Secretary
Max Gomberg
Max Gomberg is a senior policy advisor and board member for the California Water Impact Network and the former Climate and Conservation Manager for the State Water Resources Control Board. He is an expert in state and federal water policy and has focused on equitable policies targeting affordability and cost allocation.
Max grew up in Oakland and graduated from the University of Chicago with a degree in Environmental Studies. After college, he joined The U.S. Peace Corps and spent two years (2000-2002) as an environmental educator in Nicaragua.
Max lived and taught in Puerto Cabezas (Bilwi) on Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast, a region populated primarily by the indigenous Miskitu people. Living and teaching in Bilwi had an especially profound effect on his perception of indigenous communities and their relationships with the natural world.
“I was there to teach about environmental issues, but I learned far more than I taught,” he observes.
After returning to the US in 2003, he struggled to find full-time employment; but after 18 months he secured a position with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in San Francisco as an investigator.
Max’s remit for the EEOC was simple enough: investigate cases of discrimination and harassment in the workplace. He was never short of work.
“It was an eye-opener,” he says. “Despite explicit rules and laws, overt discrimination was—and is—rampant in the workplace. My time with the EEOC really brought home how deeply rooted discrimination is in our society, and how blithely people in power violate the laws against it. I saw a lot of ugly things during my investigations, and it felt good to help victims fight against them.”
Two cases stand out in Max’s memory: one involving a police department with an all-male leadership that was relentlessly persecuting a young female officer, and the second concerning a physician who harassed female staff and patients at the hospital where he worked.
“In each situation, I had to interview victims and witnesses and build a body of evidence strong enough to warrant action by the Commission,” Max says. “The testimonies of the victims were grim, and I was stonewalled both by the people we were investigating and their attorneys. There was no doubt in my mind that they felt they could push me around because I was young and new to the job. But we were able to make strong cases that were ultimately resolved to benefit the victims. It showed me you can make a difference if you do solid work and aren’t dissuaded by intimidation.”
After working as an EEOC investigator for a year, Max went back to school at UCLA to earn a degree in public policy.
“I realized that I wanted to help make systemic change,” he recalls.
After completing his master’s degree, Max served as an analyst in the consumer advocate division at the California Public Utilities Commission. There he reviewed proposed water utility investments and wrote testimony on behalf of utility ratepayers. He spent more than five years with the Commission, concentrating on the economics of major infrastructure projects, including desalination and dam removal.
“The CPUC approves water rates, and I learned the ins-and-outs of water utility operations during my time there,” Max says. “Part of the role of the consumer advocate is to call BS on the gold-plating and excessive spending that goes on—and you didn’t have to look that hard to find it. It was challenging work, and a great skills-building experience.”
While at the CPUC, Max attended meetings of an interagency working group formed to advance water and energy climate change mitigation strategies. There, he met Frances Spivy-Weber, the Water Board Vice-Chair, who told him that he had to come up to Sacramento if he really wanted to affect state water policy.
“I took her observation to heart, and I got a job with the Water Board during Jerry Brown’s administration—I was the first person hired specifically to advise the Water Board on climate response strategy.”
Max didn’t see eye-to-eye with Jerry Brown on some water issues, but he did appreciate the way Brown approached his staff, some of whom he got to know while commuting by Amtrak and carpool to Sacramento.
“I certainly didn’t agree with his plans for the Twin Tunnels,” Max says. “But the good thing about Governor Brown was he was generally hands-off with the agencies. He invested his time in two or three things that he really cared about, and he let his appointees handle the rest. And he made sure they had the authority to do their jobs. That gave them the leeway they needed to identify effective solutions, which often entailed pushing back against corporate power interests. Generally speaking, the more a governor interferes with agencies, the more they tip to industry.”
Gavin Newson, on the other hand, made it clear from the outset that the agencies could expect no autonomy during his administration. He would set the agenda; they would implement his policies.
“Basically, he was smacking people down for doing their jobs properly,” Max says. “In terms of water policy, he did one admirable thing—secure a funding source for safe drinking water solutions. But he fired Felicia Marcus, the Chair of the State Water Resources Control Board, who was a strong advocate for regulation and enforcement. That made environmental protection less than a pressing concern at the Board.”
Max became increasingly disillusioned with Newson’s interference with the State Water Board and the unwillingness of the Board’s leadership to push back.
“The Board had made a commitment to racial equity,” he recalls, “but that commitment meant nothing when it came to advancing the agenda of corporate agriculture.”
In July 2022, Max resigned his position to considerable press coverage – adding to growing outrage from environmentalists and water equity advocates over the Newsom administration’s anti-environmental water policies. But while he has left government service for the foreseeable future, he remains focused on water policy reform. He currently is a board member and senior policy advisor for the California Water Impact Network, the state’s lead organization for water reallocation and the protection of water and fisheries as public trust resources.
“I am committed to a just transition – one that supports food security and sustainable agricultural water use while repairing our rivers and uplifting the tribes and communities who continue to be harmed by racism and greed,” he says. “This is the work of a lifetime, and I am honored to be part of ‘the good fight.’”