Stephen Mejia-Carranza is the Policy & Advocacy Manager for Friends of the Los Angeles River.
Water UCI Colloquium Series: Alternative Perspectives on Resolving Water Conflicts
For several years cities around the world have been engaged in efforts to remake themselves through the revitalization or restoration of their urban waterways. In Southern California, in the midst of prolonged droughts, extended fire seasons, and devastating mudslides, local water management structure has generated schisms over the best future use of our water resources and urban rivers. Do we maximize water supply and relegate our rivers to urban beautified flood control infrastructure, or recreate a healthy and living watershed?
This presentation focuses on some of the key issues underlying this schism, some unintended consequences on local communities, and propose an alternative perspective to help resolve these conflicts.
Stephen Mejia-Carranza is the Policy & Advocacy Manager for Friends of the Los Angeles River. He leads and supports the execution of FoLAR’s policy work which ranges from organizing on local community-scale projects, to advocacy regional river-restoration planning, and engagement on county and state funding measures. Previously he worked as Urban Programs Coordinator at Heal the Bay working with underserved communities on water and open-space issues in the LA River, Compton Creek, and Santa Monica Bay watersheds. Stephen has spent the last 5 years focused on building watershed literacy, inspiring local stewardship and empowering community voices of all ages in local watershed planning efforts. He holds a BA from University of California, Santa Cruz in Environmental Studies.