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“Good Luck Fixing the Problem”: Small Low-Income Community Participation in Collaborative Groundwater Governance and Implications for Drinking Water Source Protection

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“Good Luck Fixing the Problem”: Small Low-Income Community Participation in Collaborative Groundwater Governance and Implications for Drinking Water Source Protection
Society and Natural Resources, Routledge | June 10, 2020...
Summary
There is increasing interest in the potential of source water protection to address chronic challenges with small systems and rural drinking water provision....
There is increasing interest in the potential of source water protection to address chronic challenges with small systems and rural drinking water provision. Such a planning and management approach to increasing safe drinking water access, however, will likely require leveraging multi-stakeholder collaborative governance venues to this effect. This paper investigates the prospects of doing so using the case of California’s groundwater reform process known as the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act or SGMA. Interviews with drinking water stakeholders from small low-income communities in the San Joaquin Valley show how existing power and resource disparities limit the prospects of integrating rural drinking water priorities into regional planning. Long-term, more fundamental changes will be needed to meaningfully transform water management in this direction. Short-term state intervention is needed to protect equity and public good goals, raising potential contradictions between devolved water management and improved drinking water access that need to be addressed.

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20 x 2020 Water Conservation Plan
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20 x 2020 Water Conservation Plan
California Department of Water Resources (DWR) | February 18, 2009...
Summary
In February 2008, Governor Schwarzenegger introduced a seven-part comprehensive plan for improving the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. As part of this effort, the Governor...
In February 2008, Governor Schwarzenegger introduced a seven-part comprehensive plan for improving the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. As part of this effort, the Governor directed state agencies to develop a plan to reduce statewide per capita urban water use by 20 percent by the year 2020. This marked the initiation of the 20x2020 Water Conservation Plan (20x2020 Plan) process.

The 20x2020 Plan sets forth a statewide road map to maximize the state’s urban water efficiency and conservation opportunities between 2009 and 2020, and beyond. It aims to set in motion a range of activities designed to achieve the 20 percent per capita reduction in urban water demand by 2020. These activities include improving an understanding of the variation in water use across California, promoting legislative initiatives that incentivize water agencies to promote water conservation, and creating evaluation and enforcement mechanisms to assure regional and statewide goals are met. The 20x2020 Plan discusses these many activities in detail.

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2015 Urban Water Management Plan

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2015 Urban Water Management Plan
Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD) | June 1, 2016...
Summary
Metropolitan’s 2015 Urban Water Management Plan (UWMP) has been prepared in compliance with Water Code Section 10608.36 of SB X7-7, which was enacted...

Metropolitan’s 2015 Urban Water Management Plan (UWMP) has been prepared in compliance with Water Code Section 10608.36 of SB X7-7, which was enacted in 2009, and Sections 10610 through 10656 of the Urban Water Management Planning Act (Act), which were added by Statute 1983, Chapter 1009, and became effective on January 1, 1984. This Act requires that every urban water supplier providing water for municipal purposes to more than 3,000 customers or supplying more than 3,000 acre-feet of water annually prepare and adopt, in accordance with prescribed requirements, an urban water management plan.

The Act requires urban water suppliers to describe and evaluate sources of water supply, efficient uses of water, demand management measures, implementation strategy and schedule, and other relevant information and programs. Urban water suppliers are required by the Act to update their UWMP and submit a complete plan to the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) every five years. An UWMP is required in order for a water supplier to be eligible for DWR administered state grants and loans and drought assistance.

As with Metropolitan’s previous plans, the 2015 UWMP does not explicitly discuss specific activities undertaken by its member agencies unless they relate to one of Metropolitan’s water demand or supply management programs. Presumably, each member agency will discuss these activities in its UWMP.

The information included in the 2015 UWMP represents the most current and available planning projections of supply capability and demand developed through a collaborative process with the member agencies. Metropolitan’s Board recently adopted the 2015 Integrated Water Resources Plan, Water Tomorrow (2015 IRP Update), which represents Metropolitan’s comprehensive planning process and will serve as Metropolitan’s blueprint for long-term water reliability, including key supply development and water use efficiency goals.

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2016 Annual Report of Hydrogeologic Conditions, Water Requirements, Supplies and Disposition Santa Maria Valley Management Area

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2016 Annual Report of Hydrogeologic Conditions, Water Requirements, Supplies and Disposition Santa Maria Valley Management Area
City of Santa Maria | April 13, 2017...
Summary
This annual report of conditions in the Santa Maria Valley Management Area, for calendar year 2016, has been prepared to meet the reporting conditions...
This annual report of conditions in the Santa Maria Valley Management Area, for calendar year 2016, has been prepared to meet the reporting conditions of the June 30, 2005, Stipulation entered by the Superior Court of the State of California, County of Santa Clara, in the Santa Maria Valley Groundwater Basin litigation. The Stipulation divided the overall Santa Maria Valley Groundwater Basin into three management areas, the largest of which overlies the main Santa Maria Valley (the Santa Maria Valley Management Area, or SMVMA) and is the subject of this report. The other two management areas, the Nipomo Mesa Management Area (NMMA) and the Northern Cities Management Area, are addressed in separate annual reports prepared by others.

The Stipulation, approved and implemented in 2008, specifies that monitoring shall be sufficient to determine groundwater conditions, land and water uses, sources of water supply, and the disposition of all water supplies in the Basin. Annual Reports for the SMVMA are to summarize the results of the monitoring and include an analysis of the relationship between projected water demand and supply. The Stipulation was preserved in the California Court of Appeal (Sixth Appellate District) Decision of November 21, 2012, and in the Superior Court of the State of California (County of Santa Clara) Final Judgment of April 23, 2014. Thus, the Physical Solution criteria for monitoring and managing groundwater in the basin remain.

In accordance with the Stipulation, this report on the SMVMA provides a description of the physical setting and briefly describes previous studies conducted in the groundwater basin, including the long-term monitoring program developed for the SMVMA. As reported herein, the Twitchell Management Authority (TMA) commissioned the preparation of a monitoring program for the SMVMA in 2008, and its complete implementation is expected to provide the data with which to fully assess future conditions. This report describes hydrogeologic conditions in the management area historically and through 2016, including groundwater conditions, Twitchell Reservoir operations, and hydrologic and climatic conditions. As with all previous annual reports (commencing in 2008), the water requirements and supplies for agricultural and municipal uses are accounted, as are the components of water disposition in the SMVMA.

Conclusions drawn regarding water resource conditions are discussed, including any finding of severe water shortage, which is concluded to not be the case through 2016. Finally, recommendations are provided with regard to the intra-basin transfer of water from the SMVMA to the NMMA, possible enhancement of groundwater recharge, expanded assessment of water resource conditions, and continued implementation of the monitoring program for the SMVMA.

Janny Choi from Stanford University's Water in the West discusses the Santa Maria stipulation in the 2014 paper Before the Well Runs Dry: Improving the Linkage Between Groundwater and Land Use Planning.

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2016 Regional Monitoring Program Update: A Report of the Regional Monitoring Program for Water Quality in San Francisco Bay

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2016 Regional Monitoring Program Update: A Report of the Regional Monitoring Program for Water Quality in San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Estuary Institute (SFEI) | July 1, 2016...
Summary
Billions of dollars are at stake in the decisions that society makes regarding activities that are directly intended to protect Bay water quality. The...
Billions of dollars are at stake in the decisions that society makes regarding activities that are directly intended to protect Bay water quality. The region has made huge investments to build and operate the infrastructure to collect and treat the region’s municipal and industrial wastewater, and continued investment at a similar scale will be needed to maintain, upgrade, and operate this infrastructure to serve a growing Bay Area population. The region has spent and will spend comparably large sums to manage stormwater and establish green infrastructure in our cities to minimize the adverse water quality impacts of stormwater on the Bay. Large investments have been and will be made to manage contaminated sediment in the Bay, both at sites identified for cleanup and for dredging to maintain channels for commercial and recreational vessels.

Billions more are at stake in decisions regarding activities that influence Bay water quality as unintentional side-effects. Commercial product formulation and usage (including pesticides, pharmaceuticals, personal care products, electrical equipment, home furnishings, automobile components, and many, many others), sediment management, water supply management, energy production, and habitat restoration and management are all immense and essential enterprises that have a tremendous influence on Bay water quality.

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2017 Potable Reuse Compendium

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2017 Potable Reuse Compendium
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) | January 11, 2018...
Summary
Appropriate and necessary treatment and reuse of wastewater to augment existing water resources is a rapidly expanding approach for both non-potable and potable...

Appropriate and necessary treatment and reuse of wastewater to augment existing water resources is a rapidly expanding approach for both non-potable and potable applications. EPA recognizes that potable reuse of water can play a critical role in helping states, tribes, and c ommunities meet their future drinking water needs with a diversified portfolio of water sources. Beginning with the first pioneers in water reuse, Los Angeles County Sanitation Distric t (1962), Orange County Sanitation District (1976), and the Upper Occoquan Service Authority (1978), the practice has gained substantial momentum because of drought and the need to assure groundwater resource sustainability and a secure water supply. Long-term water scarcity is expected to increase over time in many parts of the country as a result of drought, growing water demand, and other stressors.

Across the U.S., there has been a notable increase in the deployment of technologies to augment existing water supplies through reuse of wastewater that has been treated and cleaned to be safe for the intended use. Indirect reuse usually involves passage of water through an environmental buffer (e.g., groundwater aquifer, lake, river) before the water is again treated for reuse. Direct reuse refers to those situations where treatment is followed by storage and use, but without the environmental buffer. Many drinking water systems rely on water treatment technologies to support indirect reuse of water (e.g., indirect potable reuse) and some drinking water systems now directly reuse wastewater after treatment (e.g., direc t potable reuse).

In 2012, EPA published the 2012 Guidelines for Water Reuse to serve as a reference on water reuse practices . The document provided information related to indirect potable reuse (IPR), but only briefly described direc t potable reuse (DPR). Because of increased interest in pursuing potable water reuse, EPA is is suing the 2017 Potable Reuse Compendium to outline key science, technical, and policy considerations regarding this practice. This 2017 Compendium supplements the 2012 Guidelines for Water Reuse to inform current practices and approaches in potable reuse, including those related to direct potable water reuse. EPA recognizes the recent water reuse publications from our stakeholders at the World Health Organization (WHO), the National Research Council of the National Academies of Science, the Water Environment and Reuse Foundation (WE&RF), and the Water Environment Federation (WEF). The 2017 Compendium is a compilation of technical information on potable reuse practices to provide planners and decision-makers with a summary of the current state of the practice. Specific knowledge and experience are drawn from case studies on existing reuse approaches.

EPA supports water reuse as part of an integrated water resources management approach developed at the state and local level to meet the water needs of multiple sectors including agriculture, industry, drinking water, and ecosystem protection. An integrated approach commonly involves a combination of water management strategies (e.g., water supply development, water storage, water use efficiency, and water reuse) and engages multiple stakeholders and needs, including the needs of the environment. Although EPA encourages an integrated approach to water resources management, it does not require or restrict practices such as water reuse. EPA acknowledges the primacy of states in the allocation and development of water resources. EPA, State, and local governments implement programs under the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act to protect the quality of source waters to ensure that source water is treated so that water provided to the tap is safe for people to drink (e.g., contaminant specific drinking water standards). The SDWA and the CWA provide a foundation from which states can further develop and support potable water reuse as they deem appropriate.

EPA will continue to engage a broad spectrum of partners and stakeholders for input on where the Agency can provide meaningful support to states, tribes, and communities as they implement potable water reuse projects. EPA will also work with stakeholders, the scientific community , and the States to monitor and evaluate performance of water treatment technologies to ensure that potable reuse projects are implemented in a manner that protects the health of communities . This document is a collaborative effort between EPA, CDM Smith, and other key stakeholders. EPA acknowledges the importance of potable water reuse and looks forward to working with our stakeholders as the practice continues to be developed and deployed as an important approach to ensure a c lean, safe, and sustainable water supply for the nation.

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2017 Salinas Valley Groundwater Level Contours & Seawater Intrusion Maps
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2017 Salinas Valley Groundwater Level Contours & Seawater Intrusion Maps
Monterey County Water Resources Agency (MCWRA) | April 24, 2018...
Summary

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2017 SGMA Annual Report South American Subbasin (5-021.65) Sacramento Central Groundwater Authority
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2017 SGMA Annual Report South American Subbasin (5-021.65) Sacramento Central Groundwater Authority
Sacramento Central Groundwater Authority, GEI Consultants Inc. | April 1, 2018...
Summary
The Sacramento Central Groundwater Authority (SCGA) has prepared an Annual Report describing groundwater conditions in the South American Subbasin for the 2017 Water...

The Sacramento Central Groundwater Authority (SCGA) has prepared an Annual Report describing groundwater conditions in the South American Subbasin for the 2017 Water Year (i.e., inclusive of months October 2016 to September 2017) in support of their pending Alternative Submittal. The Annual Report is intended for conveying monitoring and water use data to the State DWR on an annual basis to gauge performance of the groundwater subbasin relative to the sustainability goal set forth in a Groundwater Sustainability Plan (GSP) or, for SCGA, the Alternative Submittal. As such, SCGA is including sufficient information to provide interested parties with sufficient background and supporting details to serve as a public communications document for subbasin management and to take the place of historic biennial reporting available on the SCGA website.

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2020 Water Resilience Portfolio (draft)

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2020 Water Resilience Portfolio (draft)
California Natural Resources Agency | January 2, 2020...
Summary

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A changing framework for urban water systems

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A changing framework for urban water systems
American Chemical Society (ACS) | May 8, 2013...
Summary
Urban water infrastructure and the institutions responsible for its management have gradually evolved over the past two centuries. Today, they are under increasing...

Urban water infrastructure and the institutions responsible for its management have gradually evolved over the past two centuries. Today, they are under increasing stress as water scarcity and a growing recognition of the importance of factors other than the cost of service provision are forcing a reexamination of long-held ideas. Research and development that supports new technological approaches and more effective management strategies are needed to ensure that the emerging framework for urban water systems will meet future societal needs

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