Topic: Stormwater

Overview

Stormwater

Stormwater runoff has emerged as a primary water quality issue. In urban areas, after long dry periods rainwater runoff can contain accumulations of pollutants. Stormwater does not go into the sewer. Instead, pollutants can be flushed into waterways with detrimental effects on the environment and water quality.

In response, water quality regulators use a range of programs to reduce stormwater pollution including limiting the amount of excess runoff and in some cases recapturing freshwater as well.

Typical stormwater runoff pollutants include:

  • Fertilizer
  • Pesticides/Herbicides
  • Heavy Metals
  • Oil and grease
  • Bacteria/viruses
  • Sediment
  • Construction Waste
  • Trash
Aquafornia news Ag Info

Listen: Almond grower hoping for another wet winter to help groundwater levels

Matt Lindsey farms almonds in Fresno County. He irrigates with flood water on his sandy ground, which is good for his almonds but also with groundwater recharge.

Aquafornia news Lexology

Blog: Stricter microplastics regulations are on the horizon. Here’s how California manufacturers should prepare

According to the American Chemical Association, the average American consumes up to 121,000 microplastic particles each year—through air, water, and soil—and people who drink only bottled water could consume an additional 90,000. Now, California is taking the lead in trying to regulate the presence of microplastics in drinking water, with significant implications for manufacturers in the state and beyond. Here’s what manufacturers should know about California’s current microplastics requirements—and how they can prepare for future regulations, today.

Aquafornia news Los Angeles Times

L.A. County aims to collect billions more gallons of local water by 2045

Over the next two decades, Los Angeles County will collect billions more gallons in water from local sources, especially storm and reclaimed water, shifting from its reliance on other region’s water supplies as the effects of climate change make such efforts less reliable and more expensive. The L.A. County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday adopted the county’s first water plan, which outlines how America’s largest county must stop importing 60% of its water and pivot over the next two decades to sourcing 80% of its water locally by 2045. The plan calls for increasing local water supply by 580,000 acre-feet per year by 2045 through more effective stormwater capture, water recycling and conservation. The increase would be roughly equivalent to 162 billion gallons, or enough water for 5 million additional county residents, county leaders said.

Aquafornia news US EPA

News release: Biden-Harris Administration announces $70 million WIFIA loan to advance drought resilience in Southern California

Today, at an event in San Bernardino, California, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a $70 million Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) loan to San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District. This WIFIA funding will support an innovative regional partnership to help secure a drought-resilient water supply while supporting the long-term ecological health of the Upper Santa Ana River. Since its creation, EPA’s WIFIA program has announced nearly $20 billion in financing to support over $43 billion in water infrastructure projects that are strengthening drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater infrastructure while creating over 140,000 jobs.

Aquafornia news Sierra Nevada Conservancy

Blog: Meadow restoration momentum

There’s a lot to love about meadows in the Sierra-Cascade region and recent momentum in restoration efforts means there could be a lot more meadows to love. Currently, approximately 50 percent of known existing meadows are degraded or expected to be degraded and many more have already disappeared. The Sierra Nevada Conservancy (SNC) and its partners are working to restore these beloved ecosystems so that they can continue to provide essential services. A recent study by the U.S. Forest Service’s Pacific Southwest Research Station found that meadows historically covered 3 times the amount of area as they do today. This is more than previously documented, raising the possibility that meadows could be restored across even more of the landscape.

Related articles: 

Aquafornia news National Renewable Energy Laboratory

Blog: NREL-led effort addresses problem of plastic in rivers

An avid scuba diver who also surfs and sails, Ben Maurer prefers the sights and sounds of the ocean to any other setting, so he leaves the waves and water behind reluctantly. … A native of northern California who earned his doctorate in oceanography, Maurer has spent the last three and a half years with the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), which has its main campuses in landlocked Colorado. But Maurer works from home and over the past year has crisscrossed the country, boating down major rivers to investigate the ongoing problem of waterborne plastics. He is the principal investigator of the Waterborne Plastics Assessment and Collection Technologies project, otherwise known as WaterPACT.

Related article: 

Aquafornia news KPBS - San Diego

As winter rains approach, Imperial Beach hopes rain barrels will lighten the load

Imperial Beach wants more residents to start using rain barrels. That’s the goal behind a new set of guidelines adopted by the city last week, which officials hope will ultimately help shore up the city’s aging infrastructure against rising sea levels. Rain barrels are tanks that collect and store rainwater for future use. They can help users conserve drinking water and save money on irrigation. They also have the added advantage of reducing the amount of rainfall that flows into the city’s stormwater collection system.

Aquafornia news The Almanac - Palo Alto

Community organizations turn to rain gardens to prevent flooding in East Palo Alto

Last winter, residents experienced the second largest flood in East Palo Alto history. Now Bay Area nonprofits are installing gardens designed to soak up stormwater and mitigate future flooding. On Nov. 11, Climate Resilient Communities (CRC), Fresh Approach, and Grassroots Ecology broke ground on the first of 25 rain garden systems to be installed for homeowners at no cost. CRC received nearly $1 million in funding for the project from Coastal Communities, an organization working to reduce water pollution. … Efforts to curtail the effects of flooding are more important than ever as California heads into an ‘El Nino’ year, a period of cooler and wetter weather. Many older East Palo Alto residents still remember flooding in 1998 that resulted in $40 million dollars in damages.

Aquafornia news CalMatters

Opinion: San Diegans hold their breath waiting for Tijuana River sewage relief

“If I had a chance to tell Gov. (Gavin) Newsom something about the pollution in the Tijuana River Valley, I would tell him to get it fixed as soon as possible because the odor is horrible, and I don’t know what else it’s doing to our health. Like my partner says, if this was happening to rich people in La Jolla, this would have been taken care of a long time ago.” That’s what Analisa Corrales, a nine-year resident of the Nestor neighborhood in San Diego, told me when I asked how she felt about the pollution from the Tijuana River Valley and how aerosolized contaminants might be affecting the health of her and her three children. They are 12 years old, 7 years old and 6 months old, and they live less than 2 miles from the sewage-choked river.
-Written by Pedro Rios, director of the American Friends Service Committee’s U.S./Mexico Border program and a longtime human rights advocate.

Aquafornia news San Diego State University

Study: Sea level rise imperils south San Diego County sewers

Sewage overflows from Tijuana have been contaminating Imperial Beach for many decades. The problem recently reached crisis levels, with city leaders calling on the state and federal governments for more funds to fix the aging sewage infrastructure on both sides of the border. By causing sea levels to rise, climate change also plays a role in compromising the sewage infrastructure of Imperial Beach, according to a new study in the journal Sustainable Cities and Society. [Researchers] examine how rising sea levels impact sewer pipes in the city and what this means for the future.

Aquafornia news The Nature Conservancy

News release: CA scientists to join UN’s plastic pollution treaty conference

Scientists based in and/or work on issues in California—from The Nature Conservancy and Ocean Conservancy—will be traveling to Nairobi, Kenya for the UN environment programme’s third session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-3) from Nov 13-19. At this session, the following scientists will hold observer status on behalf of their organizations as nations come together for the goal of developing an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment. 

Aquafornia news Oregon Capital Chronicle

EPA moves on petition from West Coast tribes to investigate tire toxin linked to fish deaths

For several decades, many coho salmon returning to waterways around Seattle to spawn have died mysteriously following heavy rains. In some urban streams, nearly all of the coho returning from the ocean died.  It wasn’t until 2021 that scientists figured out what was behind what they called “urban runoff mortality syndrome,” and it was not until this month that federal regulators at the Environmental Protection Agency moved to do something about it. The EPA on Nov. 2 said it would consider an August petition from the California-based Yurok Tribe and the Washington-based Port Gamble S’Klallam and Puyallup tribes, calling for a ban of the chemical 6PPD-q. It’s used in car tires to keep them from cracking and degrading, but as tires wear down, they shed particles containing the chemical into stormwater and streams.

Related article: 

Aquafornia news Visalia Times-Delta

Sierra runoff brings impressive Tulare County groundwater recharge

Central Sierra runoff delivered over 13.19 million acre/ft of snowmelt this past water year ending in September. That’s the arithmetic counting the snowmelt from the five major rivers from north to south-from the San Joaquin River down to the Kern near Bakersfield. For some of these watersheds like the Kings River it was the wettest year ever at 4.5 mil af. The Tulare Basin’s four rivers – Kings / Kaweah /Tule /Kern are just a few drops short of the 1983 record number with a combined runoff of a gushing 8.69 million acre/ feet. That’s what 31 atmospheric rivers that drenched California will do.

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Aquafornia news CBS - Sacramento

U.S. regulators will review car-tire chemical that kills salmon, upon request from West Coast tribes

U.S. regulators say they will review the use of a chemical found in almost every tire after a petition from West Coast Native American tribes, including one in Northern California, that want it banned because it kills salmon as they return from the ocean to their natal streams to spawn. The Yurok tribe in Northern California and the Port Gamble S’Klallam and Puyallup tribes in Washington asked the Environmental Protection Agency to prohibit the rubber preservative 6PPD earlier this year, saying it kills fish — especially coho salmon — when rains wash it from roadways into rivers. Washington, Oregon, Vermont, Rhode Island and Connecticut also wrote the EPA, citing the chemical’s “unreasonable threat” to their waters and fisheries.

Related articles: 

Aquafornia news Northwest Sportsman

News release: EPA grants coho-killing tire compound petition

Federal environmental regulators have granted a petition to develop regulations addressing a vehicle tire compound that, when it reacts with the air and mixes with water, kills coho and other salmonids. The petition was submitted by three West Coast tribes last summer, and in response the Environmental Protection Agency announced it will publish an advance notice of proposed rulemaking around the chemicals 6PPD and 6PPD-quinone by fall 2024, according to a notice.

Aquafornia news Stormwater Solutions

Rebates can help pay for California’s stormwater capture

New research describes the development and operation of a novel incentive program that uses water rebates to pay for some of the costs of stormwater capture, according to a press release from the University of California – Santa Cruz. Many aquifers in California and around the world are being drained of their groundwater because of the combined impacts of excess pumping, shifts in land use, and climate change. However, the new study published on Oct. 18 in Nature Water, may offer a solution. The study describes the development and operation of a novel incentive program that uses water rebates to pay for some of the costs of getting stormwater runoff into the ground. The program is called recharge net metering (ReNeM).

California Water Agencies Hoped A Deluge Would Recharge Their Aquifers. But When It Came, Some Couldn’t Use It
WESTERN WATER IN-DEPTH: January storms jump-started recharge projects in badly overdrafted San Joaquin Valley, but hurdles with state permits and infrastructure hindered some efforts

An intentionally flooded almond orchard in Tulare CountyIt 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.

Tour Nick Gray

Headwaters Tour 2023
Field Trip - June 21-22 (optional whitewater rafting June 20)

On average, more than 60 percent of California’s developed water supply originates in the Sierra Nevada and the southern spur of the Cascade Range. Our water supply is largely dependent on the health of our Sierra forests, which are suffering from ecosystem degradation, drought, wildfires and widespread tree mortality. 

This tour ventured into the Sierra to examine water issues that happen upstream but have dramatic impacts downstream and throughout the state.

Western Water California Water Map Gary Pitzer

A Study of Microplastics in San Francisco Bay Could Help Cleanup Strategies Elsewhere
WESTERN WATER NOTEBOOK: Debris from plastics and tires is showing up in Bay waters; state drafting microplastics plan for drinking water

Plastic trash and microplastics can get washed into stormwater systems that eventually empty into waterways. Blasted by sun and beaten by waves, plastic bottles and bags shed fibers and tiny flecks of microplastic debris that litter the San Francisco Bay where they can choke the marine life that inadvertently consumes it.

A collaborative effort of the San Francisco Estuary Institute, The 5 Gyre InstituteSan Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board and the regulated discharger community that aims to better understand the problem and assess how to manage it in the San Francisco Bay is nearing the end of a three-year study.

Western Water California Water Map Gary Pitzer

California’s New Natural Resources Secretary Takes on Challenge of Implementing Gov. Newsom’s Ambitious Water Agenda
WESTERN WATER Q&A: Wade Crowfoot addresses Delta tunnel shift, Salton Sea plan and managing water amid a legacy of conflict

Wade Crowfoot, California Natural Resources Secretary.One of California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s first actions after taking office was to appoint Wade Crowfoot as Natural Resources Agency secretary. Then, within weeks, the governor laid out an ambitious water agenda that Crowfoot, 45, is now charged with executing.

That agenda includes the governor’s desire for a “fresh approach” on water, scaling back the conveyance plan in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and calling for more water recycling, expanded floodplains in the Central Valley and more groundwater recharge.

Western Water California Groundwater Map Layperson's Guide to Flood Management Gary Pitzer

Southern California Water Providers Think Local in Seeking to Expand Supplies
WESTERN WATER SIDEBAR: Los Angeles and San Diego among agencies pursuing more diverse water portfolio beyond imports

The Claude “Bud” Lewis Desalination Plant in Carlsbad last December marked 40 billion gallons of drinking water delivered to San Diego County during its first three years of operation. The desalination plant provides the county with more than 50 million gallons of water each day.Although Santa Monica may be the most aggressive Southern California water provider to wean itself from imported supplies, it is hardly the only one looking to remake its water portfolio.

In Los Angeles, a city of about 4 million people, efforts are underway to dramatically slash purchases of imported water while boosting the amount from recycling, stormwater capture, groundwater cleanup and conservation. Mayor Eric Garcetti in 2014 announced a plan to reduce the city’s purchase of imported water from Metropolitan Water District by one-half by 2025 and to provide one-half of the city’s supply from local sources by 2035. (The city considers its Eastern Sierra supplies as imported water.)

Western Water Groundwater Education Bundle Gary Pitzer

Imported Water Built Southern California; Now Santa Monica Aims To Wean Itself Off That Supply
WESTERN WATER SPOTLIGHT: Santa Monica is tapping groundwater, rainwater and tighter consumption rules to bring local supply and demand into balance

The Santa Monica Urban Runoff Recycling Facility (SMURRF) treats dry weather urban runoff to remove pollutants such as sediment, oil, grease, and pathogens for nonpotable use.Imported water from the Sierra Nevada and the Colorado River built Southern California. Yet as drought, climate change and environmental concerns render those supplies increasingly at risk, the Southland’s cities have ramped up their efforts to rely more on local sources and less on imported water.

Far and away the most ambitious goal has been set by the city of Santa Monica, which in 2014 embarked on a course to be virtually water independent through local sources by 2023. In the 1990s, Santa Monica was completely dependent on imported water. Now, it derives more than 70 percent of its water locally.

Western Water California Water Map Gary Pitzer

When Water Worries Often Pit Farms vs. Fish, a Sacramento Valley Farm Is Trying To Address The Needs Of Both
WESTERN WATER SPOTLIGHT: River Garden Farms is piloting projects that could add habitat and food to aid Sacramento River salmon

Roger Cornwell, general manager of River Garden Farms, with an example of a refuge like the ones that were lowered into the Sacramento River at Redding to shelter juvenile salmon.  Farmers in the Central Valley are broiling about California’s plan to increase flows in the Sacramento and San Joaquin river systems to help struggling salmon runs avoid extinction. But in one corner of the fertile breadbasket, River Garden Farms is taking part in some extraordinary efforts to provide the embattled fish with refuge from predators and enough food to eat.

And while there is no direct benefit to one farm’s voluntary actions, the belief is what’s good for the fish is good for the farmers.

Headwaters Tour 2018

Sixty percent of California’s developed water supply originates high in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Our water supply is largely dependent on the health of our Sierra forests, which are suffering from ecosystem degradation, drought, wildfires and widespread tree mortality.

Headwaters tour participants on a hike in the Sierra Nevada.

We headed into the foothills and the mountains to examine water issues that happen upstream but have dramatic impacts downstream and throughout the state. 

GEI (Tour Starting Point)
2868 Prospect Park Dr.
Rancho Cordova, CA 95670.
Western Water Jenn Bowles Jennifer Bowles

EDITOR’S NOTE: Assessing California’s Response to Marijuana’s Impacts on Water

Jennifer BowlesAs we continue forging ahead in 2018 with our online version of Western Water after 40 years as a print magazine, we turned our attention to a topic that also got its start this year: recreational marijuana as a legal use.

State regulators, in the last few years, already had been beefing up their workforce to tackle the glut in marijuana crops and combat their impacts to water quality and supply for people, fish and farming downstream. Thus, even if these impacts were perhaps unbeknownst to the majority of Californians who approved Proposition 64 in 2016, we thought it important to see if anything new had evolved from a water perspective now that marijuana was legal.

Western Water California Water Bundle Gary Pitzer

Statewide Water Bond Measures Could Have Californians Doing a Double-Take in 2018
WESTERN WATER NOTEBOOK: Two bond measures, worth $13B, would aid flood preparation, subsidence, Salton Sea and other water needs

San Joaquin Valley bridge rippled by subsidence  California voters may experience a sense of déjà vu this year when they are asked twice in the same year to consider water bonds — one in June, the other headed to the November ballot.

Both tackle a variety of water issues, from helping disadvantaged communities get clean drinking water to making flood management improvements. But they avoid more controversial proposals, such as new surface storage, and they propose to do some very different things to appeal to different constituencies.

Headwaters Tour 2019
Field Trip - June 27-28

Sixty percent of California’s developed water supply originates high in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Our water supply is largely dependent on the health of our Sierra forests, which are suffering from ecosystem degradation, drought, wildfires and widespread tree mortality. 

Aquapedia background

Runoff

Snowmelt and runoff near the California Department of Water Resources snow survey site in the Sierra Nevada east of Sacramento.Runoff is the water that is pulled by gravity across land’s surface, replenishing groundwater and surface water as it percolates into an aquifer or moves into a river, stream or watershed.

Aquapedia background

Microplastics

Microplastics – plastic debris measuring less than 5 millimeters – are an increasing water quality concern.  Entering the water as industrial microbeads or as larger plastic litter that degrade into small pellets, microplastics come from a variety of consumer products.

Aquapedia background

Point Source vs. Nonpoint Source Pollution

Point Source Pollution

Point sources release pollutants from discrete conveyances, such as a discharge pipe, and are regulated by federal and state agencies. The main point source dischargers are factories and sewage treatment plants, which release treated wastewater.

Publication

Stormwater Management: Turning Runoff into a Resource
Published 2007

Problems with polluted stormwater and steps that can be taken to prevent such pollution and turn what is often viewed as “nuisance” runoff into a water resource is the focus of this publication, Stormwater Management: Turning Runoff into a Resource. The 16-page booklet, funded by a grant from the State Water Resources Control Board, includes color photos and graphics, text explaining common stormwater pollutants and efforts to prevent stormwater runoff through land use/ planning/development – as well as tips for homeowners to reduce their impacts on stormwater pollution.

2014 Santa Ana River Watershed Conference

The 6th Annual Santa Ana River Watershed conference was held October 14, 2014 at the Riverside Convention Center in Riverside.

The event was convened by the Santa Ana Watershed Project Authority (SAWPA) and coordinated by the Water Education Foundation.

What is One Water One Watershed (OWOW)?

OWOW is an innovative Integrated Regional Water Management Plan (IRWMP) planning process being developed within the Santa Ana River Watershed.

Product

Colorado River Facts Slide Card

This card includes information about the Colorado River, who uses the river, how the river’s water is divided and other pertinent facts about this vital resource for the Southwest. Beautifully illustrated with color photographs.

Video

Overcoming the Deluge: California’s Plan for Managing Floods (DVD)

This 30-minute documentary, produced in 2011, explores the past, present and future of flood management in California’s Central Valley. It features stories from residents who have experienced the devastating effects of a California flood firsthand. Interviews with long-time Central Valley water experts from California Department of Water Resources (FloodSAFE), U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Bureau of Reclamation, Central Valley Flood Management Program and environmental groups are featured as they discuss current efforts to improve the state’s 150-year old flood protection system and develop a sustainable, integrated, holistic flood management plan for the Central Valley.

Video

Restoring a River: Voices of the San Joaquin

This 30-minute documentary-style DVD on the history and current state of the San Joaquin River Restoration Program includes an overview of the geography and history of the river, historical and current water delivery and uses, the genesis and timeline of the 1988 lawsuit, how the settlement was reached and what was agreed to.

Video

A Climate of Change: Water Adaptation Strategies

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.

Video

Stormwater Management: Turning Runoff into a Resource

20-minute DVD that explains the problem with polluted stormwater, and steps that can be taken to help prevent such pollution and turn what is often viewed as a “nuisance” into a water resource through various activities.

Video

Drinking Water: Quenching the Public Thirst (60-minute DVD)

Many Californians don’t realize that when they turn on the faucet, the water that flows out could come from a source close to home or one hundreds of miles away. Most people take their water for granted; not thinking about the elaborate systems and testing that go into delivering clean, plentiful water to households throughout the state. Where drinking water comes from, how it’s treated, and what people can do to protect its quality are highlighted in this 2007 PBS documentary narrated by actress Wendie Malick. 

Video

Drinking Water: Quenching the Public Thirst (30-minute DVD)

A 30-minute version of the 2007 PBS documentary Drinking Water: Quenching the Public Thirst. This DVD is ideal for showing at community forums and speaking engagements to help the public understand the complex issues surrounding the elaborate systems and testing that go into delivering clean, plentiful water to households throughout the state.

Product

Go With the Flow: A Storm Water Pollution Prevention Message

This 7-minute DVD is designed to teach children in grades 5-12 about where storm water goes – and why it is so important to clean up trash, use pesticides and fertilizers wisely, and prevent other chemicals from going down the storm drain. The video’s teenage actors explain the water cycle and the difference between sewer drains and storm drains, how storm drain water is not treated prior to running into a river or other waterway. The teens also offer a list of BMPs – best management practices that homeowners can do to prevent storm water pollution.

Publication

Layperson’s Guide to Water Rights Law
Updated 2020

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.

Publication

Layperson’s Guide to Integrated Regional Water Management
Published 2013

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.

Aquapedia background

Stormwater

For all the benefits of precipitation, stormwater also brings with it many challenges.

In urban areas, after long dry periods rainwater runoff can contain heavy accumulations of pollutants that have built up over time. For example, a rainbow like shine on a roadway puddle can indicate the presence of oil or gasoline. Stormwater does not go into the sewer. Instead, pollutants can be flushed into waterways with detrimental effects on the environment and water quality.

Lake Tahoe

Lake Tahoe is one of the world’s most beautiful yet vulnerable lakes. Renowned for its remarkable clarity, Tahoe straddles the Nevada-California border, stretching 22 miles long and 12 miles wide in a granitic bowl high in the Sierra Nevada.

Tahoe sits 6,225 feet above sea level. Its deepest point is 1,645 feet, making it the second-deepest lake in the nation, after Oregon’s Crater Lake, and the tenth deepest in the world.

Western Water Magazine

Levees and Flood Protection: A Shared Responsibility
May/June 2012

This printed issue of Western Water discusses several flood-related issues, including the proposed Central Valley Flood Protection Plan, the FEMA remapping process and the dispute between the state and the Corps regarding the levee vegetation policy.

Western Water Magazine

Mimicking the Natural Landscape: Low Impact Development and Stormwater Capture
September/October 2011

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.

Western Water Excerpt Gary PitzerRita Schmidt Sudman

Mimicking the Natural Landscape: LID and Stormwater Capture
September/October 2011

Growth may have slowed in California, but advocates of low impact development (LID) say the pause is no reason to lose sight of the importance of innovative, low-tech management of stormwater via incor­porating LID aspects into new projects and redevelopment.

Western Water Magazine

Pervasive and Persistent: Constituents of Growing Concern
January/February 2011

This printed issue of Western Water, based on presentations at the November 3-4, 2010 Water Quality Conference in Ontario, Calif., looks at constituents of emerging concerns (CECs) – what is known, what is yet to be determined and the potential regulatory impacts on drinking water quality.

Western Water Magazine

Smart Water Use: Stretching the Urban Supply
May/June 2005

This issue of Western Water examines the continuing practice of smart water use in the urban sector and its many facets, from improved consumer appliances to improved agency planning to the improvements in water recycling and desalination. Many in the water community say conserving water is not merely a response to drought conditions, but a permanent ethic in an era in which every drop of water is a valuable commodity not to be wasted.