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Iva Warner papers
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Collection Details
 
Table of contents What's This?
  • Descriptive Summary
  • Access
  • Publication Rights
  • Preferred Citation
  • Acquisition Information
  • Biography/Administrative History
  • Scope and Content of Collection
  • Indexing Terms
  • Additional collection guides

  • Descriptive Summary

    Title: Iva Warner papers
    Dates: 1963-1994
    Collection Number: Consult repository.
    Creator/Collector: Warner, Iva May, 1912-2005. Sonoma County Tomorrow. Sonoma Land Trust.
    Extent: 4 boxes
    Online items available
    Repository: Sonoma State University Library
    Rohnert Park, California 94928
    Abstract: Balancing an integrated program to maintain environmental quality along Coastal California, Iva May Warner has faced nearly insurmountable odds for over a decade. Joining two former Feinstone Award (the Sol Feinstone Environmental Award, given by State University of New York) recipients, the late Dorothy Erskine of San Francisco and Sylvia McLaughlin of Berkeley, she opposed a dam on the Russian River, mustering expert testimony on engineering, geology, earthquake analysis, biology and stream degradation from some 200 citizen volunteers. Even though the Warm Springs Dam is being built today, a number of modifications were effected that provide safety features and ameliorate environmental degradation. Warner was prominent in the effort to form the state Coastal Commission to protect the coastline from over-development, and the succeeding Coastal Act of 1976, both of which have had significant results. Her other projects have included opposition to aqueducts which could have opened all of Sonoma County to development, protecting the fishery in the Eel and Russian rivers, proposing land disposal waste water reclamation, implementation and monitoring the Sonoma County and Santa Rosa General Plans, farmland preservation, and opposition to stream channelization. Another focus was to pass the State Water Conservation Initiative, an attempt to revise water law established in 1928. Iva Warner was an active member and president of the environmental group Sonoma County Tomorrow, and participated in battles over coastal development and protection of North Bay waterways.
    Language of Material: English

    Access

    Collection is open for research by appointment.

    Publication Rights

    The library can only claim physical ownership of the collection. Users are responsible for satisfying any claimants of literary property.

    Preferred Citation

    [Identification of item]. Iva Warner papers. Collection Number: Consult repository.. Sonoma State University Library

    Biography/Administrative History

    Iva May Warner was born in Otay, California on October 21, 1912. She had an older brother and sister from her father’s previous marriage. She never married or had children and died in 2005 at the age of 93 in Petaluma, Sonoma County, California. Iva had an interesting and full life as an activist, environmentalist, school teacher and as president of Sonoma County Tomorrow - an organization interested in the “quality of life in Sonoma County”. She was a leading player in the fight to keep Warm Springs Dam, which created Lake Sonoma, from being built. She lost the fight to not have the Dam built, but the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers redesigned the Dam so it would be more sensitive to the environment and future potential earthquakes. Iva’s roots in Sonoma County went back two generations as her grandfather led a wagon train west from Illinois to the Dry Creek Valley which was downstream from the site of the Warm Springs Dam.

    Scope and Content of Collection

    The collection is comprised of four boxes of materials and one scrapbook.

    Indexing Terms

    Environmentalists -- California -- Sonoma County, (Calif.)
    Political activism -- Sonoma County (Calif.)
    Public lands -- California -- Sonoma County (Calif.)
    Warner, Iva May, 1912-2005.
    Sonoma County Tomorrow (Organization).
    Sonoma Land Trust (Organization).
    Sonoma County (Calif.).
    Warm Springs Dam (Calif.).
    Environmentalists.
    Activists.

    Additional collection guides