For Immediate Release:
June 4, 2026
Contact:
Ashley Castaneda, ashley@restorethedelta.org
SACRAMENTO – Tribes, environmental justice organizations, fishing groups, and environmental advocates joined forces yesterday in a Day of Advocacy for the Delta, engaging with legislators on water policy issues impacting Delta communities, environment and economy. The Day of Advocacy, organized by the Bay-Delta coalition, focused on:
- Support for the California Water Renaissance Plan which proposes a shift towards a sustainable local water supply and away from expensive, unreliable water imports
- Support for AB 2218 which would establish a statewide policy directive to remedy historical water inequities with California Tribes
- Support for SB 872 which invests proactively in Delta levees and subsided state conveyance infrastructure to ensure long term protection for communities and water supply
- Opposition to AB 2026 which deepens water system inequities, minimal protections for the Delta and extends unpermitted diversions
- Opposition to AB 2215 which fast tracks permitting of the controversial Delta Conveyance Project and bypasses review for environmental impacts
The Advocacy Day brought together 45 volunteers, who organized into 11 teams and held more than 60 meetings with legislative offices. Participants had productive conversations with decisionmakers, voicing broad community support for common sense water solutions desperately needed in the state.
STATEMENTS FROM COALITION MEMBERS:
Gary Bobker, Program Director, Friends of the River:
“CA Bay-Delta Flows Advocacy Day is a chance for citizen activists to provide a counter-narrative to the official state ‘party line ‘ that in order to address the impacts of climate change, California must divert and dam every drop of water and build incredibly expensive and inefficient projects to move and store that water. Instead, people from diverse communities and regions come together to talk to legislators about how the biggest new source of water for our cities is from reusing and recycling water and capturing storm runoff; how recharging our depleted groundwater aquifers can be done without robbing our rivers and lakes of the water they need to survive, provide clean water and support healthy ecosystems; and how expensive and unnecessary boondoggles like the Delta Tunnel can only be made to seem feasible when the rules are relaxed to ignore legal, environmental and financial realities – steps that the legislature cannot and should not sanction. These citizen voices are vital to helping lawmakers make the right decisions that promote a sustainable water future for all Californians.”
Bruce Reznik, Executive Director, Los Angeles Waterkeeper:
“Agencies throughout the Los Angeles region have established aggressive local water supply goals, aiming to move from 40% local water to 80% countywide by 2045, and they are already moving ahead on major wastewater recycling, stormwater capture and groundwater remediation projects. These efforts will not only make the region more water secure in the face of increasingly less reliable sources of imported water due to our changing climate; they will also help reduce water pollution as well as our carbon footprint, create greener and healthier communities, and provide a tremendous number of local jobs and economic activity for the region. We now need the LA delegation to the state legislature to get behind this agenda if we are going to successfully bring all these critical projects to fruition.”
Cintia Cortez, Policy Manager, Restore the Delta:
“California faces a critical choice in its water planning: legislators can either invest in a resilient and affordable water future for all Californians, or waste billions on the destructive Delta Tunnel, a project that would fail to deliver reliable water supplies for future generations. Over 40 volunteers joined the Delta Flows Coalition to advocate for the Water Renaissance Plan, which would protect the Delta’s annual $7 billion economy, enhance the Delta ecosystem so local communities can reconnect with their waterways, and support local investments in Southern California.”
Christie Ralson, Associate Attorney, San Francisco Baykeeper:
“The San Francisco Bay Estuary ecosystem is in crisis. Through conversations with over 60 legislative offices, San Francisco Baykeeper and our colleagues educated decision makers on the direct threats to the continued survival of this unique ecosystem and the communities that rely on it and shared our vision for the future of water in California.”
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