“Infrastructure” in general can be defined as the components and
equipment needed to operate, as well as the structures needed
for, public works systems. Typical examples include roads,
bridges, sewers and water supply systems.Various dams and
infrastructural buildings have given Californians and the West
the opportunity to control water, dating back to the days of
Native Americans.
Water management infrastructure focuses on the parts, including
pipes, storage reservoirs, pumps, valves, filtration and
treatment equipment and meters, as well as the buildings to
house process and treatment equipment. Irrigation infrastructure
includes reservoirs, irrigation canals. Major flood control
infrastructure includes dikes, levees, major pumping stations and
floodgates.
Negotiations focusing on how Friant Water Authority will repay
the Bureau of Reclamation for a $22.2 million study mapping out
how to fix the northern and southern portions of the sinking
Friant-Kern Canal began Wednesday in Fresno. “We anticipate
these talks should go smoothly, and we look forward to the
conversation,” Wilson Orvis, Friant’s chief financial officer,
said at the beginning of the meeting, which went on for another
three hours as both sides scoured the draft contract line by
line. The details are vitally important, said one observer who
is involved in multiple legal actions over how to pay for
already completed repairs on one section of the canal. “Clarity
would have and will avoid further disputes as has occurred with
Phase 1 of the Middle Reach Capacity Correction Project,” said
Sean Geivet, General Manager of the Terra Bella, Saucelito and
Porterville irrigation districts.
… For the first time in history, Indian tribes have a seat at
the table, and together with Cadiz, Inc., are creating
what will be the first major water infrastructure
project to be majority owned by tribes for the benefit of
tribes, farmworker and other historically underserved
communities. The Mojave Groundwater Bank will utilize a
large aquifer with 30-50 million acre-feet of water in storage,
located at Cadiz in California’s Mojave Desert, to provide
reliable and affordable water to communities that currently
lack clean, secure water supplies. The aquifer is naturally
recharged by 1,000 years of rain and snowmelt from surrounding
high desert mountains. Water currently lost to evaporation will
be captured, stored and redistributed to surrounding
communities for generations to come. —Written by David Sickey, senior advisor for energy and
water projects at Cadiz and a former chairman of the Coushatta
Tribe
The Metropolitan Water District board on Wednesday voted
to invest another $142 million into the planning for the Delta
Conveyance Project. The vote followed an update at Tuesday’s
Board of Supervisors meeting by Karen Lange, a partner in the
lobbying firm of Shaw Yoder Schmeizer & Lange, which represents
Solano County’s interests in Sacramento. Among her comments was
the political reality that getting the tunnel project built may
be a common-ground issue for Gov. Gavin Newsom’s and
President-elect Donald Trump’s administrations. “That is
seemingly one of the things the federal and state
administrations may align … trying to get this tunnel built,”
Lange said.
The Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority meeting Wednesday
kicked off with two major pieces of news: The authority will
receive $50 million in federal funding that it will use to help
build a pipeline to import water from the California Aqueduct
into the high desert basin and it settled a protracted lawsuit
with Mojave Pistachios. … The money is contained in the Water
Resources Development Act (WRDA), which was approved by the
House of Representatives Tuesday. It is expected to be
approved by the Senate on Dec. 17 and President Biden has
indicated he will sign the act in January, Peters said.
Efforts to modernize California’s water infrastructure and
safeguard public safety in the event of an earthquake are
taking center stage as the state’s Department of Water
Resources (DWR) begins construction on the Lake Perris
Emergency Release Facility (ERF) project this month in
Riverside County. This ambitious initiative, taking place about
60 miles east of Los Angeles, aims to protect local communities
and vital infrastructure by enabling safe water redirection in
case a major earthquake or other emergencies occur. The ERF
project, part of the broader Perris Dam Modernization Program,
includes building new levees, bridges and a local drainage
system downstream from the dam. These upgrades will allow water
to be diverted safely away from Lake Perris through a series of
levees and channels to the Perris Valley Channel in the event
of a severe earthquake or extreme weather.
Arizona’s Water Infrastructure Finance Authority (WIFA) took a
step toward importing billions of gallons of water from out of
state, but it’ll likely be many years before that
happens. Why it matters: The Arizona Department of Water
Resources (ADWR) projects that demand for water will increase
by at least 1.5 million acre-feet — an acre-foot is about
326,000 gallons — by 2060. That demand could hit
100,000-500,000 acre-feet within the next 10-15 years,
according to WIFA. WIFA hopes to meet that demand with
the water importation project, which could bring in as much as
about 163 billion gallons of water annually. Threat
level: The Colorado River basin has endured a
“megadrought” for over two decades, the worst the region has
experienced in roughly 1,200 years. The big picture: WIFA has
approximately $445 million allocated for long-term water
augmentation, with 75% legally designated for out-of-state
sources.
Atmospheric rivers (ARs) are associated with some of the
largest flood-producing extreme precipitation events in western
North America. As the primary storm mechanism in California,
the difference of a few large AR storms in a year dramatically
changes precipitation totals and drives the state towards water
abundance or drought. Current records of AR activity are
limited to just 70 years of instrumental data. So, the key
question motivating this work was: what is the long-term
history of AR storms in California? We can get insight
into past extreme precipitation by looking to the sediment
record. Under the right circumstances, clues to past climate
and extreme precipitation are preserved in layers of sediment
and allow us to reconstruct their history going back centuries
to millennia. Long-term data help water managers avoid
underestimation of potential flood risks and aid future
planning scenarios, particularly for water infrastructure.
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday reaffirmed his support for
building Sites Reservoir, a proposed $4.5 billion project that
would be the largest new reservoir constructed in California in
50 years, as a way for cities and farms to better prepare for
droughts made worse by the warming climate. “We are going to
continue to do everything we can to put the pressure on to get
this project done,” Newsom said. “We are going to continue to
advocate for federal resources,” he added. “Donald Trump, this
is your kind of project.” Sites would be California’s eighth
largest reservoir, a 13-mile-long off-stream lake that would
divert flows from the Sacramento River during wet winters to
provide water to 500,000 acres of Central Valley farmlands, and
24 million people, including residents of Santa Clara County,
parts of the East Bay and Los Angeles.
Furthering efforts to modernize California’s water
infrastructure and improve public safety, the California
Department of Water Resources (DWR) is starting construction on
the Lake Perris Emergency Release Facility project this month
in Riverside County. The project will build new infrastructure
to safely redirect water and protect the community should Lake
Perris need to be lowered during an emergency event, like a
major earthquake. Planned improvements will include new levees,
bridges, and a local drainage system downstream of Perris Dam.
With this additional infrastructure, water could be redirected
from Lake Perris through levees into a drainage channel and
ultimately into the Perris Valley Channel. These upgrades along
with improved roadside landscaping and relocation of utilities
will provide protection to the community and other
infrastructure, including a local school, Interstate 215, and a
water treatment plant.
The Newport Beach City Council awarded a $2.79-million contract
last week to continue maintenance on wells in Fountain Valley
that supply the majority of the coastal city’s water. … [The
contractor will] be tasked with cleaning out pipes
reaching between 400 and 800 feet down to the groundwater
supply and installing a protective lining as well as new pumps.
Los Osos [San Luis Obispo County] may be in line for an $8
million federal grant to connect the community to the State
Water Project that runs to Morro Bay. The water would provide a
supplemental source to the town of 14,000, which is now 100%
dependent on groundwater wells for drinking water. The money
would come from the annual Water Resources Development Act
(WRDA) funding through the Army Corp of Engineers, which passed
both houses of Congress this summer and is expected to be
signed into law, according to a representative from Congressman
Salud Carbajal’s office. That House version of the bill
includes an earmark for Los Osos Community Services District to
receive $8 million to pay the cost of laying a 2.5-mile,
12-inch pipeline to connect to the State Water Project that
brings Northern California reservoir water to the Central
Coast.
A new study warns that current plans to achieve zero emissions
on the grid by 2050 vastly underestimate the required
investments in generation and transmission infrastructure. The
reason: these plans do not account for climate change’s impacts
on water resources. Specifically, changes in water availability
caused by climate change could decrease hydropower generation
by up to 23% by the year 2050, while electricity demand could
increase by 2%. Both these phenomena would come together in
summer to compound impacts on the grid.
As extreme weather events become more intense and more common,
states already face an estimated backlog of nearly $1 trillion
for deferred maintenance and needed upgrades to public
infrastructure. To finance long-overdue repairs and ensure that
America’s roads, bridges, and water systems can withstand
future climate impacts, states are turning to new strategies
and adapting existing approaches to address the substantial
work needed to boost the resilience of these vital systems.
… California residents recently passed a $10 billion
bond proposal, which would cover similar water
infrastructure improvements and projects to protect these
systems from the effects of extreme heat.
A newly detected invasive mussel is posing a potential threat
to Lake County’s water bodies. The Lake County Water Resources
Department, and Watershed Protection District urge residents
and visitors to Clear Lake, and other Lake County water bodies,
to be aware and on the lookout for invasive golden mussels
(Limnoperna fortunei). The newly detected invasive mussel
(freshwater bivalve) found in several locations in the Port of
Stockton and in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta region. On
Oct. 17, the California Department of Water Resources reported
finding attached, adult mussels at a sample site location in
the Port of Stockton. Mussel specimens were sent to UC Davis
Genomic Variation Laboratory and confirmed to be golden
mussels, originally from China and Southeast Asia; the species
had not previously been detected in North America.
The Washington County Water Conservancy District was selected
as one of five recipients of federal funding to put dollars to
work for saving water in the West — an urgent goal due to
decades of drought. … In Utah’s Washington County, the
$1 billion system will get a boost of $641,222 for new water
treatment facilities, advanced purification technology, new
conveyance pipelines and storage reservoirs, according to the
bureau’s release on Monday. The southern Utah area has
often come under attack for what its critics say is excessive
water use — which the district disputes.
The Bureau of Reclamation and the San Luis & Delta-Mendota
Water Authority [on Nov. 13] announced a negotiated
consensus has been met for the B.F. Sisk Dam Raise and
Reservoir Expansion Project. The joint project creates an
additional 130,000 acre-feet of storage space in San Luis
Reservoir, the nation’s largest off-stream reservoir, producing
additional water supply for two million people, over one
million acres of farmland and 135,000 acres of Pacific Flyway
wetlands and critical wildlife habitat. Reclamation signed the
Record of Decision for the project on Oct. 20, 2023, the first
approval of a major water storage project in California since
2011.
As the permitting battle over the proposed Sites Reservoir
Project in Northern California heats up, it’s become clear that
the project would further heat up the atmosphere as well. Just
as California has made bold commitments to achieve carbon
neutrality in the next few decades, the state seems ready to
approve a dam project that would put that progress in jeopardy.
A new report, “Estimate of Greenhouse Gas Emissions for the
Proposed Sites Reservoir Project Using the All-Res Modeling
Tool,” created by a science team at my organization, Tell The
Dam Truth, exposes the climate impacts caused by this massive
dam and reservoir system. -Written by Gary Wockner, PhD, who directs Tell The
Dam Truth
Residents living below the Isabella Auxiliary Dam were thrilled
earlier this month with a temporary fix that finally dried up
excessive seepage from the dam that had been swamping septic
systems and breeding forests of mosquito-infested weeds around
their homes. The didn’t realize how temporary the fix would be,
however. After only 12 days without a river cutting through his
land, rancher Gerald Wenstrand woke up to see the seepage back
on Saturday.
It was exactly the sort of deluge
California groundwater agencies have been counting on to
replenish their overworked aquifers.
The start of 2023 brought a parade of torrential Pacific storms
to bone dry California. Snow piled up across the Sierra Nevada at
a near-record pace while runoff from the foothills gushed into
the Central Valley, swelling rivers over their banks and filling
seasonal creeks for the first time in half a decade.
Suddenly, water managers and farmers toiling in one of the
state’s most groundwater-depleted regions had an opportunity to
capture stormwater and bank it underground. Enterprising agencies
diverted water from rushing rivers and creeks into manmade
recharge basins or intentionally flooded orchards and farmland.
Others snagged temporary permits from the state to pull from
streams they ordinarily couldn’t touch.
Managers of California’s most
overdrawn aquifers were given a monumental task under the state’s
landmark Sustainable Groundwater Management Act: Craft viable,
detailed plans on a 20-year timeline to bring their beleaguered
basins into balance. It was a task that required more than 250
newly formed local groundwater agencies – many of them in the
drought-stressed San Joaquin Valley – to set up shop, gather
data, hear from the public and collaborate with neighbors on
multiple complex plans, often covering just portions of a
groundwater basin.
Martha Guzman recalls those awful
days working on water and other issues as a deputy legislative
secretary for then-Gov. Jerry Brown. California was mired in a
recession and the state’s finances were deep in the red. Parks
were cut, schools were cut, programs were cut to try to balance a
troubled state budget in what she remembers as “that terrible
time.”
She now finds herself in a strikingly different position: As
administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s
Region 9, she has a mandate to address water challenges across
California, Nevada, Arizona and Hawaii and $1 billion to help pay
for it. It is the kind of funding, she said, that is usually
spread out over a decade. Guzman called it the “absolutely
greatest opportunity.”
When you oversee the largest
supplier of treated water in the United States, you tend to think
big.
Jeff Kightlinger, general manager of the Metropolitan Water
District of Southern California for the last 15 years, has
focused on diversifying his agency’s water supply and building
security through investment. That means looking beyond MWD’s
borders to ensure the reliable delivery of water to two-thirds of
California’s population.
As California slowly emerges from
the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic, one remnant left behind by
the statewide lockdown offers a sobering reminder of the economic
challenges still ahead for millions of the state’s residents and
the water agencies that serve them – a mountain of water debt.
Water affordability concerns, long an issue in a state where
millions of people struggle to make ends meet, jumped into
overdrive last year as the pandemic wrenched the economy. Jobs
were lost and household finances were upended. Even with federal
stimulus aid and unemployment checks, bills fell by the wayside.
A government agency that controls much of California’s water
supply released its initial allocation for 2021, and the
numbers reinforced fears that the state is falling into another
drought. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation said Tuesday that most
of the water agencies that rely on the Central Valley Project
will get just 5% of their contract supply, a dismally low
number. Although the figure could grow if California gets more
rain and snow, the allocation comes amid fresh weather
forecasts suggesting the dry winter is continuing. The National
Weather Service says the Sacramento Valley will be warm and
windy the next few days, with no rain in the forecast.
Across a sprawling corner of southern Tulare County snug against the Sierra Nevada, a bounty of navel oranges, grapes, pistachios, hay and other crops sprout from the loam and clay of the San Joaquin Valley. Groundwater helps keep these orchards, vineyards and fields vibrant and supports a multibillion-dollar agricultural economy across the valley. But that bounty has come at a price. Overpumping of groundwater has depleted aquifers, dried up household wells and degraded ecosystems.
Innovative efforts to accelerate
restoration of headwater forests and to improve a river for the
benefit of both farmers and fish. Hard-earned lessons for water
agencies from a string of devastating California wildfires.
Efforts to drought-proof a chronically water-short region of
California. And a broad debate surrounding how best to address
persistent challenges facing the Colorado River.
These were among the issues Western Water explored in
2019, and are still worth taking a look at in case you missed
them.
It’s been a year since two devastating wildfires on opposite ends
of California underscored the harsh new realities facing water
districts and cities serving communities in or adjacent to the
state’s fire-prone wildlands. Fire doesn’t just level homes, it
can contaminate water, scorch watersheds, damage delivery systems
and upend an agency’s finances.
The southern part of California’s Central Coast from San Luis Obispo County to Ventura County, home to about 1.5 million people, is blessed with a pleasing Mediterranean climate and a picturesque terrain. Yet while its unique geography abounds in beauty, the area perpetually struggles with drought.
Indeed, while the rest of California breathed a sigh of relief with the return of wet weather after the severe drought of 2012–2016, places such as Santa Barbara still grappled with dry conditions.
For the bulk of her career, Jayne
Harkins has devoted her energy to issues associated with the
management of the Colorado River, both with the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation and with the Colorado River Commission of Nevada.
Now her career is taking a different direction. Harkins, 58, was
appointed by President Trump last August to take the helm of the
United States section of the U.S.-Mexico agency that oversees
myriad water matters between the two countries as they seek to
sustainably manage the supply and water quality of the Colorado
River, including its once-thriving Delta in Mexico, and other
rivers the two countries share. She is the first woman to be
named the U.S. Commissioner of the International Boundary and
Water Commission for either the United States or Mexico in the
commission’s 129-year history.
The San Joaquin Valley, known as the
nation’s breadbasket, grows a cornucopia of fruits, nuts and
other agricultural products.
During our three-day Central Valley Tour April
3-5, you will meet farmers who will explain how they prepare
the fields, irrigate their crops and harvest the produce that
helps feed the nation and beyond. We also will drive through
hundreds of miles of farmland and visit the rivers, dams,
reservoirs and groundwater wells that provide the water.
In the universe of California water, Tim Quinn is a professor emeritus. Quinn has seen — and been a key player in — a lot of major California water issues since he began his water career 40 years ago as a young economist with the Rand Corporation, then later as deputy general manager with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, and finally as executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies. In December, the 66-year-old will retire from ACWA.
There’s going to be a new governor
in California next year – and a host of challenges both old and
new involving the state’s most vital natural resource, water.
So what should be the next governor’s water priorities?
That was one of the questions put to more than 150 participants
during a wrap-up session at the end of the Water Education
Foundation’s Sept. 20 Water Summit in Sacramento.
New water storage is the holy grail
primarily for agricultural interests in California, and in 2014
the door to achieving long-held ambitions opened with the passage
of Proposition
1, which included $2.7 billion for the public benefits
portion of new reservoirs and groundwater storage projects. The
statute stipulated that the money is specifically for the
benefits that a new storage project would offer to the ecosystem,
water quality, flood control, emergency response and recreation.
It’s high-stakes time in Arizona. The state that depends on the
Colorado River to help supply its cities and farms — and is
first in line to absorb a shortage — is seeking a unified plan
for water supply management to join its Lower Basin neighbors,
California and Nevada, in a coordinated plan to preserve water
levels in Lake Mead before
they run too low.
If the lake’s elevation falls below 1,075 feet above sea level,
the secretary of the Interior would declare a shortage and
Arizona’s deliveries of Colorado River water would be reduced by
320,000 acre-feet. Arizona says that’s enough to serve about 1
million households in one year.
Get a unique view of the San Joaquin Valley’s key dams and
reservoirs that store and transport water on our March Central
Valley Tour.
Our Central Valley
Tour, March 14-16, offers a broad view of water issues
in the San Joaquin Valley. In addition to the farms, orchards,
critical habitat for threatened bird populations, flood bypasses
and a national wildlife refuge, we visit some of California’s
major water infrastructure projects.
One of the wettest years in California history that ended a
record five-year drought has rejuvenated the call for new storage
to be built above and below ground.
In a state that depends on large surface water reservoirs to help
store water before moving it hundreds of miles to where it is
used, a wet year after a long drought has some people yearning
for a place to sock away some of those flood flows for when they
are needed.
Contrary to popular belief, “100-Year Flood” does not refer to a
flood that happens every century. Rather, the term describes the
statistical chance of a flood of a certain magnitude (or greater)
taking place once in 100 years. It is also accurate to say a
so-called “100-Year Flood” has a 1 percent chance of occurring in
a given year, and those living in a 100-year floodplain have,
each year, a 1 percent chance of being flooded.
Mired in drought, expectations are high that new storage funded
by Prop. 1 will be constructed to help California weather the
adverse conditions and keep water flowing to homes and farms.
At the same time, there are some dams in the state eyed for
removal because they are obsolete – choked by accumulated
sediment, seismically vulnerable and out of compliance with
federal regulations that require environmental balance.
The proposed Sites Reservoir would
be an off-river storage basin on the west side of the Sacramento
Valley, about 78 miles northwest of Sacramento. It would capture
stormwater flows from the Sacramento River for release in dry
years for fish and wildlife, farms, communities and
businesses.
The water would be held in a 14,000-acre basin of grasslands
surrounded by the rolling eastern foothills of the Coast Range.
Known as Antelope Valley, the sparsely populated area in Glenn
and Colusa counties is used for livestock grazing.
This 25-minute documentary-style DVD, developed in partnership
with the California Department of Water Resources, provides an
excellent overview of climate change and how it is already
affecting California. The DVD also explains what scientists
anticipate in the future related to sea level rise and
precipitation/runoff changes and explores the efforts that are
underway to plan and adapt to climate.
Water as a renewable resource is depicted in this 18×24 inch
poster. Water is renewed again and again by the natural
hydrologic cycle where water evaporates, transpires from plants,
rises to form clouds, and returns to the earth as precipitation.
Excellent for elementary school classroom use.
Redesigned in 2017, this beautiful map depicts the seven
Western states that share the Colorado River with Mexico. The
Colorado River supplies water to nearly 40 million people in
Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming
and Mexico. Text on this beautiful, 24×36-inch map, which is
suitable for framing, explains the river’s apportionment, history
and the need to adapt its management for urban growth and
expected climate change impacts.
As the state’s population continues to grow and traditional water
supplies grow tighter, there is increased interest in reusing
treated wastewater for a variety of activities, including
irrigation of crops, parks and golf courses, groundwater recharge
and industrial uses.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to the State Water Project provides
an overview of the California-funded and constructed State Water
Project.
The State Water Project is best known for the 444-mile-long
aqueduct that provides water from the Delta to San Joaquin Valley
agriculture and southern California cities. The guide contains
information about the project’s history and facilities.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to Integrated Regional Water
Management (IRWM) is an in-depth, easy-to-understand publication
that provides background information on the principles of IRWM,
its funding history and how it differs from the traditional water
management approach.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to the Central Valley Project
explores the history and development of the federal Central
Valley Project (CVP), California’s largest surface water delivery
system. In addition to the project’s history, the guide describes
the various CVP facilities, CVP operations, the benefits the CVP
brought to the state and the CVP Improvement Act (CVPIA).
Dams have allowed Californians and others across the West to
harness and control water dating back to pre-European settlement
days when Native Americans had erected simple dams for catching
salmon.
This printed issue of Western Water examines water
infrastructure – its costs and the quest to augment traditional
brick-and-mortar facilities with sleeker, “green” features.
Everywhere you look water infrastructure is working hard to keep
cities, farms and industry in the state running. From the massive
storage structures that dot the West to the aqueducts that convey
water hundreds of miles to large urban areas and the untold miles
of water mains and sewage lines under every city and town, the
semiarid West would not exist as it does without the hardware
that meets its water needs.
This printed issue of Western Water discusses low
impact development and stormwater capture – two areas of emerging
interest that are viewed as important components of California’s
future water supply and management scenario.
This printed issue of Western Water examines
groundwater banking, a water management strategy with appreciable
benefits but not without challenges and controversy.
This printed issue of Western Water examines the
changed nature of the California Water Plan, some aspects of the
2009 update (including the recommendation for a water finance
plan) and the reaction by certain stakeholders.
This printed issue of Western Water looks at some of
the pieces of the 2009 water legislation, including the Delta
Stewardship Council, the new requirements for groundwater
monitoring and the proposed water bond.
It’s no secret that providing water in a state with the size and
climate of California costs money. The gamut of water-related
infrastructure – from reservoirs like Lake Oroville to the pumps
and pipes that deliver water to homes, businesses and farms –
incurs initial and ongoing expenses. Throw in a new spate of
possible mega-projects, such as those designed to rescue the
ailing Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, and the dollar amount grows
exponentially to billion-dollar amounts that rival the entire
gross national product of a small country.
This printed issue of Western Water examines the
financing of water infrastructure, both at the local level and
from the statewide perspective, and some of the factors that
influence how people receive their water, the price they pay for
it and how much they might have to pay in the future.
They are located in urban areas and in some of the most rural
parts of the state, but they have at least one thing in common:
they provide water service to a very small group of people. In a
state where water is managed and delivered by an organization as
large as the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California,
most small water systems exist in obscurity – financed by
shoestring budgets and operated by personnel who wear many hats.
This issue of Western Water looks at water
infrastructure – from the large conveyance systems to the small
neighborhood providers – and the many challenges faced by water
agencies in their continuing mission of assuring a steady and
reliable supply for their customers.
Chances are that deep within the ground beneath you as you read
this is a vast network of infrastructure that is busy providing
the necessary services that enable life to proceed at the pace it
does in the 21st century. Electricity zips through cables to
power lights and computers while other conduits move infinite
amounts of information that light up computer screens and phone
lines.
This issue of Western Water explores the question of whether the
state needs more surface storage, with a particular focus on the
five proposed projects identified in the CALFED 2000 ROD and the
politics and funding issues of these projects.
