WATER LEARNING SERIES:
LOS ANGELES
Throughout 2024, Walking Water hosted 11 “Talking Water” sessions with organizations, community projects, tribal organizations, activists, organizers and leaders from LA and places impacted by LA’s water story. These conversations highlighted their critical roles in the wider regions’ water initiatives, their visions for change, and what they need to get there. By the end of the year we had a comprehensive archive of story, knowledge and practice that represents a journey of deepening relations between water, place and people – ultimately revealing our interconnection and interdependence.
For residents of LA, these conversations offered an important opportunity to engage with those who represent and who influence the community’s relations with water. This series offered an opportunity to more deeply understand and map the decision-making structures and water impacts of this city, build relationships with those who are building more just and ecologically balanced systems, and offer occasions for collective organizing and action.
And if you don’t live in LA, these conversations offered examples of how a mega-metropolis works, lives and manages water, how its diverse populations are impacted, and what it would take to create a just water future for the next generations.
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Session One with Tina Calderon, Teri Red Owl, Annie Mendoza & Kyndall Noah
“More than what you call the capturing or retention of these waters, is speaking up to give the waters their rights. They need to flow freely. We need to stop taking the water from up north, which means we need to figure out how to stop damming up our waters. We had water sources. What happened to them? We need to bring that back. More than what we call things, we need to use our voice to do the right thing.” –Tina Calderon
Session Two with Andy Lipkis
“I’m telling these stories, because change is within our power. It’s within our reach.”
–Andy Lipkis
Session Three with LA Waterkeeper
“Water is one of the biggest drivers in California of climate change…because our water comes from very far away. In LA, we import our water hundreds of miles–over mountains, over deserts, over farmland from the Colorado River, from the Owens Valley, from the Sacramento River. That treatment and conveyance of water over hundreds of miles is the number one non-utility energy use in the entire state of California.” –Kelly Shannon McNeill, LA Waterkeeper
Session Four with Urbano Strategies
“We believe that authentic community engagement is really the key to creating and cultivating sustainable projects that are going to be healthier for the residents and create conditions that are more livable…’Direct to Community Engagement’ ensures that, early on, communities are part of shaping projects.” –Jesse De La Cruz, Urbano Strategies
Session Five with US Army Corps of Engineers
“What we can bring to the future of the river and urban waterways is engineering with nature…Engineering with nature is where we are trying to use more natural ways of solving the problem… working in unison with natural processes.”
–Megan Whalen, US Army Corps of Engineers
Session Six with Council for Watershed Health
“Redesign LA puts people at the forefront. Those projects that are being funded are not coming from the cities…These are the needs in our community.”
–Carlos Moran, Council for Watershed Health
Session Seven with Los Angeles Dept. of Water and Power & Metropolitan Water District
“Agencies like MWD and DWP are really working on our transparency and trying to bring in different voices into our processes… I think it’s important as we need to build trust in what we’re doing and the investments we need to make locally. I do think holding us accountable and demanding transparency is going to help us move forward.” –Liz Crosson, Metropolitan Water District
Session Eight with Friends of the LA River & Heal the Bay
“The river is the reason why LA was able to be here in the first place. It’s the origin story of Los Angeles. It’s the mother of Los Angeles in many ways.” –Candice Dickens-Russell, Friends of the LA River
Session Nine with Kaytlyyn Johnston & Zacarías Bernal
“In my imagination, we need to decommodify everything natural…No one should have to pay for access to clean water…These are all basic human rights. We need to imagine that we can come back to that…We need to learn what reciprocity means with the Earth.” –Zacarías Bernal, Tía Chucha’s Centro Cultural & Bookstore
Session Ten with Andy Lipkis
“We need to ask: how do we honor place? How do we embody justice? How do we regenerate life? How do we grow participation? How do we foster resilience?” –Andy Lipkis
Session Eleven with Tina Calderon, Teri Red Owl & Kyndall Noah
“I really believe that the more people that come together, that are thinking this way, and that are working on solutions, that’s what it’s going to take to get us to reimagining what our future is going to be and what LA looks like in the future–they don’t have to rely on our water, on Colorado River water, on water in Northern California. We can look at meeting our needs locally.” –Teri Red Owl (Bishop Paiute Tribe Nüümü from Payahuunadü), Executive Director Owens Valley Indian Water Commission