Clean Water Fund has teamed up in Florida with BoardUp Miami, South Florida's premier action sports festival, for a weekend of water sport fun, April 9-10th, 2010. BoardUp features a professional wakeboard competition and a live music festival. Clean water is important for our health, our environment and also so many ways to have fun!

Visit the BoardUp and sign up to participate or buy tickets to come out and enjoy the festival as a spectator. Tickets are only $10 when you buy them before the festival.

A portion of the festival's proceeds will go to supporting Clean Water Fund's Florida work.

In March 2010, Clean Water Fund released Everglades for All.

Over 1,500 Florida residents participated in our survey which was intended to get a pulse on how the public and diverse constituency groups feel about ongoing outreach and historic Everglades restoration efforts.

This survey revealed new opportunities for relationship building and will hopefully increase public input on key decisions in Everglades restoration.

Location(s)

Clean Water Action is pleased to serve as a sponsor for the 12th Annual Citizens in Action Workshop. We hope that you will attend and take advantage of this opportunity to learn from a variety of experts and visit with elected leaders including Representative Frank Hornstein.

Learn about:

• How you can get involved in the political process.
• Becoming a community activist.
• How to use the new tools available for communication.

Take part in roundtable discussions about issues that matter to you. Hear and speak with local and state elected officials, including Representative Frank Hornstein.

The workshop is free and open to the public.

Executive Summary

Get the full report
(pdf, 364kb)

Bisphenol A, a hormone-disrupting chemical that is the building block of polycarbonate plastic, has been found to leach out of six major brands of popular baby bottles sold in the United States and Canada. Baby's Toxic Bottle: Bisphenol A Leaching from Popular Brands of Baby Bottles, commissioned by a coalition of U.S. and Canadian environmental health organizations, tested plastic baby bottles in the U.S. and Canada, including products made by Avent, Disney/The First Years, Dr. Brown's, Evenflo, Gerber, and Playtex, for leaching of bisphenol A. The U.S. bottles were purchased in nine states at major retailers: Babies"R"Us, CVS, Target, Toys"R"Us, Walgreens, and Wal-Mart. Tests found these popular bottle brands leach levels of bisphenol A (5-8 parts per billion) when heated. Laboratory experiments with animals show that exposure to this level of bisphenol A causes a range of adverse effects.¹

Erin Brockovich and Clean Water Action staff speak out in support of new Public Health Goal for chrome VI; public comment now accepted until November 2, 2009

Better late than never: Fifteen years after the Academy Award-nominated movie Erin Brockovich brought the dangers of hexavelent chromium exposure to the attention of the public, and five years after a legislature-mandated deadline for the state to set a drinking water standard, the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) finally began to take action. It's probably not a coincidence that the state finally began the process of setting a standard after Clean Water Action and other allies notified them of our intent to initiate legal action for the state's failure to meet its statutory obligation to set a drinking water standard for hexavalent chromium (chromium VI).

On October 19, 2009, OEHHA held a workshop giving an overview of their draft Public Health Goal (PHG) for chromium VI. The proposed PHG specifies a maximum level of 0.06 parts per billion level (ppb) of chromium VI in drinking water (read the draft here). Clean Water Action believes this is a health protective level and supports the proposed goal. At the workshop and at a press conference that preceded it, speakers Erin Brockovich (Brockovich Research & Consulting), Virginia Madueno (Clean Water Action California, Central Valley Organizer), and Renee Sharp (Environmental Working Group California, Executive Director) urged OEHHA to expedite the finalization of this standard. Scott Davis, a resident of the impacted community of Merced, California, also spoke at the press conference. At the workshop, former State Senator Deborah Ortiz (author of SB 351, which mandates the drinking water standard) underscored the real-world impacts of chromium VI and called for the process to move forward quickly

OEHHA has set a deadline of November 2, 2009, for accepting public comment. You can help urge speedy finalization of this PHG by sending a letter to OEHHA; click here for a sample letter: Sample Letter Cal OEHA Chromium VI PHG.

Executive Summary

Population growth, drought, and climate change are straining the water supplies of Texas communities. Our state’s population is projected to double by 2060. Much of the state is in the throes of a prolonged drought. Climate experts are predicting that the U.S. Southwest will grow signifi cantly drier and hotter in the coming years. The combined challenges of climate change, drought and population growth make it clear that many Texas communities will be increasingly burdened with the responsibility of parceling out a diminishing supply of water to an increasing number of customers.

Nowhere in Texas are these issues more acute than in Central Texas - which is projected to grow at a faster rate than most of the state and is currently in the midst of extreme drought. This study analyzes the challenges posed by population growth, drought and climate change for water availability, as well as the responses to date of Central Texas communities in the Austin-Round Rock Metropolitan Statistical Area (Williamson, Travis and Hays Counties). Our analysis concludes that, while almost all communities within this area are taking additional steps to conserve water, few are embracing the full range of options readily available.