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2025 Year in Review: ReThink Disposable in California
It's been another successful year for the ReThink Disposable program, and we want to thank our Board, our members, and our valued supporters for trusting us to do this work.
We wrapped up a four-year contract with StopWaste where we worked together to reduce single-use disposable foodware in Alameda County. We've done multiple conversion case studies with local businesses over the course of this contract — the most recent a five (5) restaurant study in the Fruitvale neighborhood of Oakland, where we found that even a simple straw and sauce cup conversion saves the restaurant $694 annually and
2025 Year in Review: Toxics in California
California is known as a leader in regulating toxic chemicals in products to protect public health and prevent pollution. The end of the year is a great time to review the opportunities and challenges faced by Clean Water Action and Clean Water Fund’s Toxics Program in 2025 and how we met them. There were some grave disappointments, but those only provide fuel for future victories.
Perspectives on Groundwater Sustainability: Susan Harvey with North County Watch
How did you get involved with sustainable groundwater management issues?
I have been a volunteer activist in the county for 20 years. As irrigated agriculture came in and started planting in the region it started to become obvious that we needed to pay attention to how much groundwater there was. In 2005, the County published a study they’d done of the groundwater aquifer and they published a second one in 2009 or 2010, and then a third one. As irrigated agriculture grew and we faced this drought, residents’ wells started to go dry. In the residential area within the Paso Robles basin (800
Water as a Human Right
The Human Right to Water, passed by the legislature in 2012 and signed by Governor Brown, was a great policy idea with almost no teeth. Community members and advocates worked for years to gain recognition for water as a human right, with our first bill, AB 1242 (Ruskin, 2009) vetoed by then-Governor Schwarzenegger and its successor, AB 685 (Eng, 2012) taking the full 2-year session to pass. The legislation was short and to the point:
It is hereby declared to be the established policy of the state that every human being has the right to safe, clean, affordable, and accessible water adequate for
PFAS-Containing Firefighting Foams
Firefighters are particularly at risk from PFAS exposure because they are exposed to AFFF during both training and actual fires. Additionally, some of their firefighting gear contain PFAS chemicals. A study of Los Angeles fire fighters done by Biomonitoring California demonstrated elevated levels of PFOS and other PFAS chemicals in their test subjects.