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As we enter the wet season when California gets more than 90 percent of its rainfall and snowfall, we urge state and federal officials to manage the state’s massive water system to ensure everyone gets their share of water this year. A University of California at Davis study found that mismanagement of the state’s water system has contributed to the water shortages facing all of California and has greatly contributed to the drawing down of the underground water supply in the San Joaquin Valley.

California’s Salton Sea and state-straddling Lake Tahoe would receive funding for environmental restoration under a bill set for Senate approval Thursday. More controversial water-related efforts remain stuck in Capitol Hill limbo, however. Put simply, California’s diverse water ambitions face a complicated future in what remains of the 114th Congress. Showing some progress, senators have groomed a bill that includes a 10-year, $415 million Lake Tahoe restoration package. The broader water resources development bill also authorizes help for the endangered Salton Sea, the much-diminished Los Angeles River and Sacramento-area flood control, among other projects.

 

So far this year 4,636 wildfires in California have burned more than 200,000 acres. That’s more fires than this time last year and more fires than the five-year average. In fact, in the last few decades, the number of large fires are on the rise across the Western United States and the length of the fire season continues to expand. One of the biggest reasons for this is warming temperatures, which are impacting snowpack and ushering in an earlier spring. California has an added challenge of dealing with a five-year drought.

California is suffering through five years of drought. Though our reservoirs aren’t full, the state Legislature has been flooded with proposals to deal with the drought’s impact and to address the Golden State’s future water needs. While the effects of the drought are highly visible — brown lawns, fallowed fields, declining river flows and low reservoirs — what you can’t see is the lack of easily accessible data that’s necessary to effectively manage the state’s water. California does not suffer from a lack of data on water.

California’s ongoing drought has sparked a lot of interest in recycled water – basically, cleaning treated sewage to the highest level to make it suitable for other uses. One of the biggest new projects is the North Valley Regional Recycled Water Program, a collaboration among numerous agencies in the North San Joaquin Valley. The project will take tertiary-treated sewage from the cities of Modesto, Turlock and Ceres and route it through new pipelines into the Delta Mendota Canal, owned by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.