Barry Nelson gave a touching tribute in memory of David Nesmith “Chicken” during the California River Awards on April 25, 2025.

Friends of the River mourns the passing of one of the giants of California water law, Harrison C. Dunning, known as “Hap” since childhood, on March 31, at the age of 86.

Hap was one of the foremost scholars of water law in the state. A long-time professor of law at the University of California at Davis, he started a course in water law there and taught many of the state’s leading water attorneys. The results of his efforts to highlight the uses and importance of the public trust doctrine were cited in the California Supreme Court’s historic Mono Lake decision…

One of California’s most knowledgeable and colorful water warriors, Bill Kier, passed away on November 14, 2024. He was 89. Bill spent his entire career working to conserve and protect the state’s endangered native fish and wildlife species from unsustainable water uses and other threats, starting in the late 1950s as a biologist at the California Department of Fish and Game, where he helped developed instream flow assessment methods and eventually became chief of the water projects branch…

Friends of the River mourns the passing of Lloyd Carter, 76, who played a key role in exposing the environmental catastrophe at Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge...

Brent Blackwelder recently passed away. He had a long and important career as an environmental leader in our nation’s capital. His passing is worth publishing a trinity of short remembrances by three of us who worked with him…

Bob Hackamack passed away at age 90 in late April of this year. I always called Bob Mr. Tuolumne River for his decades of pioneering work to protect the Tuolumne River…