Welcome To The Water Issue

Now in its fourth year, this water-focused edition of the Southern Sierran launches the rollout of our most ambitious prolect to date: our scorecard for water conservation measures throughout Los Angeles and Orange counties. Two years in the making, our scorecard ranks cities based on their mandatory or voluntary Water conservation measures To learn about the water where you live and work. see How Green is Your Water of this issue. In addition to offering a preview of information soon to be widely available upon publication of the scorecard, you can learn more about the study's methodology and our evaluation criteria.

This scorecard was a huge under taking that began at a meeting one day. At this meeting. an attendee issued a challenge, of sorts: she proposed our committee evatuate which cities had the best water conservation ordinances.

This past year the Water Committee has continued its community outreach at many Earth Month and water events. One of the biggest events was the Water Beneath Our Feet WaterFest in Lakewood, which boasted over 3000 participants. We're also reaching out online Via Facebook and we continue to add to our water committee ranks

And as we add members, we're also adding projects. A fellow Chapter activist concerned about alleged over-watering of Englemann oaks inspired a field tnp to the LA. County Arboretum This began ongoing dialogue about water use, conservation and recycling at the Arboretum. After a presentation by West Basin on Direct Potable Reuse, we began working with SC California on Club policy on recycled water in direct relation to direct potable reuse It continues to be a work progress [For more on potable reuse, see Kathleen Smith and Steve Mosko's stories Ed.]

The Water Committee meets, the second Tuesday of every month at 7:00 p.m. in the chapter office.