Thirsty for Justice: The Struggle for the Human Right to Water in California and Beyond
In the richest nation on earth and in the wealthiest state in the nation, how can a million or more people lack reliable access to safe, clean, and affordable water for their basic human needs?
How did we get here and how can we ensure everyone has access to sufficient water for drinking, cooking, sanitation, and personal hygiene?
What can we do to address the water-related impacts of climate change, including drought, flood, sea level rise, fire, and strain on ecosystems?
Colin Bailey, executive director of the Environmental Justice Coalition for Water, will discuss these questions and share stories about individuals whose personal health and human dignity are affected by limited or no access to safe, clean, and affordable water. He will also discuss the historic grassroots movement that made the human right to water the law of the land in California and the ongoing work to make that right a reality in California and beyond.
Thirsty for Justice: The Struggle for the Human Right to Water in California and Beyond
Topic: Thirsty for Justice: The Struggle for the Human Right to Water in California and Beyond
Speaker: Colin Bailey, executive director, Environmental Justice Coalition for Water
When: Friday, September 28, 2018, 12 p.m.–1 p.m.
Where: University Library, 2000 State University Drive, Library 11
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About the Speaker
Colin Bailey is the executive director of the Environmental Justice Coalition for Water (EJCW). An accomplished social justice attorney, Colin supports EJCW's statewide policy agenda, local and regional programs, and grassroots member organizations. Building upon California's historic adoption of the Human Right to Water policy in 2012 (CA AB 685), EJCW supports the grassroots effort to implement and enforce this mandate statewide.
Colin received his J.D. from UCLA School of Law, with a certificate from the Public Interest Law and Policy Program and the Critical Race Studies Program.
As a legal aid attorney, Colin served as lead counsel for a community coalition that, after a five-year campaign, defeated a proposal to construct an underground natural gas storage facility that threatened to cause massive explosions/fires and to contaminate the groundwater in a low-income community of color in South Sacramento in 2012.
Colin serves on several advisory committees for various state agencies and academic institutions. He was appointed to the California Air Resources Board's AB32 Environmental Justice Advisory Committee and the Department of Water Resources' California Water Plan Update 2018 Policy Advisory Committee. Before that, he served on the California Water Commission's Water Storage Investment Program Stakeholder Advisory Committee, the Department of Water Resources' Proposition 1 Integrated Regional Water Management Community Stakeholder Engagement Advisory Committee, and the Environmental Justice/Disadvantaged Community Advisory Group for the California State Water Plan 2013 Update.
