Protecting & Conserving California's Water

Earth Day has always had a special meaning for me – a birthday for Earth and a call to action to do what we can to protect it. In 1970, I organized the very first Earth Day event at my school in Oakland. Eschewing the bus, I enlisted a crew of friends in a bike caravan to ride 10 miles to school. Alarmed by the oil spills along the coast, and the poisoning of wildlife and humans from DDT, my classmates and I led a day long teach-in. This was the spark that ignited what has become a lifelong career as an activist.

With all that’s happening right now, it can be difficult to pay attention to  anything other than the news of the day. I’m focused on groundwater; how we use it – and use too much; how we protect it from pollution – or don’t; and how we can ensure that it’s available when we need it. And even on a day when we’re not focused on a pandemic, groundwater can be easy to forgot about -- it's our invisible resource.

Yesterday, the State Water Resources Control Board voted to create a new legal limit on 1,2,3-Trichloroproane (TCP), a man-made, carcinogenic drinking water contaminant found across California. This is the culmination of years of work from Clean Water Action members like you, holding Shell Oil and Dow Chemical accountable for their failure to put public health above their profits, when they first learned of the dangers of TCP.

Now comes the hard work as water agencies work to comply with the new rule.