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Luke Ellison is holding something most of us will never get to see: a delta smelt. Graceful, iridescent and about as long as my finger, these fish are so rare in the wild that just six adults were found during a sample survey of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta last spring. And the Delta is the only place in the world where this endangered species lives – in the wild, that is.

Delta smelt also live in enormous round outdoor tanks and smaller tanks inside dimly lit trailers filled with the sound of running water.

As many readers know, I have long emphasized the coming global water crisis and its relationship to a healthy ocean. And in my forthcoming book, THE ONCE AND FUTURE OCEAN: Notes Toward a New Hydraulic Society, I offer a greater amplification of this synergy and how it might inform a new paradigm for valuation, organization, and behavior in the 21st century.

North Monterey County farmland could be getting desalinated water for irrigation at the same price as its current recycled wastewater source.

Closing the circle on a key agreement aimed at addressing a critical water rights issue involving California American Water’s proposed Monterey Peninsula desalination plant, the Board of Supervisors is set to consider on Tuesday signing onto a provision that calls for sending a portion of desal “return” water to the Castroville Seawater Intrusion Project at the heavily discounted rate of $56.48 per acre-foot.

During a water crisis in California, the state and local governments ran a program for residents, offering rebates to people who replaced their lawns and landscaping with plants that can survive drought conditions and don’t require constant watering. Now people who received rebates are getting a surprise in the mail: they’ve received letters saying that they have to pay federal taxes on that money.

Water infrastructure issues are much in the news in the U.S. — not only in the West, where drought continues to take a high toll, but also in other parts of the country, where the water needs for municipalities, energy production, commercial interests, and agriculture intersect and sometimes conflict. In this interview, one in a series of three exploring some of the nation’s water challenges, we talk with Bob Yamada, Director of Water Resources for the San Diego County Water Authority, about the mix of strategies adopted to meet the growing needs of the authority’s customers, and the new Carlsbad Desalination plant. This advanced technology reverse osmosis facility was built, financed, and will be operated through a public-private partnership under a water purchase agreement to serve the region for the next three decades.