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Arizona’s infrastructure received a “C” rating from the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) in 2015. However, the state is faring better on its report card than the country overall. The group recently graded the nation’s infrastructure a D+. This week, ASCE is hosting a pipelines conference in Phoenix, providing an important forum for experts in pipeline and utilities infrastructure to gather and share innovative ideas to meet industry challenges. Given the embarrassing shape of our country’s current infrastructure, the conference is a symbol of hope for the future.

Construction is now underway along the Feather River Parkway where nearly 3 miles of levees need emergency repairs. “We saw some alarming distress. So, this was deemed a critical repair project,” Sutter Butte Flood Control Executive Director Mike Inamine said. The repairs will include filling sinkholes and boils. Water seepage was evident on the levees after increased water was released from the Oroville Dam spillways in February and into Feather River. Officials said the levee damage posed a direct threat to Yuba City and Sutter County.

Recreational Boaters of California (RBOC), a non-profit organization serving the boating community, has come out in opposition to the massive Delta water tunnels project pushed by the governor. The massive construction project could seriously impact boaters’ access to the Delta for years to come, RBOC says. “RBOC has, for decades, been at the forefront of opposing proposals that would impair the ability of boaters to access to the 1,000 miles of waterways in the Delta,” says Peter Robertson, president of the 3 million member organization. “We successfully opposed permanent barriers that would have blocked navigation to popular Delta destinations.”

Arizona’s top water official told a congressional committee Wednesday that even though the state has done a lot right, years of drought still threaten to push the region into a water emergency in the next few years. Tom Buschatzke, the director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources, said his office needs better coordination with other states and federal agencies and expressed concern that proposed cuts in federal funding for state could force agencies like his to do “more with less.”

 

Republican-backed federal legislation with strong support from agricultural communities in California aims to eradicate salmon from much of the San Joaquin River. It will nullify numerous laws protecting wetlands and waterways in order to provide farmers south of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta with more northern California water. Environmentalists and fishery advocates are characterizing the bill, H.R. 23, or the Gaining Responsibility on Water Act of 2017, as one of the most aggressive attempts ever taken by the political allies of farming interests to divert maximum flows of water south from the Delta.