Western Municipal Water District’s Post

🌊 Applauding Science-Based Water Management 🌊 We're pleased to applaud the recent decision by state and federal agencies on October 2, 2024, to temporarily suspend the Fall X2 component of the Summer Fall Habitat Action. This decision reflects the growing body of scientific evidence that fall water flows are not essential for supporting the endangered Delta smelt and ensures that our valuable water resources are managed wisely. On August 26, 2024, SCWC joined the Water Blueprint for the San Joaquin Valley in co-signing a letter to Governor Newsom and Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, advocating for this very action. Our request was grounded in scientific findings that demonstrated the ineffectiveness of the fall flows for Delta smelt habitat and highlighted the negative impacts on California’s water supply. 👏 We commend the state and federal agencies for their commitment to making decisions that balance environmental stewardship with the critical water needs of communities, farms, and industries across California. #WaterManagement #SCWC #CaliforniaWater #DeltaSmelt #FallX2 #WaterAdvocacy #ScienceBasedPolicy #SustainableSolutions #cawater | California Department of Water Resources

At IPAA's Congressional Call-Up, members met with Congressional Western Caucus Chairman Dan Newhouse (WA-4). As Chairman of the Congressional Western Caucus, Newhouse leads over 100 members of Congress from across the United States to advocate for rural policy issues throughout the West and beyond. The caucus works to encourage responsible resource development and energy independence, unlock public lands and meet the multiple-use mandate, protect communities from wildfires by advancing active management of forests, support the water infrastructure that makes our way of life possible across the West, and empower our Nation’s farmers, ranchers, and agriculture industry to continue to grow the food that feeds the world. #energypolicy #environmentalpolicy

I really appreciated participating in the 2nd meeting of the State Water Resources Control Board’s UPWARD Advisory Group today. California’s water rights priority system is the foundation for how water users throughout the State, from municipal to agricultural and environmental, receive water. Equally important, during periods of water shortage, we rely on the water rights priority system to curtail water. This effort will digitize water rights (which if you’ve been to CalEPA and seen the room of rotating file cabinets, ya know!), utilize telemetric water use data, and create a centralized data platform to improve access to high-quality data. Significant progress is underway to modernize our State’s water rights data for data-driven water management decisions.

What media content are policy makers in Government consuming? 🔍 📰 In response to a parliamentary question, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has just revealed the media and journal subscriptions the department has paid for over the last 3 years. What can the list tell us? With 67 subscriptions, the sheer number of titles demonstrates the range of possibilities for getting your message out across the environmental media, with some stories better suited to smaller specialist titles which are read by those in Government. 🗞 🌍 There is only one regional title, the Yorkshire Post, on the list, demonstrating that, while local coverage is important, national titles remain dominant in Government departments. This is perhaps unfair to often brilliant local coverage of environmental initiatives. Many organisations and campaigns spend significant time cultivating relations with those local to their areas to get local communities motivated. By not subscribing to local news, officials could be missing out on some of the best conservation news there is. Subscriptions include titles from the specialist environmental press which, while not widely read by the public, will have stories of strong interest to policy makers. The breadth of specialist news shows how close officials need to stay to industry developments and demonstrates where and to which news outlets it’s worth giving the full detail of projects. You can read the full list here 👉 https://lnkd.in/eZ4hRXJG

Check out our new paper where we analyzed how integrating equity in water conservation programs impacts policy outcomes. We examined the potential trade-offs between maximizing water savings and promoting water affordability in the distribution of rebates. https://lnkd.in/gcn2EsSk

State lawmakers and environmental groups are teaming up to plug a funding gap and save Rhode Island’s land conservation programs. A bill introduced by Rep. Megan Cotter, D-Exeter, would inject $16 million into this year’s Green Economy Bond to fund four separate programs to protect land from development and provide a healthy boost for the state’s environment. The programs, which include money for state and local open space acquisition, farmland preservation, forest management, and habitat restoration, are usually included in a single bond question to be approved by voters every two years. But the state budget proposal announced last month by Gov. Dan McKee included no money for these programs in this year’s $50 million environmental bond question and, if passed, it would be the first time in nearly 40 years funding for the state’s conservation programs did not appear on the ballot. For the full story: https://bit.ly/43kUHQQ #environmentallaw #environmentallawyer #newportri

What happens if you arrive to install a dam cover and find much less water in the dam than anticipated? We journeyed to the WA Wheatbelt town of Merredin and teamed up with the Department of Water and Environmental Regulation for the Merredin Shire. Fitting dam covers on the Merredin No. 4 Dam might have been a challenge, but working hand in hand with the shire led us to finding a solution. Find out how it unfolded: https://bit.ly/3JL4Nli

This could be you! Tell us what you think about the 2045 General Plan Update. Attend the Planning Commission Public Hearing May 16 at 5:30 p.m. to share your thoughts as the commission provides input on the General Plan Update and the associated draft program environmental impact report. To view the Planning Commission meeting agenda and learn how to provide comments before the meeting, visit https://lnkd.in/g6DCarUj. Learn more about the General Plan Update at irvine2045.org. #WeAreIrvine #Irvine2045 

What happens if you arrive to install a dam cover and find much less water in the dam than anticipated? We journeyed to the WA Wheatbelt town of Merredin and teamed up with the Department of Water and Environmental Regulation for the Merredin Shire. Fitting dam covers on the Merredin No. 4 Dam might have been a challenge, but working hand in hand with the shire led us to finding a solution. Find out how it unfolded: https://bit.ly/3JL4Nli

Reprinted with permission, the American Water Resources Association, IMPACT Magazine, has used one of my white papers as an article, in their MARCH/APRIL 2024 issue. Here it is: https://lnkd.in/eeJPGtZV The article is how land can be an effective medium for storing water to establish long-term water security and indicates what is possible with grazing animals to restore watershed health. At the WEST Consultants, Inc. demonstration site in Red Rock, AZ, we are not only exploring grazing methods, but also many other #waterconservation, #groundwaterrecharge, and #landmanagement practices to restore #watershedhealth. #holisticmanagement #civilengineering #regenerativeagriculture #water #watersecurity