The Save Our Forest Association (SOFA) has won a competitive California Wildlands Grassroots Fund environmental grant from the Rose Foundation for the restoration of Strawberry Creek and revitalization of the Strawberry Canyon ecosystem.
This grant supports the ongoing litigation, initiated in June 2024, of SOFA vs USFS to terminate the Special Use Permit (SUP) on San Bernardino National Forest allowing BlueTriton Brands (formerly Nestle Waters) to divert spring water from Strawberry Canyon and destroy the riparian ecosystem.
The Wildlands Grassroots Fund was established to support activists’ heroic efforts to preserve California’s wildlands. The fund supports grassroots conservationists advocating for the permanent protection, restoration and stewardship of intact wildlands on both public and private lands across the state. Projects eligible for funding include advocacy, organizing, land purchases, litigation, restoration and maintenance, research and education.
SOFA began objecting to the U.S. Forest Service SUP in 2015 when a Forest Service whistleblower revealed that the SUP had expired 30 years earlier and yet the for-profit commercial bottling water diversions were being allowed to occur. Thousands of public comments appealing to the Forest Service to stop the water diversions and restore Strawberry Canyon were made following a public scoping meeting held in April 2016.
After exhausting all administrative appeals to the Forest Service, including to the USFS chief and the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture, SOFA filed suit to end this long-standing misuse of precious water resources given the long-term drought conditions in California and the San Bernardino National Forest.
“Restoring Strawberry Creek would be the largest perennial stream restoration efforts ever on the San Bernardino National Forest,” said Steve Loe, a retired United States Forest Service Fish and Wildlife biologist. “The opportunities to restore threatened and endangered fish and amphibians in the several miles of restored stream habitat are unmatched in Southern California.”
The devastating Old Fire in 2003 raced up Strawberry Canyon from the base of the mountain, nearly destroying the telecommunications network located on Strawberry Peak above Rimforest. Mountain residents continue to be at wildfire risk with the reestablished chaparral vegetation in Strawberry Canyon that has replaced the historically described springs and riparian habitat supporting fishing, lush fern, alder, elderberries, pine and oak forest.
“Seeing water flowing in Strawberry Canyon is the goal – restoring the vegetation and wildlife in cooperation with the Forest Service and the Yuhaaviatam Nation while reducing our wildfire risk,” said Hugh Bialecki, president of Save Our Forest Association.
The California State Water Resources Board has a parallel suit in Appellate Court against BlueTriton Brands (BTB) contesting the water right that BTB has claimed allowed them to divert water for commercial bottling purposes.
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