Financing America's Water Projects

One of our countries greatest water challenges is financing:

• The repair of existing infrastructure,
• Building new conveyance infrastructure,
• Well construction or deepening and operation and maintenance of disadvantaged community water supplies and
• Paying for new groundwater management.

Our current system of economics and governance does not provide a means to fully support these improvements.  

An up and coming water management approach for the United States is a water resource sharing plan that unbundles riparian and appropriated water rights into shares, allocations and water use approvals. Verification of applied beneficial water use of actual waters that are available any given year can be creatively and quickly transferred, especially during times of scarcity.

This method blends well with traditional water doctrines, generates funding for water projects, optimizes actions that produce sustainable water supply conditions and adds certainty to water users.

Go to the Operation Unite Resource page, scroll down to Links for Water Management Strategies and Ideas Professor Michael Young’s ideas for California.

California is in a Conundrum

California is in a conundrum. Water stakeholders need certainty in their water deliveries, the consistency of available drinkable water is missing many of the disadvantaged communities, new water projects are needed, possibly 1,000,000 acres of farmland may be removed from production in central portions of California, a primary California water conveyance utilizes the largest inland estuary on the west coast of North American, alluvial aquifers in 127 water basins are diminishing and funding is insufficient for correcting these issues within the needed time period. During all this drama, daily water and food needs of40 million Californians must be met every day. 

How can water management adjustments produce more successes, more quickly? California uses the Prior Appropriative Doctrine. California manages some groundwater areas by adjudication and is now beginning to develop goals required by the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act of 2014. These are good things but more adaptable approaches are needed to facilitate quick water adjustments throughout the year.   It is time to explore new management strategies that will generate the needed funding and complete the projects that address changing annual snow packs, groundwater, conveyance, treatment and storage.

Go to the Operation Unite Resource page, scroll down to Links for Water Management strategies and Ideas Professor Michael Young’s ideas for California. It is working in Australia. It has merit in specific California watersheds. Tell us what you think?

ABC 10 News Report on Operation Unite Groundwater Study

ABC Channel 10 in Sacramento saw firsthand the value in providing public engagement and a data gathering strategy for motivating strongly independent and cautious rural residential/farming populations in the Sierra Nevada Mountains to successfully manage their groundwater.  
 

Click Here: ABC Channel 10 in Sacramento with Harry Stockman

This method of monitoring and well user engagement is an effective approach to managing populations using fractured rock aquifers. An example and testimony of success may be viewed at the Operation Unite® Water YouTube Channel video.

Managing Groundwater Through Fairness and Tradition

The American Ground Water Trust shared key guidance for developing and implementing groundwater sustainability plans during its workshop in Bakersfield, California this week.

Developing good groundwater management requires strong, consistent communication, lots of data, a will to integrate all water needs and a clear set of goals:

• Maximize the certainty of everyone’s water supply
• Provide flexibility for adjusting to changing conditions; political and physical
• Address and expedite getting more water into the aquifers
• Respect groundwater rights principles while reducing undue hardship to those having a lower priority

Equity opportunities do exist within a groundwater management area. It’s time to find them!

Pro-active behavior makes a rough road smooth

This past week’s emergency evacuation of communities below California’s Oroville Dam demonstrates the value of pro-active actions.

• Anticipate the downside of a water project and prepare a response BEFORE the event.
• Plan the logistics, materials, manpower, equipment and technical knowledge that provide the “boots on the ground” response BEFORE the event.
• Implement a turn-key program that has the flexibility to adjust to changing conditions BEFORE the event.
• Build a communication network with the local, regional, state and nation response groups and the public BEFORE the event.
• Invest in the future by financing renovation of our oldest, weakened infrastructure, monitor our resources and infrastructure and use the data to prioritize and advance the path of response BEFORE the event.
• Promote an early message of “working together” with stakeholders and the public BEFORE the event.

California has done well. The response continues but thanks are in order. Thank youto numerous County OES departments in northern California and the California Operations of Emergency Services, the California Department of Water Resources, U.S. Corp of Engineers, California Highway Patrol, U.S. Air Force, the National Guard, Red Cross, Salvation Army, churches of all denominations, to name a few. And a special thanks to the many caring volunteers that offered and participated in relieving the difficulties felt by citizens evacuated away from towns and cities down gradient from Oroville Dam.

As repairs continue, let us hope the rains in our near future will be lighter and distributed across drier parts of the state.

The Operation Unite Vision is Built on Many People

Many people contributed to the vision of Operation Unite®:

Pat Mulroy, Former general manager for the Southern Nevada Water Authority; “Let the Data Drive.”
 
Felicia Marcus, Chair of State Water Resources Control Board; “It requires reflection, intention, and actions.  It requires intellect, but it also requires insight.  And it requires heart and compassion and empathy, including empathy for each other in addition to our beloved Stakeholders and species.”
 
John Laird, Secretary of Natural Resources; “Lead by attracting people to follow.”
 
Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, Restore the Delta, “Choose projects that move the most water the least distance.”
 
Dennis Bowker,  RCD Resource Conservationist, “When we talk about natural resources and social issues, the closer you can get to what is said to what is heard to be the same, the more effectively you will be to  deal with disagreements and differences, and you come to the point where you realize you had the right answer but that doesn’t mean you have the whole answer. Others viewpoints and perspectives can help develop the whole answer.”
 
Phil Isenberg, former Chair California Delta Stewardship Council, “People didn’t intentionally go out and kill fish species. Societies learn lessons slowly.  How you remedy, how extensible you can remedy them and which ways, that’s really what we should be talking about.”
 
Joe L. Del Bosque, Jr., Del Bosque  Farms & California Water Commission; “Lack of water will wipe out our people. I look at this as a family approach, you might say.   If I were to look at a backup plan, I would maintain jobs for our people.” 
 
Andrew Stone, American Groundwater Trust; “Groundwater sustainability must be seen in the context of our future.”
 
Ron Milligan, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Operations Manager Central Valley Operations; “Use all the flexibility that we can to respect contractual rights even though they may be junior to someone else’s water right. I need to get multiple uses out of a single acre-foot of water.”
 
and the list goes on......

Operation Unite® builds public responsibility by listening, questioning, discovering, understanding, sharing and applying.

Climate Change Symposium Highlights

Highlights from the 2017 California Climate Change Symposium
Science to Safeguard California

“We are in a new climate”
-Noal Diffenbaugh, Stanford University
 
“There is no shortage of crisis. Last week alone, we had drought, floods and fires in California. Disasters affect Democrats and Republicans alike. Coalition and collaboration building is critical.”
 -Director Mark Ghilarducci, California Office of Emergency Services
 
“Keep your focus on your objectives.”
-Secretary Matt Rodriquez, California EPA
 
“We are going to be carbon farmers in this state.”
-Secretary Karen Ross, California Department of Food and Agriculture
 
“Thinking adaptation to make investments”
-Chair Robert Weisenmiller, California Energy Commissioner
 
“Lead by attracting people to follow.”
-John Laird, California Secretary of Natural Resources

Dissecting our complexities may not be the answer

Water issues are many times referred to as a “wicked” problem because of their social, economic and physical complexities.  As conflicts arise, they take many forms; data conflict, interest conflict, identity conflict, value conflict, structural conflict and relationship conflict.

Solving these wicked water problems simply isn’t easy when the complexities are dissected. Ultimate resolve for our water projects can be simple in scope but the difficulties lie in the application of trust.

Trust is built through respectful demonstration and commitment to each other in the long run. Technical solutions is the easy part because technologies and modern methods are usually adequate and available. Working together is the stumbling block.  It takes patience, kindness, empathetic understanding and a commitment to each other to bind a society that is built on diversification and a common good.

Build relationships and solve problems. Operation Unite®

Commitment to Process and Outcome

“The greatest way to apply technical solutions in the world is through a Public that is engaged and committed to the process and outcome; an honest, we’re all in it together attitude!”

                                   Stephen J. Baker, Founder of Operation Unite®

Yes, we must plan for flood events too!

It is important to get comfortable with the extremes in weather and water supply. Today’s flooding and water excess is the precursor to tomorrow’s extended drought and water shortage. Planning for droughts and floods start now!  Build your resilience through community participation, effective infrastructure, planning and shared focus; a vision of safe and abundant resources.

Together We Plan for Today and Tomorrow

Just because it rains a lot doesn't mean everyone is getting enough water. Building a capacity for abundance means distributing water for all needs while protecting its source and saving for the next dry year.

We will always have water working together and together we plan for today and tomorrow.

Water Underlies Everything We Value

Operation Unite® engaged with many people and issues this year. Here are a few highlights:

• Produced a radio round table discussion on KVMR with the Democrats, Republicans and Tea Parties. Discussed California water issues and the common ground of the Parties.
• Provided “Plan Your Water Future” workshops for citizens in Mountain Counties to learn, choose and apply their chosen water improvements. Groundwater monitoring, rain water harvesting, grey water, irrigation practices and drought resilient vegetation strategies were considered.
• Produced a special “Meet Your Mentor“ radio show with video clips (http://www.operationunite.co/resources/). Explored the underground regions of the 16 to One Gold Mine in Allegany, California with Mentor Robert Campbell, Professor Vasant Wagh of Swami Rammanand Teerth Marathwada University in Nanded, India, a very ambitious UC Davis Geology student and the President of the Mine.
• Met with numerous farmers and water purveyors in the Central Valley, Delta and northern California regions. Discussed the application of the Operation Unite® public relationship building program and community groundwater management program.
• Met with farmers entering the legal medicinal cannabis farming industry. Discussed successful management of their water resources.
• Built water resilience for California citizens through the Operation Unite® Know Your Water® and the Neighborhood Water Alliance programs.

Water underlies everything that we value. May our communities recognize its value and support efforts to build habits, resiliency, sustainability and accessibility to water in both the environment and for the people on our planet. Wishing each of you a very prosperous and happy New Year.

May Our Holiday Cheer Carry Us Through 2017

Operation Unite® believes that good tidings shared during the holiday season are to carry through the entire year. May each of you share continued success in:

• Building and maintaining the respect and trust with others that is the foundation for all decisions made;
• Prosperity that builds personal successes as well as collective benefits;
• Pursuit in discovering and achieving water decisions that balance environmental, social, economic and the practical needs of our societies; and
• A recognition that we really are all in this together.

Wishing each of you continued good health and a wonderful new year!
 
Operation Unite®

Appreciation & Gratitude is a Good Measure of Success

The strongest strategy for resolving controversial issues is standing on common community values while moving a common community goal forward. Keep it simple, make it clear and keep talking.
 
The issue may be the Dakota Access Pipeline destroying sacred land and placing environmental risk to the water quality of our rivers and groundwater; the highly controversial proposed peripheral tunnels that will move a portion of the California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta water around the Delta or simply a local groundwater well interference problem between a farmer and its residential neighbors.  Energy, food and drinking water are high on the list of 21st century “Maslow's hierarchy of needs.”

Availability of these indispensable resources must be addressed in today’s decisions. A litmus test for choosing the best solution is engaging the whole impacted population and listening to the level of applause. Getting it right takes listening with understanding, a vision of the future and discovery of a path that all will follow. Public acceptance is best measured by the overwhelming appreciation and gratitude felt through everyone's recognized common community values.

Impeccable Management of our Watersheds

Witnessing the accumulation of snow in the high country brings a sigh of relief to us westerners as well as a reminder that water that is deposited on our upper watersheds must be managed impeccably. Flawless perfection can only be attained in water resource management when a willing public promotes commitment to the needs of all living things within the watershed.

Achievement of this perfection is realized by building an adaptive behavior in the public that can adjust to Mother Nature’s unexpected delivery of annual water.   Everyone gets a piece of this pie. Everyone shares in some of the discomfort. Everyone works together. Operation Unite® believes that public engagement is a critical component of all water management programs.  

Sharing on Thanksgiving

We have come from the earliest indigenous people living off a huge expanse of our continent centuries ago to a copious network of cities, farms and ranches that leave little land unscathed by today’s society.  

Today’s twenty first century water needs place a greater weight on society getting it right on the first try.  This is probably because the needs of a world population have never been as high as today.  Compounding a growing population is a climate that is changing in such a way that old water infrastructure strategies no longer meet today’s water demand.   Water that does exist across our landscape or beneath our feet is only partially available for use due to its degraded water quality from anthropogenic or naturally occurring contaminants. Even our water supply backup plan, underground aquifers, is now recognized in many regions as not sustainable at the current rate of use.

Scientific approaches and technology have helped but we still find ourselves grappling with balancing environmental stewardship while building certainty in our water supply systems. On this Thanksgiving, let us begin expanding our conversation with the Indigenous societies that have a history of successful stewardship in the natural environment.   Looking through the lens of scientific and indigenous disciplines would be a marriage of old and new, a discovery of empirical applications that expand scientific knowledge and understanding. The best part is the cultural healing that is attributed to simply sitting down and listening to each other’s stories, recognizing the wisdom that surface and the friendships that result.

Listening with Respect

The recent presidential election has placed an exclamation point on the level of separation between citizens in our country. Discontent in the integrity of the electorate process was voiced as much or more than differences in political viewpoints. It is the growing diversity in opinion on deaf ears that has subdued our ability as a united people to find our common path and act on it.
 
Attempting to resolve our water problems has also resulted in many of the same shortcomings; a societal process riddled with the anti values of respect, responsibility and trust and an unclear common community water goal. Innovative thinking and a more flexible ideology would greatly benefit successful projects. Being heard and listened to by others of different opinion will lead to discovery of the common community goal for your water projects. Achieving project success requires maintaining a process that also satisfies common community values, and this is exactly the public engagement process of Operation Unite®.

Mutual Gain- That's the Ticket

The combination of 15.9 million groundwater wells active in the United States and the recognition that a great percentage of groundwater is older than 100 years is an indicator that water conflicts are inevitable.  Our water needs simply outpace the rate of aquifer replenishment. So, how do you avert water conflict?

Recognize that the answer is not a “zero sum game.” Limitation of water will intermittently occur with greater frequency in years to come. The answer is the mutual gain approach.  Develop a process that emphasizes responsibility, respect and trust with everyone involved and accompany scientific opinion with the uncertainties attached to the opinion. The perfect answers grow from dialogues that are rooted in relationship and joint fact finding.

Help Domestic Well Owners Help Themselves

Western states, especially California, spend a lot of money funding emergency response to lost domestic groundwater supply wells. Porterville, California is an example of this tragedy. Bottled water, mobile sanitation and shower stations, temporary tanks and water deliveries generate some of these costs. The greatest cost is the daily household dysfunction created in our communities by a domestic well gone dry.

It may be better to give groundwater users the ability to see the vulnerability of their wells early so they become motivated to take action before the emergency happens. No dysfunction, cost is less, community is stronger, unreliable water resources do not become stigmatized in the community, governance has one less headache and mitigations are voted for, financed and implemented without emergency aid and with the support of the voting citizens. A real success story!

Call us and ask about the Know Your Water® and Neighborhood Water Alliance programs. Operation Unite® works in your community to reduce vulnerability to depleted groundwater resources. We build a community wide attitude that brings people together to solve problems before they ever happen.

Pro-active actions can really make a difference

Drought and limitation challenge the most prepared societies. Many times, a united society takes a limited resource like water and distributes the available resource across the land in order to do the most good.
 
The first challenge is to prioritize water uses according to common community values. The second challenge is assuring the availability of a distribution system that can deliver that water to those that need it.
 
Pro-active actions can really make a difference.