You are now in California and the U.S. category.

In a move that could have ramifications across the arid West, a government watchdog agency accused federal water regulators of wasting taxpayer funds when they gave Klamath Basin farmers more than $32 million to stop growing crops and to pump groundwater instead of drawing from lakes and rivers.The funds were spent in a failed bid to protect endangered fish and wildlife near the California-Oregon border, the Office of the Inspector General for the U.S. Department of the Interior said in a report this week.

 

California’s drought has brought about a strange partnership that includes corporations like Coca-Cola and environmental groups like the Nature Conservancy.  They’re partnering on projects aimed at helping increase water supply in California. The California Water Action Collaborative, or CWAC, has announced four projects to help create a sustainable water supply as the state enters its sixth year of drought. The projects include flooding farms to recharge groundwater, removing invasive species in watersheds and thinning trees in dense forested areas of the Sierra Nevada. The groups will also look at ways to implement the California Water Action Plan.

Whenever there’s a drought in California, a seemingly obvious source of new water supply beckons. The state abuts a giant ocean. Why not just take the salt out of some of that seawater? It’s the high-tech, forward-looking thing to do, right? It’s also the really expensive thing to do. Of all the options for increasing the state’s water supply considered in a report out Thursday from the Pacific Institute, an environmental think tank based in Oakland, California, desalination costs the most per acre-foot (325,851 gallons, 1.2 million liters) of water produced:

A University of Arizona professor believes there is an important story being overlooked in the media’s coverage of an ongoing drought across the Southwest. George Frisvold, a professor of agricultural resources, said it is not fair to point the blame at farmers in drought-ridden states like Arizona and California as the sole cause for water shortages. Arizona farmers do use a good majority of Arizona’s water supply, but Frisvold pointed to how farmers have been able to efficiently reduce their water use over the last 30 years.

 

We are under a mandate from the state to reach certain milestones toward making all our California groundwater basins sustainable. Though that is a simplified version of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act passed in 2014, the reality is that this is a complex undertaking for the local agencies and advocacy organizations here in Monterey County. Groundwater here in Monterey County is our primary source for water for both consumers and business, as well as irrigation.