About CRS - California Resource Strategies

WATER. Strategic Advocacy, Communications Development & Government Relations

Craig Johns founded California Resource Strategies in 2001 to provide its clients with specialized regulatory and legislative advocacy services focused on water quality, water supply and development, and related environmental issues.

We offer our clients unique expertise and a proven track record in handling complex and thorny water-related policy, permitting and enforcement.

California Resource Strategies

Focused on solving water quality problems. recycled water projects. environmental technology development. water specific legislative advocation. contaminated site investigation, remediation, and closure. state water resources control board. regional water quality control boards. CEQA / NEPA analysis. litigation support services.

Some of our clients ask us to help them navigate and comply with state and federal water quality and resource protection laws. Other clients engage us to help them understand and affect water and other environmental policies being developed in Sacramento.

Craig Johns water conference

California Resource Strategies is unique among Sacramento advocacy and government relations firms. We focus solely on water quality, water resources, and related environmental issues.

Printable Supporting Docs

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Craig Johns, Professional Biography

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Conference Presentations

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Articles & Publications

Meet Craig Johns

As a former regulator, Craig Johns presided over and participated in several hundred NPDES, WDR and 401 Certification applications. This experience has made CRS’ ability to help its clients wade through difficult Regional and State Water Board processes unparalleled.

CRS founder and president, Craig Johns, has been working on water quality and water development issues in California for more than 25 years. Mr. Johns got his start in the water resources field shortly after graduating from UC Davis School of Law in 1988. Within three years after beginning his private law career, he was asked by then-Governor Pete Wilson to serve on the San Francisco Regional Water Quality Control Board.

During two terms on the Regional Board, he was elected to serve as Chair and Vice-Chair by his fellow Board Members. He also served for four years as the Regional Board’s representative on the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission.

During his time on the Regional Water Board and BCDC, Mr. Johns was asked to participate in and lead many State Water Board-assembled advisory groups and task forces, helping to craft emerging water policies in the areas of underground soil and groundwater contamination, leaking underground fuel tanks, Total Maximum Daily Loads, sediment toxicity criteria, and Cal/EPA’s “Cumulative Impacts and Precautionary Approaches” policy.

Through these experiences, Mr. Johns has gained unmatched insights into the inner-workings of the State and Regional Water Board system as well as many of the other Cal/EPA boards, departments and agencies. He regularly appears on behalf of clients before the State Water Board as well as several of the Regional Water Boards.

Mr. Johns has drafted, negotiated amendments to, and successfully advocated the adoption of several water-related bills in the California Legislature.

Recently, he was chiefly responsible for drafting and negotiating amendments to AB 134 (Dickinson), a measure that would enable one of his municipal clients to seek an appropriative water right equal in volume to the amount of treated wastewater discharged by that agency.

Mr. Johns received his Juris Doctorate from the UC Davis School of Law, and his undergraduate degree from UCLA.

California Resource Strategies is a passionate supporter of the organization, Charity: water.