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The Santa Clara Valley Water District provides water and flood control to nearly 2 million people in 15 cities and owns and operates the Silicon Valley Advanced Water Purification Center (SVAWPC), the largest advanced water purification plant in Northern California. Jim Fiedler is the chief operating officer of the San Jose-based organization, and leads its water program. He spoke with Water Deeply last week about his work and the challenges his organization faces five years into the drought.

A transparent and universal platform for sharing water data across the state will result from a new law signed by Gov. Jerry Brown and authored by Assemblyman Bill Dodd, D-Napa. “The drought has exposed the need for a modern water information system to address the state’s water supply,” Dodd said. “California does not suffer from a lack of water data, but from a lack of usable water data needed to make smart decisions. This bill will create instant and accessible water information that will better enable water managers to cope with future drought conditions.”

Since the historic California drought began five years ago the public has been inundated with water news. Governments and governing agencies have been bludgeoned with new policies and regulations. And there is little sense to be made of it all. Nonetheless, water policy in California is prepared to move forward and more confusion may be on the way with the State Water Resource Control Board’s (SWRCB) latest published proposal.

In a world turned upside down by advancing cancer, Isaiah Branzuela took joy in three things: his home, his dog, and the love of friends and family. Now his home is gone, destroyed by this week’s devastating Loma fire. His beloved dog is gone, too, killed in the conflagration. What remains are his fiercely devoted friends, who are fundraising for the 43-year-old Branzuela and his family, to whom fate has dealt such a blow. And another. And then another. “We take care of each other,” said friend Jamie Rose Berry, who created a GoFundMe campaign for the stunned Branzuela family.

Salmon are struggling to survive all along the West Coast, where runs that historically numbered in the millions of fish have dwindled into the thousands or even dozens. Environmental laws that have been put in place to see that these fish remain healthy and plentiful are not working in many places. While some people have argued that the Endangered Species Act itself is flawed and not sufficiently designed to protect species, others believe the problem comes from the people who are supposed to be enforcing the regulations.