Take Action on Water - It’s yours to protect.
>> Take Action
Below are ways for you to get involved and take action:
Call upon the United Nations to add a 31st article to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, establishing access to clean and potable water as a fundamental human right. Sign the petition to Article 31.
Find out the quality of your local tap water, if it’s good, start drinking it instead of bottled water. Stop buying bottled water. If taste is an issue, purchase a filter. If you live in Los Angeles and a Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) customer click here to read their yearly water quality report. Use a reusable stainless steel water bottle or a glass jar to carry water with you instead of a plastic bottle.
Live in Urban LA? Organize a cleanup in your community. Community cleanups not only help our communities look better but they also help waterways by keeping debris out of them. The Friends of the Los Angeles River holds “La Gran Limpieza” on a yearly basis. Visit their website and choose a location to clean up on Saturday, May 9th, 2009 from 9:00AM - Noon.
Live by the coast? Participate in a beach clean up, many groups are already organizing monthly and yearly cleanups. If you live in the greater LA Area visit Heal the Bay and get involved. They also have inland sites that need your help too.
Use less, buy recycled AND recycle. Consumerism is closely interrelated to water. “Virtual water” is the amount of water that is embedded in products needed for its production. The water footprint of an individual, community or business is defined as the total volume of freshwater that is used to produce the goods and services consumed by the individual or community or produced by the business. A pair of Jeans, for example, has 10,850 liters of embedded water. Visit the Water Footprint Network for more information. When you reuse items/products you are reducing your water footprint.
Limit plastic and plastic bag use and prevent this litter from ending up in our community, our waterways and oceans. Some countries, such as China, and many large cities—San Francisco, for example—have banned plastic grocery bags. If your city hasn’t yet taken this step, pressure them to do so—and in the meantime bring your own reusable bags to the market and avoid plastic wherever else you can. Support legislation that calls for reduction of plastic bags. For example, Assembly Bill 68 (Brownley) (the Single-Use Bag Reduction Act) would require large grocery stores and convenience stores to charge a 25 cent fee for plastic, paper, and compostable plastic grocery bags, the proceeds of which would be used for local litter abatement, cleanup, and prevention programs. Sign the online petition. Are you a resident or business owner in the city of Los Angeles? The City has "It’s Our L.A! Keep It Clean," program to encourage residents to return plastic grocery bags to stores for recycling and ways for business owners to participate.
Use native plants and remove invasive. According to the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Rivers Watershed Council: The U.S. currently spends approximately $120 billion annually on the control and impacts of invasive species. Once established in natural areas, invasive plants displace native vegetation and greatly reduce wildlife diversity. In addition, invasive plants fuel wildfires, degrade grazing land, contribute to soil erosion, clog streams and rivers, increase flooding, and have negative impacts on our local water supply. View the online resource on invasive plants.
Support the green streets paradigm and make more projects like Oros Street a possibility throughout the city of Los Angeles. The Oros Green Street Project was designed to capture stormwater runoff from private homes and a residential street and clean it through a series of soil filtration and vegetative bioretention treatments before it ever gets into the Los Angeles River, while simultaneously improving and beautifying a neighborhood with new infrastructure and greenscape. It is an eco-friendly and innovative model of sustainability that manages and cleans storm and dry weather runoff and pollutants that traditionally went directly to the stormwater system (or the Los Angeles River).
Have ideas on taking action? We’d like to know about them, please send us an email: ideas@marchforwater.com
