water quality successes by these and other Environment Now partners include:

  • federal court victory against Caltrans, requiring the massive state agency to manage its stormwater discharges in compliance with the Clean Water Act;
  • $2 billion settlement against the City of Los Angeles over sewage contamination, resulting in a 90% reduction in sewage spills since 2000 and creating a statewide model;
  • numerous victories in controlling stormwater pollution from industrial, municipal, and construction sources, opening waters to safe recreation and other uses; and
  • adoption and enforcement of first-in-nation agricultural polluted runoff policies.

Environment Now’s partners have similarly achieved success towards increasing flows in the state’s waterways. This includes the 2022 federal decision to dismantle four Klamath River dams, which has since reopened over 400 miles of river habitat, and court actions to restore flows to the San Joaquin River after 60 years. Partners also obtained a landmark Public Trust Doctrine court ruling protecting rivers impacted by groundwater pumping; this ruling was applied in Sonoma County to protect dwindling surface waters and threatened fish.

Finally, partners have worked to increase equitable and sustainable water use. Partners issued groundbreaking petitions highlighting inequities in Bay-Delta water management, leading to the first federal civil rights investigation of a California water agency.  Partners also secured significant new commitments to reclaim water and successfully pushed back on severely flawed water strategies, such as the Poseidon desalination plant and “Twin Delta Tunnels” proposal.