WaterWired

CRS Testimony: 'Water Infrastructure for the 21st Century - The Viability of Incorporating Natural Infrastructure in Bureau of Reclamation Water Management Systems'

This is different from the usual CRS report; it's the 24 March 2021 testimony of staff member Charles V. Stern before the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water and Power U.S. Senate: 'Water Infrastructure for the 21st Century - The Viability of Incorporating Natural Infrastructure in Bureau of Reclamation Water Management Systems'.

Download CRS Testimony_Water_Infra_21stCentury_24March2021

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Opening Statement
Chairman Wyden, ranking member Hyde-Smith, and members of the subcommittee, my name is Charles Stern. I am a Specialist in Natural Resources Policy at the Congressional Research Service (CRS). Thank you for inviting CRS to testify. This CRS statement focuses on the authorities of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) and provides relevant general context on natural and nature-based infrastructure.

In serving Congress on a nonpartisan and objective basis, CRS takes no position on legislation and makes no recommendations. CRS remains available to assist the subcommittee in its development and consideration of water resource and other legislation.

I will start by providing context for federal efforts on natural infrastructure. I will then discuss the Bureau of Reclamation’s authorities and potential opportunities for the incorporation of natural infrastructure in its activities, including questions for policy makers.

Background on Natural Infrastructure
Historically, researchers, practitioners, and decisionmakers have used a variety of terms to describe natural features and combinations of traditional hard or gray features with natural components that are used to restore or mimic natural processes. These features may be implemented to achieve certain objectives for humans and wildlife. Some of the most common terms used to describe these features include natural infrastructure, nature-based infrastructure, green infrastructure, natural features, and nature-based features, among others. I will use the term “natural infrastructure” in this testimony, but others stakeholders may use different terms.

Natural infrastructure sits on a continuum from natural areas, such as forested lands, to combinations of natural “green” components and engineered or “gray” (e.g., rock, steel, and concrete) components. The benefits of using natural infrastructure include a range of functions, or ecosystem services, such as evaporation, infiltration into the ground, water storage (i.e., within soils, groundwater, and wetlands), erosion and sediment regulation, flood and drought protection, natural resource provisioning (e.g., fisheries, agricultural products, and hydropower), carbon sequestration, and aesthetic and recreation value, among others. Examples of various types of natural infrastructure are depicted below in Figure 1.

Selected Federal Agency Definitions and Applications of Natural Infrastructure
Some federal agencies have supported natural infrastructure under existing statutory authorities. For example, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has supported the use of natural infrastructure features to fulfill the agency’s mandate to research, restore, and conserve natural resources. However, Congress has not defined natural infrastructure in statutes related to NOAA activities. Where Congress has been involved, interest in natural infrastructure has evolved over time. While interest may have been initially in the environmental and social benefits of natural infrastructure, especially as part of restoration efforts, interest in the economic benefits of these features has grown.

In recent years, Congress has begun to explicitly define natural infrastructure, as well as nature-based and green infrastructure, in statute for some federal agencies. Congress has directed selected agencies to consider and use natural infrastructure in specific ways. For example, as part of the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act of 2016 (P.L. 114-322), Congress defined a natural feature as a feature “created through the action of physical, geological, biological, and chemical processes over time,” and a nature-based feature as “a feature that is created by human design, engineering, and construction to provide risk reduction by acting in concert with natural processes.” Congress enacted these definitions in the context of the water resource authorities of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). USACE refers to these features collectively as natural and nature-based features (NNBFs). In the same legislation, Congress directed USACE to consider NNBFs in its planning of flood risk management, hurricane and storm damage reduction, and ecosystem restoration projects. As discussed later in this testimony, Congress also provided similar definitions in amendments to the Reclamation WaterSMART program authorized in the Western Water and Indian Affairs title of P.L. 116-260.

Congress has also defined green infrastructure, a similar but not always synonymous term, in the context of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) authorities under the Clean Water Act (CWA). Under the 2019 Water Infrastructure Improvement Act (P.L. 115-436), green infrastructure is defined as “the range of measures that use plant or soil systems, permeable pavement or other permeable surfaces or substrates, stormwater harvest and reuse, or landscaping to store, infiltrate, or evapotranspirate stormwater and reduce flows to sewer systems or to surface waters.” The act also directed EPA to promote the use of green infrastructure in CWA permitting and enforcement, planning efforts, research, technical assistance, and funding guidance.

Other agencies may have their own working definitions that were developed administratively. For example, NOAA defines natural infrastructure as “healthy ecosystems, including forests, wetlands, floodplains, dune systems, and reefs, which provide multiple benefits to communities, including stormprotection through wave attenuation or flood storage capacity and enhanced water services and security.” NOAA describes nature-based infrastructure as “engineered systems where natural features are combined with more hard or structural engineering approaches to create a hybrid system.”

Natural Infrastructure in the Context of Water Availability
In the water availability context, natural infrastructure primarily addresses water supply, rather than demand, through managing water storage, infiltration, and conveyance. These efforts may include conserving and restoring forests, reconnecting rivers to floodplains, creating spaces for bioretention and infiltration, and combining one or more of these features with managed aquifer recharge. Some of the benefits of these actions may include reducing flash flooding, increasing groundwater storage, and improving late season runoff, among other things. There are a variety of options to support the implementation of these features, including direct financial support, technical assistance, grants, loans, tax incentives, and payments for ecosystem services, among other things.

Multiple federal agencies provide support for natural infrastructure that improves water availability; this support is typically provided to meet various objectives and mission areas. For example, the Department of the Interior (DOI; including Reclamation), EPA, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) all have broad authorities to provide financial assistance for aquifer recharge. At the same time, USACE, NOAA, USDA, and multiple bureaus within DOI, among others, all have authorities that support the use of natural infrastructure to restore portions of ecosystems at various scales.

Keep reading - good stuff from one of the best at CRS!

Enjoy!

"Life would be much easier to understand if mother nature gave us the source code. "
- Graeme MacWilliam

AWWA Letter to Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO)

Thanks again to G. Tracy Mehan III, executive director for government affairs at the American Water Works Association, who sent me three previous letters letter he sent to assorted government officials, including President Joe Biden (as President-Elect) and EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan. You can find all three letters here.  

This letter is from AWWA CEO David LaFrance to Sen. Michael Bennet of AWWA's home state of Colorado and the incoming chair of the very important Senate Agriculture Subcommittee on Conservation, Climate, Forestry, and Natural Resources. A PDF is below as is the entire letter pasted below that

Download AWWA Letter Senator Bennet 3-24-21

24 March 2021

Honorable Michael Bennet
261 Russell Senate Building
Washington, DC 20510

Subject: Chairmanship of Senate Agriculture Subcommittee on Conservation, Climate, Forestry, and Natural Resources

Dear Senator Bennet:

Congratulations on your appointment as chair of the Senate Agriculture Subcommittee on Conservation, Climate, Forestry, and Natural Resources. As the CEO of the Denver-based American Water Works Association (AWWA), I view your subcommittee as being absolutely critical to advancing the Nation’s efforts in solving our long-standing water and climate issues. Our 4,500 utility members and 50,000 individual members collectively provide drinking water to more than 80 percent of the American public.

The critical importance of your subcommittee cannot be overstated. Before his passing, William Ruckelshaus, the first Administrator of EPA, stated that in 1970 some 85 percent of our water quality impairments came from point sources, while 15 percent came from nonpoint sources. By the year 2010, 40 years later, the figures were reversed, with 85 percent of water impairments coming from nonpoint sources and 15 percent from point sources.1 Nonpoint runoff, particularly nutrients, has manifested itself in the growth of harmful algal blooms and the proliferation of hypoxic zones in our lakes and estuaries. Consequently, we experience greatly increased costs in providing safe, potable drinking water. Source water protection, measures to help protect and improve waters sources used for drinking water, was emphasized in the 2018 Farm Bill for the first time.

We also face the dire necessity of addressing global climate change and urgent needs to sequester carbon, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and develop alternative energy sources.

Given that agriculture accounts for the bulk of privately-owned land in the continental United States, your subcommittee stands squarely in the nexus of these issues and the ability to address them is within your jurisdiction.

Your efforts to advance conservation in the 2018 Farm Bill were much appreciated, and we continue to support your approach of working with agricultural interests in a voluntary, cooperative manner. We, too, believe that farmers, ranchers and woodland owners have a key role in addressing the issues described above. In Colorado, we have been fortunate to have worked cooperatively with both the Forest Service and the Natural Resources Conservation Service. Two recent examples: Denver Water worked cross jurisdictionally with the Forest Service and NRCS to restore both Federal and private lands burned by wildfires and, most recently, NRCS designated a key future water supply watershed for Denver as a National Water Quality Initiative area which will receive extra funding and emphasis to protect source water.

We are particularly excited to know that your subcommittee will soon begin developing the conservation and forestry titles of what will be the 2023 Farm Bill. During development of the 2018 Farm, Bill, AWWA advocated emphasizing source water protection to help protect the nation’s drinking water using established voluntary conservation methods. AWWA also has a keen interest in simplifying and expanding the Regional Conservation Partnership Program, as many of our members are active partners in projects around the country.

AWWA is willing to provide any input you feel would be helpful. If you wish to discuss this further, I can be reached at 303-910-4618 or at dlafrance@awwa.org. Alternatively, your staff can contact Tracy Mehan, executive director of AWWA Government Affairs, in Washington, D.C., at 202-326-6125 or at tmehan@awwa.org.

Again, congratulations on becoming the chair of the Senate Agriculture Subcommittee on Conservation, Climate, Forestry, and Natural Resources. We look forward to working with you.

Sincerely,

David LaFrance
CEO, American Water Works Association

cc: Honorable Michael Bennet
Cesar E. Chavez Memorial Building
1244 Speer Boulevard
Denver, CO 80204

Enjoy!

“In the West, when you touch water, you touch everything.” – Rep. Wayne N. Aspinall (D-CO), 1896-1983

Interested in 'California Groundwater'? Write a Short Article for AWRA's Water Resources IMPACT!

No, this is not a premature April Fools' Day joke - it's the real deal! Everyone's favorite California WaterWonk Lisa Beutler and yours truly - ex-New Yorker and erstwhile Golden Stater (Truckee and Santa Cruz) WaterWired/Aquadoc are co-editing the May-June 2021 issue of Water Resources IMPACT with the theme 'California Groundwater' We need your help in populating the issue with 6 - 8 short (800 - 1300 words, more or less) articles.

Why California? Well, we've done at least two issues on Florida and one on Texas. Why not our neighbor and most populous state with so much happening vis-a-vis groundwater?

We are not seeking journal-style articles but ones that are much shorter, less technical, and written in a conversational, 'story-telling' style. The audience will be water-resources practitioners and students who are not necessarily groundwater geeks; even those who aren't WaterWonks read the magazine, which is published online-only. Circulation is a couple thousand or so.

What kinds of topics might be appropriate? In a broad sense anything 'groundwater', such as (those highlighted in red are spoken for):

 

1) Is Managing/Governing California Groundwater a Wicked Water Problem?

2) California Hydrogeology: The View from Thirty-Thousand Feet   

3) SGMA: Water Under the Bridge or an Idea Whose Time Has Come?

4) Community-Based Groundwater Management: Case Studies

5) Groundwater Drinking Water Contamination in the Central Valley: Systemic Racism?

6) Native American Groundwater Issues

7) Groundwater Management: The Legacy of Elinor Ostrom

8) Flood-MAR and Related Solutions

9) What California Can Teach Us about Groundwater Management and Governance

10) Transboundary Groundwater (within state and with other political jurisdictions) 

11) Climate Change and Groundwater

12) Law, Policy, Governance, Management

13) A Critique of California Groundwater Regulations

14) California Dowsin': Fact, Folklore, or Freedom of Speech

15) Managing Water and Crops with Groundwater Salinity

The aforementioned list is no all-inclusive. Many of you have no doubt thought of a number of topics that are missing. That's great! If you think your proposed topic is too speculative or 'off the wall' - run it past us. If it is labeled as such - no problem? We like thinking outside the box.  

If you have never seen a copy of Water Resources IMPACT, take a look at our current issue Connecting Land and Water for Healthy Communities, edited by our friend and colleague Mike Antos. 

If you are interested in submitting an article please let me and Lisa know as soon as possible by sending a title and several sentences. We would like the complete articles by 21 April or so. We have some flexibility. Emails: Lisa: lisa.beutler@stantec.com; Michael: Michael.Campana@oregonstate.edu. My cell is 541-602-4085. Please don't send an article written without checking with us first; we don't want you wasting your time. We will post here the titles of approved articles. Previously-written articles may be suitable for publication in Water Resources IMPACT. 

Here are author instructions:

Download IMPACT Author Instructions_08.2019

Questions? Let me know ASAP.

Thank you!

“Best way to live in California is to be from somewhere else.” – Cormac Mccarthy

V.B. Price Column: Interior Secretary Deb Haaland

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland

by V.B. Price

I share with many New Mexicans a feeling of immense pride in the appointment and confirmation of our Congresswoman Deb Haaland from Laguna Pueblo to be America’s 54^th Secretary of the Interior. She joins former New Mexico Congressman Manuel Luján, Jr., who served as Interior Secretary from 1989 to 1993, in holding that most powerful and influential office that affects the well-being and quality of life of people across the United States and particularly in the water-starved American West.

Haaland and Luján, Jr. have many sterling qualities in common, not in policy and politics, but in style and affability. Both represented Albuquerque’s 1st Congressional District. Both had a bipartisan temperament while being highly partisan, a quality that endeared them to many and helped make them effective congressional players. Both were master practitioners of the art of constituent service, blessed with personal political skills.

Even though I disagreed with Republican Luján, Jr. on almost every issue, I considered him a friend. So now to have an environmental conservationist and climate change warrior such as Deb Haaland, a person with whom I agree about so many crucial issues in the West, as Interior Secretary fills me with a sense of relief and a sense of optimism.

Haaland’s influence on energy generation, Native American rights and water planning in the West is potentially tremendous. The Colorado Compact, which delivers Colorado river water to 40 million Westerners in seven states, will be renegotiated during her tenure and completed in 2026. The fate of urban growth and agricultural sustainability will depend on how equitable the new Compact turns out to be. And hovering over the process will be water hedge fund managers and investors looking to privatize as much water in the West as they can.

As an example of the power of the Secretary of Interior over Western water issues, consider arch libertarian and oil and gas champion Gale Norton, secretary from 2001 to 2006 under President George W. Bush, and her historic action to cut off a vast amount of Colorado River water — nearly 650,000 acre feet (or over 75 percent of what the whole state of New Mexico gets a year) — to Southern California’s cities of Los Angeles and San Diego and to farmers in the Imperial Valley.

The story is complicated, but it boils down to this: blue state California was using water that belonged to red state Arizona under the Colorado Compact. California had to give up using that water when the Central Arizona Project, which delivers Colorado River water to Phoenix and Tucson, was completed. The Department of Interior was willing to wean California off Arizona’s water over a 15-year period if Southern California cities could work a deal with Imperial Valley farmers to buy more water. If they couldn’t, the water would be turned off all at once in two years on January 1, 2003. And they couldn’t.

As the New York Times reported, “Three of the eight pumps that tap into the glistening reservoir of Colorado River water (at Lake Havasu)…are sitting idle, by order of the federal government. With the pumps switched off since 8 a.m New Year’s Day, less water is churning down the 242-mile aqueduct toward coastal Southern California, where 17 million people rely on snowmelt from the Rocky Mountains for washing dishes, flushing toilets and watering lawns.” It was Interior Secretary Gail Norton who turned off the spigots in a historic move that had been threatened, in one way or another, for nearly 40 years.

Deb Haaland will have that kind of potential power. Her actions could determine not only how much Colorado River water New Mexico and other western states get in a protracted and worsening drought but also the momentum of growth in Denver, southern Utah, and other burgeoning cities and states in the West.

The Department of Interior manages one-fifth of the land in the country, along with 476 dams, 348 reservoirs, 410 national parks and monuments and 544 wildlife refuges. It oversees water storage and distribution, along with hydroelectric power, through the Bureau of Reclamation. The Bureau of Land Management controls permits for oil and gas drilling and is in charge of all federal lands not controlled by the U.S. Forest Service. The Bureau of Indian Affairs is the federal government’s principal point of contact with 574 sovereign Native American tribes, which includes two disastrous centuries of negotiating and breaking treaties. Interior also has the Environmental Protection Agency under its administrative umbrella. Only the Departments of Energy and Defense have even marginally comparable influence in New Mexico and the West.

Haaland will have the opportunity to do an immense amount of good for western states and their people, protecting tourist economies around national parks and monuments and supporting the creation of alternative energy industries, among many other initiatives. She might even be able to make significant inroads fixing the intractable problem of cleaning up groundwater pollution on federal lands, which has become not only a health risk but economic poison all over the West.

The Department of Interior will also have much to say about how successful President Biden is in dealing with what he considers to be four major domestic challenges — COVID-19, economic recovery, racial equity and climate change. It will be a leader in what is being called a clean energy revolution to wean the country from fossil fuels and their pollution by 2035.

It will take all of Deb Haaland’s interpersonal skills, political savvy and devotion to sound environmental planning to squeeze the most out of the massive bureaucracy at Interior. And she’ll have to clean out the nest of Trumpian holdovers that have infiltrated the establishment there over the last four years.

As we’ve seen — with the appointment of conservative Secretaries like President Reagan’s James Watt, President Bush’s Gail Norton and President Trump’s Ryan Zinke — the damage inflicted on the environment by the Department of Interior is all about policy and expectations, about setting a course and a destination, about fundamental values and dispositions, about knowing how to get along with people to avoid unnecessary and destructive friction.

Deb Haaland is a legitimate Green New Deal advocate with unbending environmental and social justice values. But she is not an all-or-nothing, dismissive, hate-driven partisan zealot, like those politicians who call her a “radical.” She is willing to listen meaningfully and respectfully to those who oppose her, and, if possible, make accommodations. But her record tells us that she’ll never roll over either. If there’s anyone we can trust to do the right thing in the next four years, it’s her.
 

*Nullius in verba: take nobody’s word for it

Originally published on 21 March 2021
(Photo by Shane Balkowitsch)

Enjoy!

Leave a comment on this blog or here at V.P. Price's site. 

"We must shift our thinking away from short-term gain toward long-term investment and sustainability, and always have the next generations in mind with every decision we make." - Deb Haaland

CRS Report: 'Central Valley Project: Issues and Legislation' Updated 24 March 2021

Charles V. Stern and Pervaze A. Sheikh updated (24 March 2021) this important CRS report: 'Central Valley Project: Issues and Legislation'. This is one of the reports that get updated on a regular basis.

Click on the graphics to display/enlarge them.

Download CRS_Report_CVP_Issues_Legislation_24March2021

Introduction
The Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation), part of the Department of the Interior (DOI), operates the multipurpose federal Central Valley Project (CVP) in California, one of the world’s largest water storage and conveyance systems. The CVP runs approximately 400 miles in California, from Redding to Bakersfield (Figure 1). It supplies water to hundreds of thousands of acres of irrigated agriculture throughout the state, including some of the most valuable cropland in the country. It also provides water to selected state and federal wildlife refuges, as well as to some municipal and industrial (M&I) water users. The CVP’s operations are coordinated with the state’s other largest water supply project, the state-operated State Water Project (SWP).

This report provides information on hydrologic conditions in California and their impact on state and federal water management, with a focus on deliveries related to the federal CVP. It also summarizes selected issues for Congress related to the CVP.

Recent Developments
The drought of 2012-2016, widely considered to be among California’s most severe droughts in recent history, resulted in major reductions to CVP contractor allocations and economic and environmental impacts throughout the state. These impacts were of interest to Congress, which oversees federal operation of the CVP. Although the drought ended with the wet winter of 2017, below-normal hydrologic conditions (e.g., winter snowpack) in 2020 and 2021 have ensured the debate continues. Absent major changes to existing hydrologic, legislative, and regulatory baselines, most agree that at least some water users are likely to face constrained water supplies. Due to the limited water supplies available, proposed changes to the current operations and allocation system are controversial.

As a result of the scarcity of water in the West and the importance of federal water infrastructure to the region, western water issues are regularly of interest to many lawmakers. Legislation enacted in the 114th Congress (Title II of the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation [WIIN] Act; P.L. 114-322) included several CVP-related sections. These provisions directed pumping to “maximize” water supplies for the CVP (including pumping or “exports” to CVP water users south of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers’ confluence with the San Francisco Bay, known as the Bay-Delta or Delta) in accordance with applicable biological opinions (BiOps) for project operations. They also allowed for increased pumping during certain storm events generating high flows, authorized actions to facilitate water transfers, and established a new standard for measuring the effects of water operations on species. In addition to operational.

The drought of 2012-2016, widely considered to be among California’s most severe droughts in recent history, resulted in major reductions to CVP contractor allocations and economic and environmental impacts throughout the state. These impacts were of interest to Congress, which oversees federal operation of the CVP. Although the drought ended with the wet winter of 2017, below-normal hydrologic conditions (e.g., winter snowpack) in 2020 and 2021 have ensured the debate continues. Absent major changes to existing hydrologic, legislative, and regulatory baselines, most agree that at least some water users are likely to face constrained water supplies. Due to the limited water supplies available, proposed changes to the current operations and allocation system are controversial.

As a result of the scarcity of water in the West and the importance of federal water infrastructure to the region, western water issues are regularly of interest to many lawmakers. Legislation enacted in the 114th Congress (Title II of the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation [WIIN] Act; P.L. 114-322) included several CVP-related sections. These provisions directed pumping to “maximize” water supplies for the CVP (including pumping or “exports” to CVP water users south of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers’ confluence with the San Francisco Bay, known as the Bay-Delta or Delta) in accordance with applicable biological opinions (BiOps) for project operations. They also allowed for increased pumping during certain storm events generating high flows, authorized actions to facilitate water transfers, and established a new standard for measuring the effects of water operations on species. In addition to operational

Background
California’s Central Valley encompasses almost 20,000 square miles in the center of the state (Figure 1). It is bound by the Cascade Range to the north, the Sierra Nevada to the east, the Tehachapi Mountains to the south, and the Coast Ranges and San Francisco Bay to the west. The northern third of the valley is drained by the Sacramento River, and the southern two-thirds of the valley are drained by the San Joaquin River. Historically, this area was home to significant fish and wildlife populations.

The CVP was originally conceived as a state project; the state studied the project as early as 1921, and the California state legislature formally authorized it for construction in 1933. After it became clear that the state was unable to finance the project, the federal government (through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, or USACE) assumed control of the CVP as a public works construction project under authority provided under the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1935.4 The Franklin D. Roosevelt Administration subsequently transferred the project to Reclamation. Construction on the first unit of the CVP (Contra Costa Canal) began in October 1937, with water first delivered in 1940. Additional CVP units were completed and came online over time, and some USACE-constructed units have also been incorporated into the project. The New Melones Unit was the last unit of the CVP to come online; it was completed in 1978 and began operations in 1979.

The CVP made significant changes to California’s natural hydrology to develop water supplies for irrigated agriculture, municipalities, and hydropower, among other things. Most of the CVP’s major units, however, predated major federal natural resources and environmental protection laws such as ESAand the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA; 42 U.S.C. §§4321 et seq.), among others. Thus, much of the current debate surrounding the project revolves around how to address the project’s changes to California’s hydrologic system that were not major considerations when it was constructed.

Today, CVP water serves a variety of different purposes for both human uses and fish and wildlife needs. The CVP provides a major source of support for California agriculture, which is first in the nation in terms of farm receipts. CVP water supplies irrigate more than 3 million acres of land in central California and support 7 of California’s top 10 agricultural counties. In addition, CVP M&I water provides supplies for approximately 2.5 million people per year. CVP operations are also critical for hydropower, recreation, and fish and wildlife protection. In addition to fisheries habitat, CVP flows support wetlands, which provide habitat for migrating birds.

Cutting to the chase...

Concluding Observations
The CVP is one of the largest and most complex water storage and conveyance projects in the world. Congress has regularly expressed interest in CVP operations and allocations, in particular pumping in the Bay-Delta. In addition to ongoing oversight of project operations and previously enacted authorities, a number of developing issues and proposals related to the CVP may be of interest to congressional decisionmakers. These include study and approval of new water storage and conveyance projects, updates to the state’s Bay-Delta Water Quality Plan, and the status of previous efforts by the Trump Administration to make available more water for CVP water contractors, in particular those south of the Delta. Drought or other stressors on California water supplies are likely to further magnify these issues.

Enjoy - and read it all, especially the tables and figures.

"There are two things that cannot be taken out of water: one is salt and the other is politics." – J. Turley