Building Bridges: How LA Waterkeeper is Bringing Communities Together for a Healthier LA
To ensure the Safe Clean Water Program truly reflects the priorities of voters and communities, LA Waterkeeper convened a series of workshops to gather feedback on the County’s recently-released draft initial watershed plans.
September 24, 2025
Over the past two months, LA Waterkeeper hosted a series of five watershed planning workshops across four major watersheds in Los Angeles County.
Supported by Accelerate Resilience LA (ARLA), the Water Foundation, and the Los Angeles County Flood Control District’s Safe Clean Water Public Education and Community Engagement Grants Program, the workshops brought together residents, community-based organizations, NGOs, academics, city representatives, and watershed planning team members to weigh in on their watershed priorities.
These gatherings were designed to collect community feedback on Los Angeles County’s Draft Initial Watershed Plans, which set long-term targets under the Safe Clean Water Program (SCWP).
While the program has accomplished much in the seven years since its inception, community engagement has remained a challenge. LA Waterkeeper’s goal with these workshops was to bridge some of those gaps and create space for listening, sharing, and identifying how to build a more resilient water future together.
Setting More Ambitious Goals
Each workshop began with opening statements and an overview of the Draft Initial Watershed Plans and progress to date. Participants then broke into three sessions: one to review and discuss program targets for greening, water quality, water supply, and other key metrics; another for participants to share and prioritize the types of projects they want to see in their watersheds; and a third to explore ARLA’s Living Infrastructure Field Kit, which allows community members to flag and envision new projects in their own neighborhoods.
Across all five workshops, participants consistently raised concerns about the County’s low targets for greening schools. Every group concluded that current goals were not ambitious enough and urged greater investment in school-based projects.
As Veronica Padilla-Campos, Executive Director of Pacoima Beautiful, explained, “It was important to see the baseline — to see how low the targets have been and what we’re really pushing for. You can’t know how to improve something until you measure it, and this gave us the chance to pause and reevaluate where we need to go.”
Uplifting Community Engagement
The workshops also underscored the value of convening a wide variety of stakeholders. Attendees included grassroots organizations, academics, city agencies, and advocacy groups — all in conversation together.
“It was exciting to see such a mix of people in the room,” said Maggie Gardner, LA Waterkeeper’s Science & Policy Manager, who leads our SCWP work and spearheaded the planning of the workshops. “That’s really what we want — not just one group or subset of groups, but a broad set of perspectives engaging together.” Others noted the benefit of in-person dialogue. “Even just seeing the body language as people describe the issues they’re facing makes a big difference in understanding what’s happening in a particular place,” added Erik Loyer, Creative Technologist with Spherical.
For LA Waterkeeper, the workshops were also about making technical plans more accessible and ensuring the community’s perspective is heard in the process.
Executive Director Bruce Reznik reflected, “I don’t ever want to be critical of what we’ve done. I’m very proud of the first five or six years of the program — more than a billion dollars invested and over 140 projects funded. But to really maximize the benefits, with so many needs around water quality, water supply, community greening, and flooding, we need to spend every penny as thoughtfully and strategically as possible. People are recognizing the need to balance large regional projects with smaller, community-oriented ones — and to be more proactive and ambitious in planning.”
Next Steps
Draft Initial Watershed Plans for all nine SCWP Watershed Areas are now available for review and public comment, open from August 14 to September 28, 2025. All stakeholders and members of the public are encouraged to share feedback using this Public Comment Form.
Looking ahead, LA Waterkeeper will compile and digitize the feedback collected through these workshops and submit it into the official public comment process, while also sharing results back with participants.
Later this year, LA Waterkeeper will also release a more formal report summarizing the discussions and community priorities that emerged, with the longer-term goal of ensuring SCWP funds projects that reflect those priorities.