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The Sierra Club is an environmental organization founded on May 28, 1892 in San Francisco, California by the well-known conservationist/preservationist John Muir, who became its first president. The Sierra Club has hundreds of thousands of members in chapters located throughout the United States, and is affiliated with Sierra Club of/du Canada. The Sierra Club is governed by a fifteen-member volunteer Board of Directors. Each year, five directors are elected to three-year terms, with all Club members eligible to vote. A president is elected annually by the Board from among its members and receives a small stipend. All club members also belong to chapters (usually state-wide), and to local groups. National and local special interest sections, committees, and task forces address particular topics. Policies are set at the appropriate level, but on any issue the club has only one policy.

1 Mission statement

  1. Explore, enjoy and protect the wild places of the earth.
  2. Practice and promote the responsible use of the earth's ecosystems and resources.
  3. Educate and enlist humanity to protect and restore the quality of the natural and human environment.
  4. Use all lawful means to carry out these objectives.

2 Priorities and campaigns

In order to focus attention on particular issues the Sierra Club's national and local entities select priorities and organize campaigns. The current national priorities (as of 2004) are: clean water, an end to commercial logging, stopping sprawl, and protecting wildlands. Campaigns to achieve those and other priorities are planned and conducted chiefly by volunteeers in the various club entities, with help of small support staffs. The club also hires people for campaigns through the Fund for Public Interest Research , as do some other members of the activism industry.

3 Protecting rivers

One long-standing goal of the Sierra Club has been opposition to inappropriate dams. In the early 20th century19th century 20th century 21st century more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901- 2000 in the sense of the Gre, the organization fought against the damming and flooding of the Hetch Hetchy ValleyHetch Hetchy Valley is a glacial valley in Yosemite National Park in California. It is currently completely flooded by O'Shaughnessy Dam, forming the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. The Tuolumne River fills the reservoir. The Hetch Hetchy Road drops into the vall in Yosemite National ParkYosemite Designation National park Location California USA Nearest City Modesto, California Latitude 37° 45' N Longitude 119° 30' W Area 761,266 acres3080. 73 km˛ Date of Establishment September 25 1890 Visitation 3,380,038 (2003) Governing Body National. Despite this lobbying, CongressThe United States Congress is the legislative branch of the United States federal government. The structure and responsibilities of Congress are defined in Article One of the United States Constitution. The United States Congress is bicameral, meaning tha authorized the construction of O'Shaughnessy DamThe O'Shaughnessy Dam is a dam on the Tuolumne River in the Hetch Hetchy Valley of California's Sierra Nevada mountains. It creates the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. The dam provides water and electricity to the city of San Francisco and to farmers in the San J on the Tuolumne RiverThe Tuolumne River is one of the major rivers draining the western slope Sierra Nevada mountains of California. It is the slightly larger northern neighbor of the Merced River; both of these originate in Yosemite National Park. Through successive Ice ages. The Sierra Club continues to lobby for removal of the dam, urging that San Francisco's water needs be accommodated instead by the re-engineering of the Don Pedro Reservoir downstream.

The Sierra Club advocates the decommissioning of Glen Canyon DamGlen Canyon Dam is a dam on the Colorado River at Page, Arizona. The dam has been controversial since its inception, because it caused the flooding of Glen Canyon to create a man-made reservoir, Lake Powell. The dam is 1,560 feet long along its crest, 300 and the draining of Lake Powell. The Club also supports removal, breaching or decommissioning of many other dams.



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