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The state’s Department of Water Resources (DWR) has an Integrated Regional Water Management (IRWM) Disadvantaged Community Engagement Planning Grant program, and on Oct. 27 the San Diego County Water Authority (CWA) board authorized the CWA general manager or her designee to submit a grant application which will include grant requests for Pauma Valley integrated water supply reliability improvement and San Luis Rey Watershed tribal and disadvantaged community assistance for water use efficiency and flood control.

Residents spoke and sent letters en masse but to no effect as water rate increases were approved by the City Council on Tuesday. Mayor Matt Hall, though, stressed the action was unavoidable and the average 4.85 percent rate increases were limited as the Carlsbad Municipal Water District dipped into its reserve fund to ease the cost hike. City Finance Manager Aaron Beanan reported to the council the rate increase is due to a massive spike from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which hit customers with a 12.1 percent increase.

The Olivenhain Municipal Water District recently completed the installation of miles of recycled water pipelines in the Village Park community, and Flora Vista Elementary is the project’s first beneficiary. The project, which began last April, included the conversion of a million-gallon water storage tank near Via Cantebria from drinking water to recycled water and the completion of a pump station that propelled the water to newly installed purple pipelines throughout Village Park.

The November 2014 election included the passage of Proposition 1, whose allocations included $510 million to the state Department of Water Resources to support projects included in Integrated Regional Water Management programs approved by DWR. Proposition 1 also stipulated 12 IRWM funding areas which are based on hydrologic areas rather than county boundaries. The San Diego County Water Authority coordinates grant applications for the San Diego Funding Area which includes the Upper Santa Margarita Planning Region and the South Orange County Planning Region as well as the San Diego Planning Region.

California is finally embracing its rivers. It may be a choking embrace. We Californians have long celebrated our coastal splendor and beautiful mountains. But our rivers were seen as mere plumbing for our hydration convenience.

Now California’s communities, seeking space for environmental restoration and recreation (and some desperately needed housing), are treating rivers and riverfronts as new frontiers, and are busily reconsidering how these bodies of water might better connect people and places. A state bond passed in 2014 offers billions for water-related projects, and the epic drought is inspiring imaginative thinking about our waterways.