May 5, 2026
Texas – A new Sierra Club analysis on thermal plant water usage reveals that Texas gas, coal, and nuclear plants consume roughly 100 billion gallons of water every year, while renewables and battery storage use barely any water at all.
July 21, 2025
CUPERTINO, Calif. – Sierra Club's successful lawsuit against Lehigh Southwest Cement Company will begin to show on-the-ground results as the company officially breaks ground on the Permanente Creek restoration project July 22. The project will remove thousands of tons of toxic mine waste that were dumped from Lehigh’s quarry into Permanente Creek upstream of Cupertino. Required by a federal court order signed by both Sierra Club and Lehigh, the company must restore 3.5 miles of the mining-ravaged watershed by 2030.
May 25, 2023
WASHINGTON, DC -- Today, a five-Justice conservative majority of the Supreme Court ruled to gut clean water protections for millions of Americans. The case, Sackett v. EPA, is a corporate polluter-backed effort to dismantle the Clean Water Act by narrowing the definition of the Waters of the United States (WOTUS). The Court’s decision will open millions of acres of wetlands – all formerly protected by the Clean Water Act – to pollution and destruction, including by negating many of President Biden’s wetland protections in his new WOTUS rule released last year. The majority decision –…
March 29, 2023
WASHINGTON, DC -- Today, the Senate voted 53-43 to overturn the Biden Administration’s updated Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule, which outlines which waters - including small streams, rivers, wetlands, and more - should be protected from pollution and destruction under the Clean Water Act. House Republicans advanced the Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution on WOTUS earlier this month to try to invalidate the rule and prevent future administrations from implementing similar water protections. President Biden is expected to veto the resolution.
March 20, 2023
VIRTUAL -- This afternoon, as a part of the 2023 United Nations Water Conference, the Sierra Club will be hosting a conversation about decolonizing our waterways featuring Indigenous voices from the Southeastern US. Water is sacred to many tribal communities, tribes, and nations. To be climate resilient, we must fundamentally transform how we value water. Tribes, states, and localities have long contested legal rights to water resources. There are challenges unique to Indigenous communities in the Southeastern United States, yet their voices are rarely heard.
March 9, 2023
WASHINGTON, DC -- Today, the House Republicans voted to overturn the Biden Administration’s updated Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule, which outlines which waters - including small streams, rivers, wetlands, and more - should be protected from pollution and destruction under the Clean Water Act. Late last year, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and US Army Corps of Engineers released the updated WOTUS rule, and today, Republicans passed a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution to try to invalidate the rule and prevent future administrations from implementing similar water…
January 31, 2023
WASHINGTON, DC – After over a decade of contestation, the EPA came to a Final Determination to protect Bristol Bay from Pebble Mine, a proposed copper and gold mine which would have wide-ranging, disastrous social, environmental, and economic impacts to lo
January 4, 2023
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- On Friday, December 30th, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released its “Waters of the United States” (WOTUS) rule which defines the various types of waters which fall under the jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act in a way that will preserve protections that have been in place for decades.
October 27, 2022
SALTON SEA, CA — In response to comments by Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Arizona) regarding Colorado River negotiations and federal funding of remediation projects at California’s Salton Sea, the Salton Sea Partnership (Alianza of Coachella Valley, Audubon California, Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability, Pacific Institute and Sierra Club) issued the following statement:
October 18, 2022
WASHINGTON, DC -- Fifty years ago today -- on October 18, 1972 -- Congress passed the Clean Water Act with extraordinary bipartisan support, and in the decades since, the Act has served as our most fundamental tool for protecting our nation’s waters and the communities that rely on them.