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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has published a sector-wide set of non-regulatory recommendations to strengthen U.S. drinking water and wastewater systems against cyber attacks, alongside new funding for resilience projects. Although the document itself is advisory, it lands amid stepped-up inspections and enforcement tied to Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) §1433 risk-and-resilience obligations. Utilities, vendors, investors, and acquirers should treat these recommendations as the new baseline for diligence, budgeting, and compliance planning.

The demand for water from the Colorado River is of paramount importance out West and the focus of some big battles. It’s been especially critical for farming and agriculture. In California’s Imperial Valley, there are growing questions over the use of that resource and whether bigger changes are needed. Science correspondent Miles O’Brien reports.

California’s housing goals could be threatened by a lack of water. The state has a housing crisis, and to make any progress on building more housing, we need to concurrently make progress on water.

Here are four commonsense steps that Sacramento leaders can take to make ensure that water supply doesn’t become a barrier to our housing supply goals:

 

 Earlier this year, several environmental groups sent a petition to the federal government with a seemingly simple message: Ensure that water from the imperiled Colorado River is not wasted and only being delivered for “reasonable” and “beneficial” uses.

The organizations urged the Bureau of Reclamation to use its authority to curb water waste in the Lower Basin states: California, Arizona and Nevada. They argued it was necessary to help address the river’s water shortages.