Speak Out

Let your voice be heard! Every day our elected representatives and government officials make decisions that impact our environment. Your voice matters, and we encourage you to let the decision-makers know how you feel about issues that affect our waters. Click on the links below to send a letter about an important issue.

Send a letter about an issue

Tell Senator Feinstein to Keep Your Family Safe at the Beach
Just like health safety inspections for food, we rely on water quality monitoring and reporting to ensure that the water we swim, surf and play in is safe. The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing to cut all federal funding for beach water quality monitoring in 2013, putting over 90 million Americans at risk of getting sick from polluted water across the United States! Here in California, this funding supports vital state and county health agency testing for polluted water at California beaches. Without this funding, many beaches will go untested, leaving the public at risk from getting sick. The livelihoods of many local businesses that benefit from the more than $12 billion spent by beach visitors each year in California are also at risk. With California beaches closed a total of 5,756 days (number of beach closings plus number of days) in 2010, now is not the time to stop beach monitoring. Please ask Senator Feinstein to restore the money for beach water testing in the federal budget.

Tell the U.S. EPA to Protect Beachgoers
California is dependent on its coastal economy, and a thriving coastal economy needs clean water to promote growth. California’s beaches are one of the top vacation destinations in the country, with over 200 million visitors each year, generating $6.1 billion in direct state and local revenues. People come to our beaches with the belief that it is a safe place to swim. Yet every year, millions of people become sick after visiting California’s beaches. A new U.S. EPA proposal to address beach pollution would result in illness for 1 out of every 28 beachgoers. The EPA’s approach masks a serious pollution problem and exposes families to high levels of bacteria—with increased chances of illness. Please tell EPA to protect human health and strengthen the proposed recreational criteria.

Tell the Water Board to Protect Our Special Coastal Areas
In a surprise move, the California State Water Resources Control Board just dusted off an old, draft policy from the era of Governor Schwarzenegger and is poised to approve a complicated dirty water waiver to protections that safeguard the most fragile parts of California's coastal marine ecosystem – places known as Areas of Special Biological Significance (ASBS). Urban stormwater runoff is the largest source of pollution to California’s coastal waters. Yet the State Board is proposing to weaken a 40-year old prohibition on stormwater waste into ASBS by adopting an approach that could reward over 1700 illegal discharges into some of the most special coastal areas in California. Find ASBS in your area: http://www.cacoastkeeper.org/programs/healthy-marine-habitats/ASBS. Please take action by Monday, October 17 and tell the Water Board that California’s coast deserves all of the benefits of existing law and that a roll back of these protections is bad for California and the marine life that thrives in its coastal waters.

Stop the National Attack on Clean Water
Our beaches, bays and rivers are under attack. The U.S. Congress is currently considering a number of bills (H.R. 2018, H.R. 872 and H.R. 2584) that would gut the Clean Water Act and hamstring the agencies that protect our waterways. Please take a moment to tell your representative that clean fishable, swimmable and drinkable water is important to you.

Help Protect Our National Forests Against Poorly Planned Energy Projects
The integrity of Cleveland National Forest and the surrounding Southern California communities currently face threats from the Talega-Escondido/Valley-Serrano 500 kV Interconnect (TE/VS) and the associated Lake Elsinore Advanced Pumped Storage (LEAPS) project. Currently proposed by The Nevada Hydro Company, the development of the TE/VS transmission lines and LEAPS hydroelectric dam is not cost efficient and would have negative and irrevocable impacts on the surrounding protected land, watershed, wildlife, and residents of the Inland Empire. We cannot open the door for energy corridors in our National Forests and other protected areas. Please help Inland Empire Waterkeeper voice our concerns and let the California Public Utilities Commission know there is strong community opposition to the project as they prepare the Environmental Impact Report.