A story by McGraw Fellow Lauren Markham looking at the increasing pressure that development, drought, and fires have put on water rights in California has been published in Sierra, the magazine of the Sierra Club.
PG&E, the Mountain Maidu and a Very Powerful River is told through the history of the critical Feather River — source of much of Central California’s water and electricity, thanks to a series of dams built over decades by the powerful regional utility, Pacific Gas & Electric.
It highlights the efforts of the Mountain Maidu tribe to restore a healthier, more sustainable habitat to the headwaters land stolen from their ancestors starting more than a century ago, which PG&E recently returned to the tribe.
Markham, a California-based freelancer, received funding to research the story from the McGraw Center for Business Journalism at the Newmark J-School.