A coalition of conservation groups wants Southern California to get 85% of its water locally, up from the 50% it gets now, by 2045, and says a new plan shows how.

It’s urging state leaders to scrap plans for a 45-mile tunnel beneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and consider asking voters to approve a bond measure to fund local water solutions. The 34-page strategy was released as critical decisions loom for local officials, California’s next governor and legislators.

Over the last century, Southern California has grown and thrived thanks to giant aqueducts it built to bring water from hundreds of miles away — the Eastern Sierra, the Colorado River and Northern California.

But with water costs rising and climate change jeopardizing these distant sources, there is growing interest in finding ways to get more water locally.

The allied groups are calling for recycling more wastewater, capturing more stormwater, improving efficiency and cleaning up contaminated groundwater.

“We have to prioritize our investments, and prioritizing them in local water makes the most sense,” said Bruce Reznik, executive director of the group Los Angeles Waterkeeper.

The coalition includes fishing groups, environmental organizations and Northern California’s Winnemem Wintu Tribe.

Its plan calls for a “new urban water renaissance” in California that prioritizes local water. This approach would reliably yield more and cost far less than Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed Delta Conveyance Project beneath the Delta.

The state estimated in 2024 the tunnel would cost $20.1 billion, but opponents say it could cost three to five times more.

“Local water is reliable, it’s more affordable, and it’s more flexible, so that we’re not committing California ratepayers to higher bills that they don’t need,” said Kyle Jones, a water expert and consultant who helped prepare the plan for the coalition.

Southern California imports about half of its water from other regions.

The coalition’s plan says the region can secure up to 2 million acre-feet of local water per year. It estimates the costs of more conservation and efficiency, more stormwater and groundwater cleaning, and more water recycling at $44 billion over two decades. The Delta tunnel, in contrast, could cost $60 billion to $100 billion, it says.

Whether the tunnel project is ultimately built may hinge on whether large water agencies, including the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, decide to participate and pay for it.

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1. Cranes rise above the Donald C. Tillman Water Reclamation Plant in Van Nuys. 2. When completed, Los Angeles will nearly double recycled water for 500,000 residents. 3. Storage tanks sit behind a fence before being placed in the ground at the plant. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

“Metropolitan Water District really does have a significant choice on it, that not just impacts their ratepayers but impacts every single person in the state,” said Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, executive director of the group Restore the Delta. “Are we going to spend $20, $60, maybe upward to $100 million on a tunnel? Or are we going to invest significant money in local solutions that provide water resiliency and sustainability for everyone in California? That is what is at stake right now.”

The Metropolitan Water District already is planning a large new facility in Carson to transform wastewater into purified drinking water. Los Angeles and San Diego are also building water recycling plants.

“At the same time, water imported from the northern Sierra and the Colorado River provides the foundation of water supply reliability for Southern California,” said Shivaji Deshmukh, the MWD’s general manager.

He noted that the MWD invests in water efficiency and capturing stormwater, and has helped reduce per-person water use by more than 40% since 1990.

The agency’s 38-member board last year adopted a climate adaptation strategy that sets goals for lining up additional water.

Los Angeles city leaders and L.A. County supervisors have also set goals for becoming more locally self-sufficient.

The advocates who wrote the policy plan said these efforts should accelerate and expand. They pointed out that the Colorado River’s reservoirs are falling to perilously low levels, and native fish in the Delta are in decline as the pumping of water takes an ecological toll.

“Climate change is exacerbating the challenges in those ecosystems, meaning that less and less water will be available to import,” said Ashley Overhouse, water policy advisor for the group Defenders of Wildlife. “All the while, the cost of water is continuing to rise.”

About 20 other environmental groups endorsed the coalition’s strategy.

“We have got to do a better job in the next 100 years than we did in the last 100 years, if we truly want to create a place of abundance once again,” said Frankie Myers, a member of the Yurok Tribe in Northern California. “This idea that we can steal … and divert water however we want with no consequences has got to end.”

Construction continues at the Donald C. Tillman Water Reclamation Plant in Van Nuys in October 2025.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Benjamin Bass, a UCLA scientist who studies how climate change is affecting the Colorado River and other water sources, joined the group as they presented their proposal in an online briefing.

“Traditional sources for imported water are less reliable than they used to be,” Bass said. “The most reliable source of water in the future is local water.”

Other experts have reached similar conclusions.

Researchers at the Pacific Institute, a water think tank in Oakland, have examined improvements such as fixing leaks in pipes, switching out inefficient washing machines and toilets, and replacing thirsty lawns with plants suited to the state’s Mediterranean climate.

In a 2022 report, they found that a set of standard practices and technologies could reduce total urban water use by 30% or more.

Marxist political influencer Hasan Piker is lashing out over a federal inquiry into his recent trip to communist Cuba, calling it an “intimidation tactic” prompted by his harsh stance on Israel and the U.S.

The response by Piker — echoed by other leaders from Democratic Socialists of America and pro-communist and anti-Israel leaders — illustrates how quickly the Cuba “solidarity” movement, pro-communist influencers and anti-Israel activist networks converged online to frame the federal inquiry not as a sanctions or foreign influence investigation, but as political repression aimed at broader anti-capitalist, anti-Western, anti-Israel activist movements.

Piker told followers during a livestream on Twitch Sunday afternoon that he is being targeted for being a “loudmouth” and “rabble-rouser,” criticizing Israel and the “fascist” United States.

Fox News Digital reported Saturday that the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control has sent administrative subpoenas to Piker and leftist CodePink co-founder Medea Benjamin to get documents about the financial, logistical and communications details of their March trips to Cuba, in possible violation of laws and regulations about doing business with the government of Cuba.

“It’s not great,” Piker told his followers in the early minutes of his livestream on Sunday afternoon. “The news is not great, okay? Um, I mean, it’s bulls—. But still not great…I mean it’s bulls— but still not great that they’re after your boy. They’re up my a–.”

Piker didn’t respond to requests for comment, although he acknowledged receiving the queries as he spoke to his followers during his livestream. He said that he got his trip cleared by the Office of Foreign Assets Control, saying, “Everything we did was cleared by Treasury.”

The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control didn’t respond to a request for comment.

By the end of his segment on the federal inquiry, Piker pivoted from the Cuba sanctions inquiry to argue that the scrutiny was really driven by backlash to his comments on Israel.

“A lot of this, by the way, does still have a lot to do with Israel,” he said, charging that his critics “don’t like that I talk s— about Israel” and “don’t like that I am a loudmouth, a rabble-rouser.”

He claimed the investigation was not “just about Cuba” but also about his role in boosting anti-Israel voters and candidates.

“They recognize that Democrats and young people are against Israel” and see him “campaigning with candidates who are anti-Israel, and they are winning their races,” he said.

FEDS SUBPOENA HASAN PIKER, MEDEA BENJAMIN OVER CUBA TRIPS

Piker’s response followed a pattern that has become common among online activist influencers under scrutiny: reframing a legal or regulatory inquiry as political persecution while broadening the issue into a sweeping ideological struggle. Rather than focus narrowly on the sanctions questions surrounding the Cuba trip, Piker repeatedly cast himself as the victim of a coordinated campaign by “Israel first” Democrats, pro-Israel activists, mainstream media figures and the “fascist” Trump administration.

He frequently shifted the conversation away from the specifics of Treasury’s inquiry and toward a larger narrative in which the federal government is allegedly criminalizing anti-Israel activism, anti-capitalist politics and opposition to U.S. foreign policy. He sought to portray the investigation as evidence that powerful political and media institutions are targeting dissenting voices who challenge establishment positions on Israel, Cuba and American foreign policy.

At one point, Piker said he created a mini-documentary about life in Cuba during his March trip, saying he was serving as a journalist. In other moments, he has described the mission as a “humanitarian” effort, framing his trip as providing “humanitarian aid” to the people of Cuba.

Piker also characterized the controversy using language increasingly emerging from socialist, communist and anti-capitalist movements online, where activists have used the phrase “Epstein class” as shorthand for wealthy elites and the supposed moral corruption of American capitalism. The rhetoric repeats the propaganda of U.S. adversaries, including Cuba, China, the Islamic Republic of Iran and Russia.

He read a comment from a fan, who wrote, “We’ll free you, my brother.”

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Piker responded, “I’m seemingly going to be made an example of…in America’s galloping toward fascism.”

He batted away suspicions that Elon Musk made a “boss call” to subpoena Piker after he did an interview yesterday with Ashley St. Clair, the mother of a baby with Musk. The two are going through a custody dispute.

“I haven’t gotten anything yet,” said Piker.

“Yes, I’ll get lawyered up,” he said, in response to a follower.

He said he needed a lawyer with expertise on the First Amendment and “knowledgeable on OFAC.”

“I haven’t had anything happen to me yet,” he said. “And it’s not like anything I’ve done.”

Saturday evening, Piker posted on X that “the American govt would rather try to criminalize delivering aid to a country we’d starved, than punish the Epstein class.”

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At 10:51 p.m., CodePink’s Benjamin posted: “Taking medical supplies to pediatric hospitals in Cuba is now a crime? Saving the lives of babies is a crime? The administration is beyond grotesque.”

Benjamin repeated the movement’s broader framing of the Cuba trips as “humanitarian” missions, even as organizers and participants repeatedly paired the aid campaigns with overt political rhetoric condemning the Trump administration, U.S. sanctions policy and what activists described as “imperialism” and “settler colonialism” in Cuba and Latin America.

Piker’s uncle, far-left commentator Cenk Ugyur, the co-founder of Justice Democrats, a socialist organization that helped elect Ilhan Omar, Rashida Talib and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Congress in 2018, defended him online Saturday night.

“Government apparently sent some bullshit subpoena to Hasan,” Ugyur wrote. “They’re tightening the noose on speech. Remember, they’ll always have an excuse or some technicality. It’s not like they’re going to tell you, ‘We did it because we don’t like what you’re saying.’”

Uygur then linked the investigation to broader left-wing claims about suppression of pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel speech, arguing the government was using legal and procedural mechanisms to target political dissent rather than directly censoring viewpoints.

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Piker called CodePink co-founder Jodie Evans a “wonderful person.” He took a photo in Havana with Evans, which she shared on her Instagram account from Cuba.

A little after 3 p.m., one hour and 12 minutes into his livestream, Piker acknowledged, “I would much rather not have to deal with this.”

Half an hour later, he insisted that he was being targeted for his strong opposition to the existence of the state of Israel, playing a clip of Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., as they spoke about the growing tide of anti-semitism, including from Piker.

At one point, Piker scoffed as the two lawmakers discussed increasing reports of antisemitism in the U.S.

Piker later moved on to a segment supporting the the Islamic Republic of Iran in its talks with the U.S. and Israel to end the war in Iran, mocking the Israel delegation’s “chirping,” critiquing U.S. foreign policy for allegedly letting “Israel take control over our entire Middle East policy” and moving the focus of his monologue to a critique of the “Zionist” state of Israel and the “rogue” United States.

Fox News Digital’s Sophia Compton contributed to this report.

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