A Clean Water Test for California's Next Governor
As the race for governor takes shape, a coalition of California waterkeepers is asking candidates to back a plan for modernizing how the state manages its water. The priorities matter for every watershed, including our own.
American River Canyon Alliance
Water policy rarely makes campaign headlines. It should. The choices California's next governor makes will shape how our rivers are protected for a generation.
The South Yuba River Citizens League (SYRCL) reports that it is urging candidates in the state's gubernatorial race to commit to a clean water future. As the Yuba River Waterkeeper, SYRCL is a member of the California Coastkeeper Alliance, and its Executive Director, Dr. Aaron Zettler-Mann, serves on the alliance's board.
The Coastkeeper Alliance has released a blueprint to modernize California water policy. It is built around three priorities. The first is local water security, so communities can count on reliable, clean supplies. The second is enforcing the clean water laws already on the books. The third is fixing the fragmented governance that spreads water decisions across too many agencies with too little coordination.
Those priorities are familiar to anyone who cares about the American River canyons. Clean water is not a coastal issue or a Sierra issue. It is a shared one. What happens in the Yuba watershed and what happens here are part of the same story.
We are glad to see peer organizations push these questions into the campaign. We will be watching how candidates respond.