In a desert landscape dominated by sagebrush, a piece of Los
Angeles’ immense water empire stands behind a chain-link fence:
a hydrant-like piece of metal atop a well. The electric pump
hums as it sends water gushing into a canal, forming a stream
in the desert. This well is one of 105 that L.A. owns across
the Owens Valley. … While many Californians know the story of
how L.A. seized the valley’s river water in the early 1900s and
drained Owens Lake, fewer know that the city also pulls up a
significant amount of water from underground. The pumping has
led to resentment among leaders of Native tribes, who say it is
leaving their valley parched and harming the environment.
California’s megadrought seems as endless as the Mojave Desert.
Between killer heat and growing wildfires, the state
experiences some of the harshest effects of climate change.
Although California is leading in clean energy policies needed
to tackle the worst impacts, water management is still a real
problem. … Ángel S. Fernández-Bou, bilingual senior
climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, has
spent part of his career studying the problems facing
California’s land, including farms, farmworkers, and people. He
has devised several solutions that can protect people and help
them prosper. They start, he says, with listening to and
respecting community and Indigenous knowledge.
The U.S. Department of the Interior has pulled more than $2
million in federal grants for restoration work in the Mid
Klamath Basin. The $2.1 million would have funded seven
projects along the Klamath River in Northern California. The
Mid Klamath Watershed Council said the work included wildfire
prevention, habitat restoration, and surveys of Chinook salmon.
… The Interior Department told the council in late
September that the grants no longer align with U.S. Fish and
Wildlife priorities.
Governor Gavin Newsom today announced that more than $128
million in Sustainable Agricultural Lands Conservation (SALC)
Program grants have been approved to permanently protect more
than 40,000 acres of croplands and rangelands across 24
counties, returning more than 11,000 acres to California Native
American tribes, securing farmland for military veterans, and
benefiting low-income communities. … Eight projects
receiving grants will return 11,316 acres of land to California
Native American tribes to support cultural and traditional
agriculture uses.
The Klamath Tribes walked out of a summit for Oregon’s tribal
governments and the governor this week, calling for action from
the governor’s office over concerns about the preservation of
their resources. The Klamath Tribes say their goal is the
restoration of the Klamath watershed, citing a
series of events that infringe on rights guaranteed through a
treaty signed in 1864. … This past summer, the tribes
say outfitters and guides infringed on tribal members’ fishing,
creating confrontational situations and prompting requests for
consultation.
For more than a century, a canyon along the Klamath River — its
riverbanks and striking rock formations — was closed to the
public, seen only by a few. But now, for the first time in
generations, rafts once again glide through its waters.
… For decades, reservoirs drew people to live and
recreate along the Klamath. Now, the river and its new
surroundings are being rediscovered in a different way.
… With the dams and diversion pipes gone, water now
flows freely through the canyon, revealing its distinctive
geology — visible now to anyone with a paddle.
On Oct. 7, the United States Senate confirmed William “Billy”
Kirkland as the assistant secretary of the Interior for Indian
Affairs with a 51-47 vote. Kirkland’s confirmation makes him
the highest-level Navajo currently serving in the U.S.
government. … Kirkland told the committee that he first
learned first-hand infrastructure struggles of reservation life
while hauling water to his grandmother Susie’s sheep camp in
LeChee. “Like on many reservations even today, water is scarce,
and electricity was just a dream,” he said.
The Colorado River Indian Tribes may soon become the third
Indigenous government in North America to grant personhood
rights to a river. ‘Aha Kwahwat, or the Colorado River, has
been at the heart of Mojave culture and history for millennia.
The river is also critically important to the other three
cultures that make up the Colorado River Indian Tribes: the
Chemehuevi, whose ancestral lands lie to the northwest of
CRIT’s lands, Navajo and Hopi who moved to the area in the
1940s. … Once the tribal membership has completed weighing in
… the already-drafted resolution will be put before the
tribal council, and once approved, will become part of CRIT’s
law.
… The BIA [Bureau of Indian Affairs] states that the federal
Indian trust responsibility is a legal obligation under which
the U.S. “has charged itself with moral obligations of the
highest responsibility and trust” toward Indian tribes.
… If the BIA has a moral obligation to the Navajo
people, is it moral to take away their water rights or allow
the sale of the water rights while they are advocating or
holding in trust for the Navajo people our land, water and
fiduciary trusts? Is it not a moral responsibility to make
sure those who you are looking after have water while they
don’t have a permanent government? … I encourage my
people to consider the impact of the sale of our water supply
and rights for a small portion of the tribe. –Written by Navajo Nation constituent member Neal
Riggs.
… [L]ast week, California Governor Gavin Newsom extended the
state’s cap-and-trade program until 2045. … [T]he [Yurok]
tribe has now received tens of millions of dollars in carbon
credit sales, boosting its economy and funding environmental
projects like recovery work on the Klamath River in the wake of
dam removal. But critics of carbon markets remain
staunchly opposed to the programs, alleging that the scheme
perpetuates colonialism, incentivizes the theft of Indigenous
resources, and allows companies to essentially pay to keep
polluting without having to change their activities.
The Governor’s Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation (LCI)
announced today the launch of an extensive plan to update
California’s Tribal Consultation Guidelines. The effort aims to
strengthen protections for Tribal cultural resources and
honor government-to-government relationships with Tribal
Nations and Native communities across the state. The
Tribal Consultation Guidelines, last revised in 2005, serve as
a critical resource for ensuring that Tribal governments have a
meaningful voice in land use decisions and environmental
planning.
I recently spoke with seventeen-year-old Keeya Wiki about the
first descent of the Klamath River, a 263-mile
river in Oregon and California. Keeya, who is Yurok and Māori,
was one of thirty youth who kayaked the river for the first
time in one hundred years. She reminded me of what it feels
like when you protect something sacred. In 2024, four dams came
down on the Klamath River, the largest dam removal in U.S.
history, and the river was free. The youth trained for the
descent on white waters throughout the region, and even in
Chile, to make sure they were safe. Then this summer they
joined the river and traveled for a month of freedom, joy, and
renewal.
For more than a decade, the Walker River Paiute Tribe has been
working to update their limited water infrastructure. On Sept.
15 they were finally able to break ground on a water looping
system that will add nearly 1,600 linear feet of water lines to
the reservation. Earlier this year the tribe was counting on a
$20 million EPA grant to help build the water looping system.
Then, in March President Trump’s administration suddenly and
swiftly took it away. … The tribe had been saving funds,
because their revenue is limited by lack of economic
opportunity, says Walker River Paiute Tribe Chairwoman Melanie
McFalls. The tribe will use three million dollars of that
funding to pay for the water-looping project.
… The potential benefits of beavers are manifold, from fire
prevention and resilience to improved water quality and
fishing. … In 2023, the state began a beaver
restoration program through the California Department of Fish
and Wildlife (CDFW). Most notably, the program partnered with
the Tule River Tribe, as well as the Mountain Maidu people in
northern California, to move beavers to tribal lands from areas
where they were causing problems for humans, primarily in the
watersheds of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers.
On this first-ever Foundation water tourwe examined water issues along the 263-mile Klamath River, from its spring-fed headwaters in south-central Oregon to its redwood-lined estuary on the Pacific Ocean in California.
Running Y Resort
5500 Running Y Rd
Klamath Falls, OR 97601
Six tribes in the Upper Colorado River Basin, including two in
Colorado, have gained long-awaited access to discussions about
the basin’s water issues — talks that were formerly
limited to states and the federal government. Under an
agreement finalized this month, the tribes will meet every two
months to discuss Colorado River issues with an interstate
water policy commission, the Upper Colorado River Commission,
or UCRC. It’s the first time in the commission’s 76-year
history that tribes have been formally included, and the timing
is key as negotiations about the river’s future intensify.
… Most immediately, the commission wants a key number:
How much water goes unused by tribes and flows down to the
Lower Basin?
Sustaining the American Southwest is the Colorado River. But
demand, damming, diversion, and drought are draining this vital
water resource at alarming rates. The future of water in the
region – particularly from the Colorado River – was top of mind
at the 10th Annual Eccles Family Rural West Conference, an
event organized by the Bill Lane Center for the American West
that brings together policymakers, practitioners, and scholars
to discuss solutions to urgent problems facing rural Western
regions.
This tour explored the lower Colorado River firsthand where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to some 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states, 30 tribal nations and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
Hilton Garden Inn Las Vegas Strip South
7830 S Las Vegas Blvd
Las Vegas, NV 89123
Learn the history and challenges facing the West’s most dramatic
and developed river.
The Layperson’s Guide to the Colorado River Basin introduces the
1,450-mile river that sustains 40 million people and millions of
acres of farmland spanning seven states and parts of northern
Mexico.
The 28-page primer explains how the river’s water is shared and
managed as the Southwest transitions to a hotter and drier
climate.
The U.S. Senate Indian Affairs Committee is holding an
important hearing Thursday on S. 2385, a bill to
refine the tools needed to help Tribal communities gain access
to something that most non-Indian communities in the western
United States have long taken for granted: federally subsidized
systems to deliver safe, clean drinking water to our homes.
… This is the sort of bill (there’s a companion on the
House side) that makes a huge amount of sense, but could easily
get sidetracked in the chaos of Congress. The ideal path is for
the crucial vetting to happen in a process such as Thursday’s
hearing, and then to attach it to one of those omnibus things
that Congress uses these days to get non-controversial stuff
done. Clean water for Native communities should pretty clearly
be non-controversial.
The climate-driven shrinking of the
Colorado River is expanding the influence of Native American
tribes over how the river’s flows are divided among cities, farms
and reservations across the Southwest.
The tribes are seeing the value of their largely unused river
water entitlements rise as the Colorado dwindles, and they are
gaining seats they’ve never had at the water bargaining table as
government agencies try to redress a legacy of exclusion.
The states of the Lower Colorado
River Basin have traditionally played an oversized role in
tapping the lifeline that supplies 40 million people in the West.
California, Nevada and Arizona were quicker to build major canals
and dams and negotiated a landmark deal that requires the Upper
Basin to send predictable flows through the Grand Canyon, even
during dry years.
But with the federal government threatening unprecedented water
cuts amid decades of drought and declining reservoirs, the Upper
Basin states of Wyoming, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico are
muscling up to protect their shares of an overallocated river
whose average flows in the Upper Basin have already dropped
20 percent over the last century.
They have formed new agencies to better monitor their interests,
moved influential Colorado River veterans into top negotiating
posts and improved their relationships with Native American
tribes that also hold substantial claims to the river.
This tour explored the lower Colorado River firsthand where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to some 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states, 30 tribal nations and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
Hilton Garden Inn Las Vegas Strip South
7830 S Las Vegas Blvd
Las Vegas, NV 89123
This special Foundation water tour journeyed along the Eastern Sierra from the Truckee River to Mono Lake, through the Owens Valley and into the Mojave Desert to explore a major source of water for Southern California, this year’s snowpack and challenges for towns, farms and the environment.
When the Colorado River Compact was
signed 100 years ago, the negotiators for seven Western states
bet that the river they were dividing would have ample water to
meet everyone’s needs – even those not seated around the table.
A century later, it’s clear the water they bet on is not there.
More than two decades of drought, lake evaporation and overuse of
water have nearly drained the river’s two anchor reservoirs, Lake
Powell on the Arizona-Utah border and Lake Mead near Las Vegas.
Climate change is rendering the basin drier, shrinking spring
runoff that’s vital for river flows, farms, tribes and cities
across the basin – and essential for refilling reservoirs.
The states that endorsed the Colorado River Compact in 1922 – and
the tribes and nation of Mexico that were excluded from the table
– are now straining to find, and perhaps more importantly accept,
solutions on a river that may offer just half of the water that
the Compact assumed would be available. And not only are
solutions not coming easily, the relationships essential for
compromise are getting more frayed.
With 25 years of experience working
on the Colorado River, Chuck Cullom is used to responding to
myriad challenges that arise on the vital lifeline that seven
states, more than two dozen tribes and the country of Mexico
depend on for water. But this summer problems on the
drought-stressed river are piling up at a dizzying pace:
Reservoirs plummeting to record low levels, whether Hoover Dam
and Glen Canyon Dam can continue to release water and produce
hydropower, unprecedented water cuts and predatory smallmouth
bass threatening native fish species in the Grand Canyon.
“Holy buckets, Batman!,” said Cullom, executive director of the
Upper Colorado River Commission. “I mean, it’s just on and on and
on.”
As water interests in the Colorado
River Basin prepare to negotiate a new set of operating
guidelines for the drought-stressed river, Amelia Flores wants
her Colorado River Indian Tribes (CRIT) to be involved in the
discussion. And she wants CRIT seated at the negotiating table
with something invaluable to offer on a river facing steep cuts
in use: its surplus water.
CRIT, whose reservation lands in California and Arizona are
bisected by the Colorado River, has some of the most senior water
rights on the river. But a federal law enacted in the late 1700s,
decades before any southwestern state was established, prevents
most tribes from sending any of its water off its reservation.
The restrictions mean CRIT, which holds the rights to nearly a
quarter of the entire state of Arizona’s yearly allotment of
river water, is missing out on financial gain and the chance to
help its river partners.
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.”
This tour explored the lower Colorado River firsthand where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to some 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states, 30 tribal nations and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
Hyatt Place Las Vegas At Silverton Village
8380 Dean Martin Drive
Las Vegas, NV 89139
Climate scientist Brad Udall calls
himself the skunk in the room when it comes to the Colorado
River. Armed with a deck of PowerPoint slides and charts that
highlight the Colorado River’s worsening math, the Colorado State
University scientist offers a grim assessment of the river’s
future: Runoff from the river’s headwaters is declining, less
water is flowing into Lake Powell – the key reservoir near the
Arizona-Utah border – and at the same time, more water is being
released from the reservoir than it can sustainably provide.
The lower Colorado River has virtually every drop allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states, 30 tribal nations and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
Hyatt Place Las Vegas At Silverton Village
8380 Dean Martin Drive
Las Vegas, NV 89139
For more than 20 years, Tanya
Trujillo has been immersed in the many challenges of the Colorado
River, the drought-stressed lifeline for 40 million people from
Denver to Los Angeles and the source of irrigation water for more
than 5 million acres of winter lettuce, supermarket melons and
other crops.
Trujillo has experience working in both the Upper and Lower
Basins of the Colorado River, basins that split the river’s water
evenly but are sometimes at odds with each other. She was a
lawyer for the state of New Mexico, one of four states in the
Upper Colorado River Basin, when key operating guidelines for
sharing shortages on the river were negotiated in 2007. She later
worked as executive director for the Colorado River Board of
California, exposing her to the different perspectives and
challenges facing California and the other states in the river’s
Lower Basin.
This event explored the lower Colorado River where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
The Colorado River is arguably one
of the hardest working rivers on the planet, supplying water to
40 million people and a large agricultural economy in the West.
But it’s under duress from two decades of drought and decisions
made about its management will have exceptional ramifications for
the future, especially as impacts from climate change are felt.
We have an unknown distance yet to run, an unknown river to explore. What falls there are, we know not; what rocks beset the channel, we know not; what walls ride over the river, we know not. Ah, well! We may conjecture many things.
~John Wesley Powell
Powell scrawled those words in his journal as he and his expedition paddled their way into the deep walls of the Grand Canyon on a stretch of the Colorado River in August 1869. Three months earlier, the 10-man group had set out on their exploration of the iconic Southwest river by hauling their wooden boats into a major tributary of the Colorado, the Green River in Wyoming, for their trip into the “great unknown,” as Powell described it.
Even as stakeholders in the Colorado River Basin celebrate the recent completion of an unprecedented drought plan intended to stave off a crashing Lake Mead, there is little time to rest. An even larger hurdle lies ahead as they prepare to hammer out the next set of rules that could vastly reshape the river’s future.
Set to expire in 2026, the current guidelines for water deliveries and shortage sharing, launched in 2007 amid a multiyear drought, were designed to prevent disputes that could provoke conflict.
This tour explored the lower Colorado River where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs is the focus of this tour.
Silverton Hotel
3333 Blue Diamond Road
Las Vegas, NV 89139
The growing leadership of women in water. The Colorado River’s persistent drought and efforts to sign off on a plan to avert worse shortfalls of water from the river. And in California’s Central Valley, promising solutions to vexing water resource challenges.
These were among the topics that Western Water news explored in 2018.
We’re already planning a full slate of stories for 2019. You can sign up here to be alerted when new stories are published. In the meantime, take a look at what we dove into in 2018:
As the Colorado River Basin becomes
drier and shortage conditions loom, one great variable remains:
How much of the river’s water belongs to Native American tribes?
Native Americans already use water from the Colorado River and
its tributaries for a variety of purposes, including leasing it
to non-Indian users. But some tribes aren’t using their full
federal Indian reserved water right and others have water rights
claims that have yet to be resolved. Combined, tribes have rights
to more water than some states in the Colorado River Basin.
Amy Haas recently became the first non-engineer and the first woman to serve as executive director of the Upper Colorado River Commission in its 70-year history, putting her smack in the center of a host of daunting challenges facing the Upper Colorado River Basin.
Yet those challenges will be quite familiar to Haas, an attorney who for the past year has served as deputy director and general counsel of the commission. (She replaced longtime Executive Director Don Ostler). She has a long history of working within interstate Colorado River governance, including representing New Mexico as its Upper Colorado River commissioner and playing a central role in the negotiation of the recently signed U.S.-Mexico agreement known as Minute 323.
We explored the lower Colorado River where virtually every drop
of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad
sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and
climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in
the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin
states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this
water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial
needs was the focus of this tour.
Hampton Inn Tropicana
4975 Dean Martin Drive, Las Vegas, NV 89118
Rising temperatures from climate change are having a noticeable
effect on how much water is flowing down the Colorado River. Read
the latest River Report to learn more about what’s
happening, and how water managers are responding.
This issue of Western Water discusses the challenges
facing the Colorado River Basin resulting from persistent
drought, climate change and an overallocated river, and how water
managers and others are trying to face the future.
This three-day, two-night tour explored the lower Colorado River
where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand
is growing from myriad sources — increasing population,
declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in
the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin
states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this
water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial
needs is the focus of this tour.
Best Western McCarran Inn
4970 Paradise Road
Las Vegas, NV 89119
The American River originates high
in the Sierra Nevada just west of Lake Tahoe, in the Tahoe and
Eldorado national forests.
The birthplace of the California Gold Rush, the river today is a
prime recreational destination and a major water supply source
for the federal Central Valley Project.
This 109-page publication details the importance of protecting
source water – surface water and groundwater – on reservations
from pollution and includes a step-by-step work plan for tribes
interested in developing a protection plan for their drinking
water. The workbook is designed to serve as a template for such
programs, with forms and tables for photocopying. It also offers
a simplified approach for assessment and protection that focuses
on identifying and managing immediate contamination threats.
20-minute version of the 2012 documentary The Klamath Basin: A
Restoration for the Ages. This DVD is ideal for showing at
community forums and speaking engagements to help the public
understand the complex issues related to complex water management
disputes in the Klamath River Basin. Narrated by actress Frances
Fisher.
For over a century, the Klamath River Basin along the Oregon and
California border has faced complex water management disputes. As
relayed in this 2012, 60-minute public television documentary
narrated by actress Frances Fisher, the water interests range
from the Tribes near the river, to energy producer PacifiCorp,
farmers, municipalities, commercial fishermen, environmentalists
– all bearing legitimate arguments for how to manage the water.
After years of fighting, a groundbreaking compromise may soon
settle the battles with two epic agreements that hold the promise
of peace and fish for the watershed. View an excerpt from the
documentary here.
This 30-minute DVD explains the importance of developing a source
water assessment program (SWAP) for tribal lands and by profiling
three tribes that have created SWAPs. Funded by a grant from the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the video complements the
Foundation’s 109-page workbook, Protecting Drinking Water: A
Workbook for Tribes, which includes a step-by-step work plan for
Tribes interested in developing a protection plan for their
drinking water.
This beautiful 24×36-inch poster, suitable for framing, displays
the rivers, lakes and reservoirs, irrigated farmland, urban areas
and Indian reservations within the Klamath River Watershed. The
map text explains the many issues facing this vast,
15,000-square-mile watershed, including fish restoration;
agricultural water use; and wetlands. Also included are
descriptions of the separate, but linked, Klamath Basin
Restoration Agreement and the Klamath Hydroelectric Agreement,
and the next steps associated with those agreements. Development
of the map was funded by a grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service.
This beautiful 24×36-inch poster, suitable for framing, displays
the rivers, lakes and reservoirs, irrigated farmland, urban areas
and Indian reservations within the Truckee River Basin, including
the Newlands Project, Pyramid Lake and Lake Tahoe. Map text
explains the issues surrounding the use of the Truckee-Carson
rivers, Lake Tahoe water quality improvement efforts, fishery
restoration and the effort to reach compromise solutions to many
of these issues.
This 24×36 inch poster, suitable for framing, illustrates the
water resources available for Nevada cities, agriculture and the
environment. It features natural and manmade water resources
throughout the state, including the Truckee and Carson rivers,
Lake Tahoe, Pyramid Lake and the course of the Colorado River
that forms the state’s eastern boundary.
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.
The 28-page Layperson’s Guide to Water Rights Law, recognized as
the most thorough explanation of California water rights law
available to non-lawyers, traces the authority for water flowing
in a stream or reservoir, from a faucet or into an irrigation
ditch through the complex web of California water rights.
The Water Education Foundation’s second edition of
the Layperson’s Guide to The Klamath River Basin is
hot off the press and available for purchase.
Updated and redesigned, the easy-to-read overview covers the
history of the region’s tribal, agricultural and environmental
relationships with one of the West’s largest rivers — and a
vast watershed that hosts one of the nation’s oldest and
largest reclamation projects.
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 Klamath River Basin is one of the West’s most important and
contentious watersheds.
The watershed is known for its unusual geography straddling
California and Oregon. Unlike many western rivers, the
Klamath does not originate in snowcapped mountains but rather on
a volcanic plateau.
A broad patchwork of spring-fed streams and rivers in
south-central Oregon drains into Upper Klamath Lake and down into
Lake Ewauna in the city of Klamath Falls. The outflow from Ewauna
marks the beginning of the 263-mile Klamath River.
The Coachella Valley in Southern California’s Inland Empire is
one of several valleys throughout the state with a water district
established to support agriculture.
Like the others, the Coachella Valley Water District in Riverside
County delivers water to arid agricultural lands and constructs,
operates and maintains a regional agricultural drainage system.
These systems collect drainage water from individual farm drain
outlets and convey the water to a point of reuse, disposal or
dilution.
Every five years the California Department of Water Resources
updates its strategic plan for managing the state’s water
resources, as required by state law.
The California Water Plan, or Bulletin 160, projects the
status and trends of the state’s water supplies and demands
under a range of future scenarios.
This printed issue of Western Water explores the
historic nature of some of the key agreements in recent years,
future challenges, and what leading state representatives
identify as potential “worst-case scenarios.” Much of the content
for this issue of Western Water came from the in-depth
panel discussions at the Colorado River Symposium. The Foundation
will publish the full proceedings of the Symposium in 2012.
This printed issue of Western Water explores some of the major
challenges facing Colorado River stakeholders: preparing for
climate change, forging U.S.-Mexico water supply solutions and
dealing with continued growth in the basins states. Much of the
content for this issue of Western Water came from the in-depth
panel discussions at the September 2009 Colorado River Symposium.
This issue of Western Water examines the challenges facing state,
federal and tribal officials and other stakeholders as they work
to manage terminal lakes. It includes background information on
the formation of these lakes, and overviews of the water quality,
habitat and political issues surrounding these distinctive bodies
of water. Much of the information in this article originated at
the September 2004 StateManagement Issues at Terminal Water
Bodies/Closed Basins conference.
