Climate Action: Water Impact Headlines

In November 2024, our Battery Powered community made $911,000 in grants to organizations tackling one of the most pressing challenges of our time: ensuring a secure water future for the U.S. West. With devastating fires in Los Angeles underscoring just how precious—and precarious—our water resources are, the need for solutions has never been clearer.
 
Our Climate Action: Water grantees have spent the past year advancing diverse approaches to water resilience: protecting and restoring freshwater ecosystems, pioneering urban drinking water and wastewater solutions, and driving cutting-edge research, policy advocacy, and legal strategies to promote water equity and sustainability.
 
Their work is paving the way for a future where communities and ecosystems alike can thrive, even in the face of increasing climate pressures. Keep reading to see their impact in action!

Pacific Institute advanced water efficiency and equity, nature-based solutions, and corporate water stewardship.

Inform. Engage. Influence. Pacific Institute employed its three-pronged approach to advance water resilience through actionable research and analysis, implementation partnerships, and policy recommendations. Among their 2024 highlights:

• Published groundbreaking reports on climate change impacts on water access and sanitation in frontline communities, and laws and policies that support equitable access.
• Mobilized corporate leaders to launch the California Water Resilience Initiative, with an ambitious goal to reduce, reuse and restore 1 million acre-feet of water by 2030.
• Contributed to approval of the "Make Conservation a California Way of Life" regulation, which will establish water budgets for 400+ urban water suppliers and generate an estimated water savings of 235,000 acre-feet each year by 2050.

San Francisco Baykeeper defended the San Francisco Bay and its watershed from the biggest threats.

SF Baykeeper deployed a winning combination of investigation, advocacy, and litigation to stop pollution, hold polluters and government agencies accountable, and protect vital water resources. 2024 wins include:

• 300th legal victory secured—forcing oil giant Valero and a second company to clean up toxic pollution and fund $2.38M in environmental restoration.
• 73 million gallons of sewage spills exposed, leading to legal action against the city of San Francisco to stop Bay contamination.
• Delta Tunnel construction temporarily halted, protecting the over-tapped Sacramento River from excessive freshwater diversions that threaten the Bay-Delta ecosystem. SF Baykeeper continues to fight the project in court.

Save California Salmon advanced dam removal, freshwater flows, water rights reform, and Indigenous education across key watersheds.

Dedicated to policy change and community advocacy for Northern California's salmon and fish dependent people, the tribal-led SCS worked in coalition with local Tribes and other partners to make progress in 2024 in a challenging political environment.

• Fought water diversions, advocated for Tribal Beneficial Uses, and defended water quality through advocacy, organizing, and legal engagement in the Klamath and Eel River Dam Removal, Sites Reservoir, Delta Bay Plan, and Delta Tunnel projects.
• Secured temporary base flows on the Scott and Shasta Rivers to support salmon and river health. SCS continues to advocate for permanent flows.
• Expanded Indigenous education—contributed to a statewide Model Native American curriculum and grew Indigenous Science camps and field trips.

WaterNow Alliance equipped urban communities, utilities, and sector leaders to shape the future of water management.

WNA's potent combination of technical assistance, project incubation, policy work, professional training, and partnership building is spurring adoption and upscaling of sustainable and equitable nature-based water solutions in urban environments. Among 2024's highlights:

• $4.2 million in state and federal funds secured for six underserved communities to implement critical water infrastructure projects.
• 17 low-water landscaping projects completed or launched, saving 3,000+ acre-feet of water annually by replacing 8.6 million square feet of non-functional turf.
• United Los Angeles County and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California—the largest urban water provider in the country—to create a roadmap for co-investing in landscape transformations to manage storm water and save drinking water.

Western Rivers Conservancy safeguarded thousands of acres of vital river and wetland ecosystems across six Western states.

"Sometimes to save a river, you have to buy it." WRC lived up to its motto by acquiring land along key rivers and streams to preserve riparian and wetland ecosystems; positively impact fish and wildlife habitat; protect cultural resources; and provide public access. Highlights include:

• 9,171 acres and 37 river miles permanently protected across six Western states; 8,126 acres and 26 river miles acquired to secure future conservation efforts.
• 82,760 acres committed for future protection, ensuring long-term stewardship of Western river landscapes.
• Conserved 466-acre Dillon Beach Ranch in Marin County and transferred long-term stewardship to the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria.

Interested in learning more about Battery Powered or our grantees? Contact us at [email protected].