Yolo Land & Water Defense was founded in 2021 by a group of concerned Yolo County citizens to protect and restore Yolo County’s land and waterways for current residents and future generations.
First, we are working to curb or curtail the environmental harm caused by open pit surface mining companies in Yolo County. We have partnered with the Sierra Club Yolano Group to file a lawsuit against Yolo County and Teichert Mining to decertify a flawed Environment Impact Report (EIR) and rescind sweetheart 30-year mining entitlements given to the Teichert-Shifler Mining project along lower Cache Creek.
This project is destroying Class I farmland, generating methyl mercury that poisons wildlife and threatens human health, overusing water and damaging critical aquifers, and, relying heavily on diesel transport, will be generating toxic air and noise continuously for 30 years.
Second, we aim to support the efforts of Native American practitioners to restore Yolo County’s creeks. In curtailing the environmental harm at Cache Creek, we wish to protect and expand the Tending and Gathering Garden in the Cache Creek Nature Preserve. It was a reclamation project that was legally required of mining companies to reverse destruction from previous operations, but it has been inadequately supported by them and is now threatened by the adjacent Teichert-Shifler mining project.
Third, we hope to foster sustainability and resilience to climate change. As a group of private citizens with a wide range of backgrounds and beliefs, we are actively engaged to ensure that Yolo natural resources are preserved and protected. Whether we are grandparents, parents of young children, farmers and ranchers, toxicologists, water scientists, educators, gardeners, or driven by faith to care for God’s Creation, we are committed to advance the goals set up by the Yolo Climate Action Plan.