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A Legal Guide to the Public’s Rights to Access and Use of California’s Navigable Waters

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A Legal Guide to the Public’s Rights to Access and Use of California’s Navigable Waters
California State Lands Commission | November 20, 2017...
Summary
In California, members of the public have rights to access and use navigable waters for many beneficial uses, including, but not limited to navigation, fishing, and recreation. These public rights are expressed in federal law, California’s Act of...
In California, members of the public have rights to access and use navigable waters for many beneficial uses, including, but not limited to navigation, fishing, and recreation. These public rights are expressed in federal law, California’s Act of Admission, the California Constitution, court opinions, and state statutes. However, the public’s rights to access and use the state’s navigable waters are sometimes misunderstood.

California public officials are periodically called on to address disputes about the public’s rights to access and use the state’s navigable waters. These disputes may arise between recreational water users, such as boaters, fishermen, hunters, shoreline and beach users, and adjacent private property owners. In this guide, the California State Lands Commission seeks to inform and clarify, for the public, government officials, and private property owners, the public’s rights to access and use the state’s navigable waters by summarizing the relevant legal principles.

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Advancing One Water Through Arts and Culture: A Blueprint for Action
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Advancing One Water Through Arts and Culture: A Blueprint for Action
U.S. Water Alliance | June 26, 2018...
Summary
No matter who we are, where we live, or what we do, water is essential to our lives. It is life’s most precious...
No matter who we are, where we live, or what we do, water is essential to our lives. It is life’s most precious resource, an indispensable ingredient for prosperity, progress, and well-being. Water challenges in the United States are vast and mounting—communities are suffering from poor water quality, drought, flooding, and more. Our water and wastewater infrastructure is aging and in urgent need of replacement and renewal. Our water systems are further stressed by increasingly unpredictable weather, sea level rise, and shifting populations.

The complex water challenges we face today cannot be solved solely by the approaches we have used in the past. Water leaders—utility managers, public officials, farmers, river keepers, business leaders, manufacturers, community leaders, philanthropy, and others—recognize that business as usual will not get us to a sustainable water future. Visionary water leaders are working to shift the paradigm of how water is viewed, valued, and managed.

They are taking a One Water approach, elevating water as a national priority, inspiring our collective imagination, and activating new solutions. Water leaders are increasingly turning to artists and cultural leaders to help bring visibility to water issues, create more inclusive and imaginative planning processes, and leverage infrastructure investments to provide additional benefits to the communities they serve. At the same time, many artists and cultural leaders have become increasingly aware of and engaged in the water issues facing their communities.

There is tremendous opportunity to utilize arts and culture strategies to advance sustainable, integrated, and inclusive management of our nation’s water resources. As creative thinkers and doers, artists can be powerful partners to water leaders seeking to reimagine traditional approaches to water planning and management, and connect with communities in new ways.

This report aims to help water leaders envision the various ways that arts and culture can advance One Water goals, and how they can most effectively partner with artists and cultural leaders. In addition to serving water leaders, we hope this document will provide artists and cultural leaders with insights on the priorities of the water sector and reveal synergies. By establishing a shared framework, we hope to enable increased collaboration between the water and arts sectors.

The report is organized in the following manner:

• Our Current Water Landscape provides a brief overview of the complex water related challenges that face our communities;

• A New Paradigm for Water: The One Water Approach describes how the water sector is embracing a more innovative, integrated, and inclusive approach to water management;

• Opportunities at the Intersection of Water, Arts, and Culture outlines seven ways that arts and culture can advance One Water goals;

• The Path Forward: Building Cross-Sector Capacity for Collaboration

offers recommendations for how we can seed and spread collaborations between arts, culture, and water leaders; and

• Art in Action presents eight case studies that demonstrate how arts and culture strategies are driving positive water related outcomes in communities across the country.

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California’s Future
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California’s Future
Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) | January 18, 2018...
Summary
Water management in California has always been challenging. The state’s variable climate is marked by long droughts and severe floods, with stark regional...
Water management in California has always been challenging. The state’s variable climate is marked by long droughts and severe floods, with stark regional differences in water availability and demand. California has adapted by building a vast network of storage and conveyance facilities to deliver water from the wetter parts of the state to population and farming centers in the Bay Area, the San Joaquin Valley, and Southern California. The Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta is a fragile link in the state’s water supply network, and a plan to address supply reliability, known as California WaterFix, faces many hurdles. California’s extensive network of dams is aging. Agricultural demand is becoming less flexible, as farmers are increasing tree crops (especially nuts), which must be watered every year. Conflicts are growing between human water use and water needed to support fish and other wildlife. And the latest cycle of droughts and floods provides a glimpse of an uncertain future under climate change. California’s water management challenges are complex, but they can be addressed. Solutions will involve difficult and sometimes costly trade-offs, as well as contentious legal and political changes.

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Citizen’s Guide to Working with the California Water Boards
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Citizen’s Guide to Working with the California Water Boards
California State Water Resources Control Board | July 8, 2011...
Summary
The Guide provides an overview of the Water Boards and the many opportunities that all Californians have to participate with the Water Boards...
The Guide provides an overview of the Water Boards and the many opportunities that all Californians have to participate with the Water Boards in decisions and activities that affect the state’s water resources. While some of the public participation opportunities are formal, e.g., at a Water Board hearing, others are less formal, but just as important, e.g., a stakeholder process implemented by a Regional Board.

Although the Guide doesn’t contain information about specific water quality decisions that are before the Boards, it will direct you where you can find that information. We look forward to updating this Guide periodically to assure its continuing usefulness to you, the public.

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Emerging trends in global freshwater availability
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Emerging trends in global freshwater availability
Nature | May 17, 2018...
Summary
Freshwater availability is changing worldwide. Here we quantify 34 trends in terrestrial water storage observed by the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE)...
Freshwater availability is changing worldwide. Here we quantify 34 trends in terrestrial water storage observed by the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites during 2002–2016 and categorize their drivers as natural interannual variability, unsustainable groundwater consumption, climate change or combinations thereof. Several of these trends had been lacking thorough investigation and attribution, including massive changes in northwestern China and the Okavango Delta. Others are consistent with climate model predictions. This observation-based assessment of how the world’s water landscape is responding to human impacts and climate variations provides a blueprint for evaluating and predicting emerging threats to water and food security.

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Evaluating the Effects of Turf-Replacement Programs in Los Angeles County
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Evaluating the Effects of Turf-Replacement Programs in Los Angeles County
UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, UCLA Geography Department, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department, University of Utah | August 4, 2017...
Summary
In 2014, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD) undertook an unprecedented investment to incentive turf replacement throughout Southern California in response...
In 2014, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD) undertook an unprecedented investment to incentive turf replacement throughout Southern California in response to the state’s serious drought. MWD devoted $350 million to the program, resulting in more than 46,000 rebate payments to remove 165 million square feet of turf. The funding boost served as a tremendous natural experiment to better understand the effects turf replacement programs.

As part of an evaluation of this program, UCLA and the University of Utah examined socio-economic and demographic characteristics of program participation and assessed changes in vegetation and landscapes of front yards resulting from turf replacement. We examined address-level records of 24,921 participants who applied for turf replacement rebates between February 2014 and April 2016 in Los Angeles (LA) County. We analyzed the socioeconomic and spatial determinants of program participation. Further, we used Google Earth Street View to characterize the landscapes and plants resulting from turf replacement based on a set of randomly selected participating properties. We ascertained the types of turf replacements that were installed and developed a classification system for landscape design types.

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Feasibility Study for a Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta National Heritage Area
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Feasibility Study for a Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta National Heritage Area
Delta Protection Commission | June 4, 2012...
Summary
In Fall 2009, the California State Legislature passed a comprehensive package reforming governance of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (Delta) and related aspects of...
In Fall 2009, the California State Legislature passed a comprehensive package reforming governance of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (Delta) and related aspects of statewide water management.

In Section 85301 of Senate Bill X7-1 (Delta Reform Act of 2009), the Legislature charged the Delta Protection Commission (DPC) with developing: “A proposal to protect, enhance, and sustain the unique cultural, historical, recreational, agricultural, and economic values of the Delta as an evolving place....The Commission shall include in the proposal a plan to establish state and federal designation of the Delta as a place of special significance, which may include application for a federal designation of the Delta as a National Heritage Area.”

This feasibility study has been undertaken in order to fulfill this legislative mandate, which upon acceptance of this study by the DPC, it will be submitted to a Delta Congressional Representative to introduce legislation to establish a Delta National Heritage Area (NHA). The study inventories and describes resources of the region which are supportive of the proposed NHA’s story and themes that make the area a place of national significance. The study also proposes how the NHA will be managed and organized to coordinate heritage area activities. Additionally, local groups who support the NHA are listed, along with letters of support; and organizations who are interested in potentially serving as partners on NHA activities are described, along with letters of partnership commitment.

During the course of this process a separate effort was initiated to establish a Delta NHA. In January 2011, Senator Dianne Feinstein introduced legislation into the Senate, with companion legislation introduced by Congressman John Garamendi into the House of Representatives to designate a Delta NHA, with the DPC as the management entity. The DPC has been monitoring the progress of this legislation while continuing to work on this feasibility study.

A NHA is a place designated by the United States Congress where natural, cultural, historical and recreational resources combine to form a cohesive, nationally-distinctive landscape arising from patterns of human activity shaped by geography. These areas tell nationally important stories about our nation and are representative of the national experience through both the physical features that remain and the traditions that have evolved within them.

The DPC developed this study with a process that incorporated public involvement throughout its entirety. A variety of activities were undertaken to acquire stakeholder input, including: public meetings, public presentations, stakeholder interviews, public review memos, and project study team meetings.

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How can we support the development of robust groundwater sustainability plans?
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How can we support the development of robust groundwater sustainability plans?
California Agriculture | March 13, 2018...
Summary
Three years after California passed the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SMGA), groundwater sustainability agencies (GSAs) are now preparing to develop their groundwater sustainability...
Three years after California passed the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SMGA), groundwater sustainability agencies (GSAs) are now preparing to develop their groundwater sustainability plans (GSPs), the blueprints that will outline each basin’s road to sustainability. Successful GSPs will require an effective participatory decision-making process. We tested a participatory process with the Yolo County Flood Control and Water Conservation District, a water-limited irrigation district in the Central Valley. First, we worked with district stakeholders to outline the parts of the plan and set measureable objectives for sustainability. The district defined seven management strategies, which the research team evaluated against climate, land use and regulatory uncertainties using a water resources model. Together, we explored model results using customized interactive graphics. We found that the business-as-usual strategy was the most unlikely to meet sustainability objectives; and that a conjunctive use strategy, with winter groundwater recharge and periphery ponds storage, achieved acceptable measures of sustainability under multiple uncertainties, including a hypothetical pumping curtailment. The process developed a shared understanding of the vulnerabilities of the local groundwater situation and proved valuable in evaluating strategies to overcome them.

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Improving and Sustaining BLM-Tribal Relations (Handbook 1780-1)

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Improving and Sustaining BLM-Tribal Relations (Handbook 1780-1)
Bureau of Land Management (BLM) | December 15, 2016...
Summary
Manual Section 1780 (MS-1780) and Handbook 1780-1 (H-1780-1) are being released simultaneously . H-1780-1 , I mproving and Sustaining BLM- Tribal Relations, replaces...

Manual Section 1780 (MS-1780) and Handbook 1780-1 (H-1780-1) are being released simultaneously . H-1780-1 , I mproving and Sustaining BLM- Tribal Relations, replaces H-8120-1 (Rel. 8-75, 12/03/04) . M S - 1780 , Tribal Relations, replaces MS-8120 (Rel. 8-74, 12/03/04). MS-8 120 and H-8120 - 1 were specific to implementation of historic preservation authorities only . Therefore, this new guidance is appropriately placed within the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) 1700 series, which addresses relations with other governments, including State, local, and international relations . Developed in response to the finalization of 512 Departmental M anual (DM) Chapters 4 and 5, H-1780-1 with MS-1780 provides direction for all BLM programs for improving and sustaining tribal relations , including government-to-government consultation. We attempted to be inclusive; however, this handbook does not contain sections for every program area or discipline who should be involved in tribal relations. Updates and additional chapters will be added when they are available.

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Inhabiting the Delta: A Landscape Approach to Transformative Socio-Ecological Restoration

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Inhabiting the Delta: A Landscape Approach to Transformative Socio-Ecological Restoration
San Francisco Estuary and Watershed Science | September 19, 2017...
Summary
Current legislation and plans for the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta (Delta) call for large-scale restoration of aquatic and terrestrial habitats, which will require significant...
Current legislation and plans for the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta (Delta) call for large-scale restoration of aquatic and terrestrial habitats, which will require significant changes in waterways, land uses, and cultural patterns. These re-made landscapes will be subject to a variety of new human uses, which Delta planning and adaptive management literature has yet to adequately consider. Failing to account for human uses and evolving place values can lead to diminished performance and public support for Delta restoration efforts.

Our empirical study examined restored and naturalized Delta landscapes using an integrative landscape approach that seeks to reconcile multiple goals and land-use agendas that span ecological, social, economic, and political domains. The research design consisted of six overlapping methods that included a planning, policy, and law review specific to the Delta; surveys and interviews with approximately 100 land managers, scientists, land-owners, law-enforcement personnel, agency representatives, and Delta residents; nine case studies of restored and naturalized delta landscapes; GIS mapping; and extensive field work.

Findings derived from the synthesis of these methods show that human uses of the Delta’s re-wilded landscapes are diverse and pervasive. Given the infrastructural and urbanized context of the region, these environments are subject to multiple and sometimes conflicting uses, perceptions, and place values. Though these myriad uses cannot be fully predicted or controlled (nor should they be), findings showed that more proactive and inclusive planning for human uses can encourage or discourage particular uses while also building constituency, support, and active engagement in ecological restoration efforts. We conclude that reconciling human uses with ecological recovery in the Delta will require a more localized, multi-functional, and creative approach to designing and adaptively managing these emergent landscapes. We recommend that more resources and experimental prototyping be dedicated to such work.

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