Projects
At We Advocate Thorough Environmental Review, as our name implies, we utilize environmental protections laws as tools to protect our area’s natural attributes. In addition, we work to educate our communities about important environmental issues relevant to protecting area watersheds and water sources. For example, our area has been the target for for-profit water/beverage bottling companies that threaten to deplete and contaminate surface and groundwater; and with many state and national forests targeted for logging, we work to protect against logging that damages the forest ecosystems, including the watersheds they support. Finally, we engage in issues of global importance that have local impacts, including raising awareness of plastic pollution and understanding the threat of nuclear war.
Forestry Issues
W.A.T.E.R. became involved in forestry by responding to a request from the Sierra Club’s Stop Clearcutting CA group for comments on timber harvest plans. After researching forestry issues and related areas, we have realized how vital forests are for the hydrologic cycle and for serving as the wellspring of terrestrial biodiversity.
As forests transpire water vapor, not only is the local microclimate cooled, but on the larger scale, moisture is transported downwind by the winds, generating rain across continents. Forests bind the soil and prevent erosion from runoff, facilitate water infiltration into underlying aquifers, modulate groundwater flow, regulate streamflow and provide habitat for over 80% of terrestrial species.
Although the oceans absorb CO2, forests absorb the most CO2 from the atmosphere—over 30% of annual CO2 emissions—making them the best currently known means of removing CO2 from the atmosphere on a global scale. Although half the trees that once existed have been cut down (mindbogglingly, there are still more trees on Earth than the number of stars in our galaxy - Watch NOVA: The Secrets of the Forest), the situation offers a vast potential for scaling up to address global warming.
Current silvicultural methods produce numerous negative impacts. The timber industry is the largest source of CO2 emissions in Oregon and our region. Clearcuts allow precipitation to rapidly run off, threatening increased erosion, flooding and landslides. Even after trees are replanted, summer streamflows are diminished. Impacts to the soil from clearcutting practices release additional CO2, a condition that continues for decades even after establishing new tree plantations (Watch The Biggest Climate Scam Ever?). Opening forests up by logging allows fires to burn hotter and spread faster during red flag days. Most alarmingly, tree plantations burn with extreme severity, spreading severe fire to neighboring forest stands. The number of tree plantations surrounding our towns is the reason we live in high-risk firesheds.
Despite the dire warnings from climate scientists, deforestation targeting the largest remaining trees continues. The nationwide capacity of our forests to absorb atmospheric CO2 has declined by over 18% since 1990. We are destroying the means of slowing and eventually addressing global heating. There is no way to protect our planet from over-warming without protecting and regrowing our forests.
Read Our Comment Letters On Forest Issues
Fighting Plastic Pollution
Because of the pervasive presence of plastic pollution in the environment and the threats to land, water, air, and life, W.A.T.E.R. has joined the international campaign to fight plastic pollution.
Inspired by visitors from Japan who created a campaign, “Sui Do!” (translated as “tap water”), to promote drinking tap water rather than bottled water, we launched a program to install drinking fountains/water bottle refill stations in public spaces. With help from Plastic Oceans International’s “Rethink, Refill Program”, the McConnell Fund of Community Foundation of the North State, the Mt. Shasta Pickle Ball Club, the Mt. Shasta Resort, and Mt. Shasta High School, we have funded water bottle refill stations in Mt. Shasta City’s Parker Plaza, Mt. Shasta High School, and at the Mt. Shasta Resort’s pickle ball courts.
In 2019, we launched a petition to local retailers to reduce the sale of products made from plastic, especially single use products. We inform our followers about plastic waste issues [see 11/19/24 newsletter or 10/04/23 newsletter] and encourage folks to think creatively about how they can reduce single use plastic waste.
W.A.T.E.R., as an environmental group, takes a strong stand against war, and we invite and encourage individuals and other environmental groups to do the same.
W.A.T.E.R. is analyzing the current horrific wars in the context of their environmental and environmental justice impacts. Clearly, the bombs and artillery create tremendous environmental damage. Often the underlying reasons involve resource extraction (e.g., oil, lithium, rare earth minerals). Competing powerful elites in different countries want to control those resources for their own profit. In addition, the extraction process itself produces huge environmental damage, largely impacting disadvantaged populations. Moreover,the fight to control resources threatens escalation to all-out nuclear war, which would dramatically destroy Earth’s ecosystems such that civilization as we know it
could not survive.
To this effect, in early 2023 W.A.T.E.R. challenged other environmental groups to oppose war in an article entitled “Why Environmental Groups Must Oppose War”. We also published an article in our E-newsletter (The Environment, Nuclear War and Daniel Ellsberg) and hosted a public forum (see video on right) in memorial of Daniel Ellsberg’s life. Molly Brown, as a personal friend of Ellsberg’s wife, described Ellsberg’s brave and impactful life working toward world peace and nuclear disarmament.
Daniel Axelrod, as a physicist and long-time advocate for nuclear disarmament, detailed Ellsberg’s disturbing revelations of the prominence of aggressive nuclear threat-making in US foreign policy.
In addition, W.A.T.E.R. has written additional articles analyzing current regional wars: “Why Does the US Government Support and Fund Israel?” and “Statement on the Israel/Gaza War” analyze the little-known motivations behind US support for the war in the Middle East, in particular highlighting the international struggles for control over natural resources.
Acknowledging the overwhelming power the military industrial complex exerts over our government thereby undermining public influence, W.A.T.E.R. joined the Move to Amend coalition, an alliance of hundreds of organizations and hundreds of thousands of individuals committed to social and economic justice, ending corporate rule, and building a vibrant democracy that is genuinely accountable to the people, not corporate interests. The coalition is calling for an amendment to the US Constitution to unequivocally state that inalienable rights belong to human beings only, and that money is not a form of protected free speech under the First Amendment and can be regulated in political campaigns.
War, Peace, and Corporate Power
Ellsberg Forum on YouTube
State Water Projects
For some further background, please read our blog post, “The (Water) Fix Is In."
Two major water projects are proposed in the State of California.
One is an expansion of the federal Central Valley Project that would increase the height of the Shasta Dam located about 60 miles south of the Mt. Shasta area. The original dam, constructed in the 1940s, displaced Indigenous Peoples from their traditional lands, and promised compensations have not yet materialized. It blocked salmon from their eons-old spawning grounds and significantly reduced the salmon populations above the dam. Raising the dam would further impact local Tribal lands and cultural resources. It will also negatively impact the McCloud River, a tributary to Shasta Lake and the Sacramento River, which is currently protected under the California Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. The purpose of the dam raising is to capture more precipitation run-off and spring outflow to deliver to downstream users.
Secondly, California State is proposing the “Delta Conveyance” Project, an effort to pump even more water (the State Water Project already pumps water from the Bay Area Delta to areas in southern California) from the Sacramento River (above the Delta) to agribusinesses and municipalities in the south. The project poses serious threats to the Delta, which will be deprived of needed water for sustaining the delta ecology and economy, and could negatively impact our region because ecology moves both ways along the Sacramento River.
Of course the two projects are ultimately linked in that some of the water delivered from the Shasta Dam will likely be shunted to southern California agribusiness.
The Fight Over The Crystal Geyser Bottling Plant
in Mount Shasta
Crystal Geyser Water Company (CG) proposed operations of a beverage bottling plant in Siskiyou County just outside the boundary of Mt. Shasta City. W.A.T.E.R. formed to demand an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) be done on the project, as required by the California Environmental Quality Act, because of the likelihood that significant negative impacts would occur from plastic, air, and water pollution, as well as traffic, noise, and over-pumping and degradation of the underlying aquifer. The County relented and produced a woefully insufficient and scientifically flawed study, then approved the project (see the “History” tab for details). We challenged the validity of the EIR and the County’s approval in Appellate Court and the Court found the EIR flawed and required CG to redo the EIR. Crystal Geyser abandoned the project and sold the plant.
Expert critiques of the EIR from our CEQA law attorneys and environmental experts:
Crystal Geyser Appeal Documents -
Crystal Geyser Final Ruling by Appellate Court
Projects Proposed Locally
Freeze Ministorage and Carwash
On the north end of Mt. Shasta City, very near the headwaters of the Sacramento River, a land owner proposed to build a storage facility and carwash. The initial proposal (2017) was poorly defined and after public outcry and pushback from the city, the owner withdrew the proposal. The project resurfaced in 2019 with more detail but with still-inadequate analyses of the environmental impacts. Again, there was public outcry and the City Planning Commission denied a permit for the carwash and required a new application for the storage facility.
Mt. Shasta City Wastewater Infrastructure
The City of Mt. Shasta approved two major upgrades for the City conveyance and wastewater treatment infrastructure. Because these upgrades were not only necessary for the community but also for the Crystal Geyser beverage bottling plant, we scrutinized them carefully. The City has approved and completed the projects. We continue to follow and evaluate City infrastructure projects for environmental impacts.
Loves Truck Stop
In 2018, the Loves Truck Stop Corporation proposed a project to construct a large truck stop facility at the south end of the City of Weed off of Interstate 5 adjacent to a residential area and next to a meadow that drains into Boles Creek, a tributary of the Klamath River. Significant problems with the project included noise and air quality issues for the residents, traffic impacts and pollution of Boles Creek water. In spite of much public concern with the Environmental Impact Report done for the project, the City of Weed approved the project. A nearby neighborhood association sued the City and Love’s for violation of CEQA. Siskiyou Superior Court ruled in favor of the truck stop, but upon appeal to the third district appellate court in Sacramento, the lower court’s decision was set aside and the EIR and associated approvals were ruled invalid. The project did not move forward.
Drought Emergency Regulations for Scott River and Shasta River
For decades, the flows in the Scott and Shasta Rivers have been heavily impacted by diversions for irrigation threatening the salmon that return to the rivers for spawning. The threat to these fish has become even direr because of the current drought. Thus the State Water Resources Control Board has issued Emergency Regulations to curtail diversions from the rivers to ensure sufficient water flows for the returning salmon. W.A.T.E.R. supports these state and local efforts to restore the Shasta River ecosystem.
McCloud Artesian Water Bottling Project
Although the community of McCloud successfully fought off an attempt by Nestle to build a water bottling plant in their community in the early 2000s, a group of investors returned in 2015 with another proposal for a water bottling plant. Although a CEQA review was initiated, the investors were unable to produce the required Environmental Impact Report, and a contract between the investors and the McCloud Community Service District expired. In 2020 the Service District’s Board of Directors voted unanimously not to extend the contract. Thus the project did not proceed.
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