WaterWired

The GRAC 2021 Summit 9-10 June - 'Must See' Event for Regional Groundwater Practitioners - 'Make Sustainable Attainable'

The Groundwater Resources Association of California is convening its Fourth Annual GSA Summit: Working Toward Implementation, 9-10 June, 8:30 AM - 5 PM. PDT. This is a virtual event.

My friend and colleague Todd Jarvis (a GRAC Director) stated it aptly:

This meeting is quickly becoming the “must see” event for regional groundwater practitioners because of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act of 2014 - one of the few laws in the world focusing on groundwater sustainability.

He's spot-on with that last statement - the SGMA is one of the few laws on Earth dealing with groundwater sustainability. He's all spot-on with this conference. I have never known him to even dabble in hyperbole - hyperbolas, maybe.

Here's the blurb:

Join fellow groundwater managers, regulators and technical experts for GRA’s Fourth Annual GSA Summit: Working Toward Implementation. 

In this two-day virtual event – you’ll learn with GSAs working towards a sustainable future. The format of this virtual conference features interactive panels and round tables to get deep into the issues GSAs are facing as they work on the second year of GSP development, or are starting on implementation activities. You’ll have a chance to hear directly from DWR and SWRCB about review findings and year one implementation progress.

Sessions will focus on lessons learned from GSAs that will have completed annual reporting twice since GSP adoption, how those data management systems are really working, accessing and putting to use implementation funding, developing and designing projects for basin sustainability, and the march toward five year updates.

Last year’s GSA Summit included over 130 attendees working at or with GSAs and tuning in to share input and raise the bar for all. Feedback received was exceptional and we will have a more interactive platform this year. Mark your calendar June 9^th and 10^th for GRA’s Fourth Annual GSA Summit: Working Toward Implementation!

Here is the draft agenda.

Want to be a sponsor? Sign up bu 31 May - click here. Register by 7 June - click here.

I hope our AWRA Water Resources IMPACT special issue on California Groundwater is out by then!

"Make sustainable attainable." - Unknown (maybe yours truly)

Earth Day 2021: 1) Did I Really Build a Dam on Earth Day 1970?; 2) Climate Adaptation Academy

Happy Earth Day! I will not pen too long a post about Earth Day 2021. Other things will occupy my time on this 52nd Earth Day - such as promoting our upcoming 'adaptation academy' - see below.

I do remember the first Earth Day in 1970. I was 21, about to graduate with a BS in Geology from the College of William and Mary, get married, and head to the wild west - Tucson, Arizona, and the University of Arizona where I would study a new field - hydrology. It was a great excuse for many (but not moi) to skip classes but I actually helped do something useful: build a dam. 

Build a dam? On Earth Day? Did we not get the message down there in the Colonial Capital of the Old Dominion? 

Runoff (I knew some hydrologic terms even then) from a construction site was dumping (I knew enviro-lingo even then - 'dumping', not 'transporting' or 'depositing') sediment into our beloved Lake Matoaka, hallowed site of many ancient and sacred rituals (annual 3.2 beer can regatta, etc.). Thomas Jefferson, he who founded The University but attended W&M, reputedly lost his virginity there every week or so. These epochal events were celebrated nightly by many reverent, tradition-conscious undergraduates and wayward faculty. 

W&M didn't have an engineering program, so dam construction was left to geologists (not a bad idea - think Oroville Dam spillway). What, we were going to ask the physics majors? We'd still be arguing about strength of materials, charge density, and moments of inertia.

So build we did.

My sed-strat classmates (I had none who would admit to being geomorphologists) protested our plans because they wanted to witness an event that normally took millennia to complete: formation of a delta. But led by paleontologist Dr. Gerry Johnson, we won the day, constructed the dam (a replica of which is shown here), and saved our beloved waterway from premature infilling. 

There was much celebrating that evening at the lake. And much contamination the next day - something I trust Earth Day 1971 addressed.

And that's the truth (at least the part about building the dam).

Since 1970 I learned that the date for Earth Day was set for 22 April because it is about midway between spring break and the end of the term in American universities. It was envisioned as a holiday on which students could partake in environmental activities. 

How's this for an interesting Earth Day factoid? Richard M. Nixon (R) - during whose presidency the EPA, Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act and the Endangered Species Act were all created - died on this day in 1994. Who would have imagined that? 

Here is our 'adaptation academy' flyer:  Download CASTT Adaptation Academy flyer v2

We at OSU are collaborating with IHE-Delft,AIT, UNFCCC, AGWA and the Korean Adaptation Center for Climate Change. 

“When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world." -- John Muir

Interstate Council on Water Policy: Letter to President-Elect Joe Biden - Top Water Priorities

Just came across this letter to President-Elect Joe Biden from the Interstate Council on Water Policy. The ICWP is based in Cheyenne, WY, and seems to be more focused on river basins (as opposed to groundwater basins). But that's okay.

Download BidenTransitionTeamDec72020FINAL

Here is an earlier letter to Mr. Biden from AWWA. Since AWWA and ICWP have different water interests their letters emphasize different issues. The Pacific Institute has a video and a 6-pager. 

December 7, 2020

The Honorable Joe Biden President-Elect United States of America
1120 20th St. NW
Washington, DC 20036

Attn: Dr. Cecilia Martinez, CEQ Review Team
Kevin Washburn, Dept. of Interior Review Team
Cristin Dorgelo, Office of Science and Technology Policy Review Team
Geovette Washington, Dept. of Commerce Review Team
Kath Hicks, Dept. of Defense Review Team

Dear President-Elect Biden:

The Interstate Council on Water Policy (ICWP) congratulates you on winning the 2020 election. You will take office during a critical moment in U.S. history, and we are confident your commitment to research and science will serve you well. Formed in 1959, the ICWP membership consists of state, interstate and local water management agencies as well as affiliates representing the water science equipment providers and other water consulting firms. We work to inform federal agencies about how their programs may be developed or modified to best meet the needs of our ICWP members and, simultaneously, promote wise, consistent and efficient water resource management throughout the nation. To help you and your team hit the ground running, the following highlights reflect the top issues facing ICWP members and provides you with our greatest concerns requiring attention to address our country’s water management challenges.

Water Infrastructure
We were pleased to hear during your campaign your desire to reinvest in America’s infrastructure. Sound, well-maintained, and adequately funded water infrastructure is vital to public health, environmental protection, irrigation agriculture, firefighting, recreation and economic growth. Investment in the nation’s water infrastructure will be key to our economic recovery. The authorities for the US Army Corps of Engineer (USACE) new starts and continuing authorizations in the Water Resources Development Act are critical for maintaining America’s water infrastructure. Equally critical in the West are the investments made by the Bureau of Reclamation along with water users. Nationwide, aging infrastructure is a growing concern and innovative funding mechanisms are needed to avert failures and related economic casualty from a non-secure water supply.

Partnerships are critical to getting USACE authorized projects on the ground. Unfortunately, some of our members are hitting roadblocks with language in the Project Partnership Agreements related to indemnification and perpetual operations and maintenance (O&M) obligations. We look forward to working with your officials at USACE to find a path forward such that these critical water projects can become a reality.

USGS and NOAA Water Science
The federal government has an obligation to provide a basic monitoring framework of our nation’s water resources. ICWP supports additional resources for the Water Mission Area of the U.S. Geological Survey to maintain and expand their streamgaging networks to provide this backbone of gages to understand water availability and use across the nation. Our members particularly urge adequate funding for the Federal Priority Streamgage network and for Cooperative Matching funds for the federal share on streamgaging in locations of critical importance to regional water managers. Several years of flatlined budget for the Federal Priorities Streamgage network is now resulting in the loss of critical, long term gages which are necessary for modeling and forecasting modernization, as well as for making many other day-to-day hydrologic decisions. Many of these threatened gages are necessary for interstate river basin compact allocation verification or are located at the boundary of tribal reservations. ICWP supports initiatives such as the USGS’s Next Generation Water Observation System (NGWOS), but we do not support shifting resources away from the fundamental streamgaging programs for these new initiatives.

We also urge you to expand the support for better understanding and forecasting water resources at all time frames. Weather and climate forecasting by the NOAA-NWS is improving, but support is critical for the seasonal to sub-seasonal forecasting and modeling work being done at those agencies. ICWP also supports the funding mechanism for a national extreme precipitation atlas as provided for in Section 12 of the pending S. 4462 FLOODS Act which would replace the dated, piecemeal method of completing these important weather prediction tools. Increased severity, duration and volume of precipitation events is predicted by almost all climate models and we must be prepared. We request that your Presidential budget for NOAA include funding for the Atlas 14 program with direct federal funds rather than the current grants-based funding method.

Water Planning
Every state in the U.S. engages in some sort of water planning. Some include climate plans and some are coordinated with their respective state disaster response agency. ICWP supports federal programs working in concert with the plans laid out by state planning agencies and the federal agencies should assist and defer to every state’s needs and priorities, aiding in the fruition of the state plans, not working counter. The Planning Assistance to States Program in the USACE is a strong example of a supportive federal program working in concert with state’s needs. We urge your team to continue supporting this important program.

Interstate River Basin Commissions/Organizations
ICWP provides a forum for improved coordination among the various river basin interstate commissions and organizations in the nation. ICWP recently completed an update to its Interstate Water Management Report and Primer on interstate water management. Managing water based on river basin boundaries has obvious benefits and we ask that the federal agencies utilize these river basin commissions and organizations to their greatest benefit. The 2020 Report update can be found HERE and it contains several recommendations for interstate river basin water management.

Coordination Among Federal Agencies with Water Management Responsibilities
Encouraging the myriad of federal agencies with some type of water resources responsibility to better coordinate is beneficial to end users and to state/interstate planners across the nation. ICWP supports your administration making it a high priority for agencies to work in concert in the delivery of federal water programs.

The concept of a Water Sub-cabinet is non-partisan, is supported by national water organizations and could be addressed via Executive Order by your administration. Such an Executive Order could work in concert with Section 13 of the FLOODS Act (S. 4462) should it pass during the lame duck session of Congress.

Conclusion
ICWP respectfully requests your administration provide assistance with:

• Removing roadblocks with the USACE on cooperative infrastructure projects;

• Improving collaboration between the states and the federal government on water supply planning;

• Funding of critical water data information collection and management which supports infrastructure design and management as well as the protection of public safety;

• Supporting water resources management based on river basin boundaries such as the work accomplished through interstate agencies, commissions and agreements;

  and

Establishing and formalizing a collaborative Water Sub-cabinet to facilitate coordination among federal agencies with water resource initiatives.

ICWP looks forward to working with your administration to find workable strategies to meet these important water resources challenges. Our Executive Director, Sue Lowry, would be happy to provide more detail on any of these topics. She can be reached at 307- 630-5804 or sue@icwp.org

Sincerely,

Kirsten Wallace, Chair
Interstate Council on Water Policy

Listen up, Joe!

Enjoy!

“I started out thinking of America as highways and state lines. As I got to know it better, I began to think of it as rivers.” — Charles Kuralt

IGRAC Director Neno Kukuric: Combine 2022 Groundwater Summit and 9th World Water Forum!

On 5 November 2020 I proposed combining the 2022 IGRAC Groundwater Summit with the 2022 Ninth World Water Forum at a joint meeting in Dakar, Senegal (see blog post here). The groundwater community responded favorably to my suggestion and now, the most important voice in the groundwater community - the man behind the 2022 Summit - IGRAC Director Neno Kukuric, has weighed in positively.

Here is the comment he left on the 5 November post:

Hi Michael,
You are perfectly right, the World Water Forum (WWF) is the right place for the 2022 Groundwater Summit/World Water Development Report (WWDR) launching. Actually, a practice is to have a WWDR launched at the forum if the forum takes place that year (it’s usually every three year). The last WWDR was launched during the WWF in Brasilia 2018 (and we succeeded to have a bit of groundwater at the World Water Day celebration - see here). Soon, we will come with more info on the Summit and a Catalogue on Groundwater management and Governance Tools, Measures and Instruments (see here) that we are developing for the Summit. Participation is very welcome!
Cheers,
Neno

This is great news! All we need now is the main player - 9WWF - on board!

"So little done, so much to do."- Cecil Rhodes

Memo to UN-Water, IGRAC, World Water Council and Senegal: Combine the Groundwater Summit and 9th World Water Forum in 2022!

The 9th World Water Forum (9WWF) organized by the World Water Council and the
Republic of Senegal, has been postponed a year and moved to 21-26 March 2022. 22 March 2022 is the celebration of International World Water Day and will devoted to groundwater, Neno Kukuric, who heads the International Groundwater Resources Assessment Centre, will help celebrate the this day by holding a Groundwater Summit:

In 2022, the International World Water Day (WWD) will be dedicated to groundwater. As usual, the World Water Development Report (WWDR) for that year will be about the same topic: groundwater. Groundwater Summit is envisaged as a central celebration of the WWD, and the venue for launching the WWDR. During the Summit, Catalogue on Groundwater Management and Governance will be introduced and made available online for worldwide use.   

Groundwater is a major water-supply source, whilst also sustaining aquatic ecosystems and maintaining baseflow in rivers, and being a critical storage element for climate-change adaptation. Despite these impressive facts, groundwater (being invisible) is ‘out of mind’ for most people. At the same time, water scarcity is increasing, already affects about 2.7 billion people around the world for at least one month per year. As surface water availability decreases (due to human activities and climate change), reliance- and pressure on groundwater is growing. Yet we still do not know sufficient about the state of groundwater resources globally and we do not manage aquifers well enough.

In order to increase awareness about groundwater, international water community decided to dedicate a World Water Day in 2022 to this precious resource. Groundwater will also be a topic of a World Water Development Report in the same year. The report will present the state and trends of groundwater resources in order to make their role more understandable and visible. The slogan of the WWD and the WWDR in this Year of Groundwater will be: Groundwater – Making invisible visible.

The Groundwater Summit (22-23 March 2022) is envisaged as a central celebration of the WWD, and the pivotal venue for launching the WWDR (on 22^nd March). It will bring together scientists, policy makers and practitioners and it will focus on improving a science-policy-practice interface.  

Neno has not yet announced a venue, so I have a suggestion: why not use the 9WWF venue in the Dakar area and integrate the Summit with the 9WWF? This would provide a boost to the Groundwater Summit and expose IGRAC's message to a much larger audience. The 9WWF attendance would no doubt be enhanced. It would also introduce an important topic - groundwater - the reservoir for so much (~95%) of Earth's liquid freshwater. Groundwater is a topic that has not been adequately covered by previous WWFs.

This integration would not be easy. Planning for the 9WWF is well underway - the action groups (and I belong to one) have already submitted the first round of reports. But recently things have bogged down, so why not act now? I am not asking the 9WWF folks to give away the store and alter what they have done. Just add something that would enhance their meeting, increase attendance and impart an important message to all WaterWonks.

If it is too difficult to integrate the events and their programs, make the Summit a 'side event'!

And what might the Groundwater Summit cover? Here's a starter: a proposal from AWRA, IGRAC and NGWA to the 8WWF in Brasilia that went nowhere:

Download Groundwater-at-8wwf_final

I'm ready!

Enjoy!

"Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself." - A.H. Weiler