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Grant Davis, general manager of the Sonoma County Water Agency, was tapped Wednesday by Gov. Jerry Brown as the state’s new director for the Department of Water Resources, handing a veteran of North Bay politics and water policy a central role in Brown’s controversial bid to overhaul California’s water system with a $17 billion pair of tunnels under Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Davis, 54, has led the county Water Agency since 2010 and is set to begin in his new post in Sacramento in August, pending confirmation by the state Senate.

 

The state’s recently released survey about California’s use of recycled water was disappointing for recycled water use advocates, but it doesn’t tell the full story. The survey, by the State Water Resources Control Board and Department of Water Resources, found that recycled water use has increased by 44,500 acre-feet since 2009. California used 713,653 acre-feet of recycled water in 2015. While we had hoped for greater gains, progress and opportunities abound. Recycled water use is poised to provide over a million acre-feet of water to augment local drinking water supplies in addition to continuing to reduce potable water use for irrigation and industrial applications.

In a significant step toward construction of the Bay Area’s first major new reservoir in nearly two decades, Silicon Valley’s largest water provider has begun negotiations to buy more than 12,000 acres of rural ranch land — an area nearly half the size of San Francisco. The Santa Clara Valley Water District is hoping to build an $800 million reservoir in southern Santa Clara County near Pacheco Pass, along with a dam up to 300 feet high. The reservoir would hold 130,000 acre-feet of water — enough to meet the water needs of 650,000 people for a year.

In Santa Clara County, 40 percent of the water we need for our families, businesses and to grow our local food comes from the Sacramento – San Joaquin Delta. But the infrastructure that delivers this water is aging, at risk of collapse and subject to continual supply cutbacks due to the deteriorating condition of the Delta. Without upgrades to improve our water delivery infrastructure and to better protect the Delta environment, our region’s water supply is at risk.