Operation Unite is about bringing people together to solve water problems. Chime in and contribute to uniting efforts to solve problems.
Today’s water management requires thinking outside the box. Fragmented viewpoints fall short of solutions that actually work in a world that competes for water. Try viewing complex social water demands holistically. You’re likely to solve many problems with one solution and that’s good for all of us.
Today’s water management requires thinking outside the box. Fragmented viewpoints fall short of solutions that actually work in a world that competes for water. Try viewing complex social water demands holistically. You’re likely to solve many problems with one solution and that’s good for all of us.
Fractured rock aquifers are the sole water supply for many groundwater users in the western states. Our 10-year study was a wake-up call to all fractured rock aquifer well owners. Know your water, adapt to your well's capacity, collaborate with your neighbors and be resourceful.
Call to find out more about managing fractured rock aquifers in rural residential and farming communities.
One thing is for sure, change in the conditions of our lives will always develop. Today’s climate is different than years past, our population is ever increasing and the needs of all life are more difficult to satisfy without intervention. It takes seeing outside the proverbial box and focusing on a new balance that provides people and the environment with the basic resources for supporting life. It takes a vision of what tomorrow’s water landscapes can be.
The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is an example where thinking outside the box can be applied. It’s not easy to combine a water conveyance system of a state water supply through the largest estuary on the west coast of North America. The Delta has changed dramatically since the gold miners first visited California. Today’s water foot print is colored by invasive species, an upside down hydrograph, disappearing habitats, accumulated pollutants from society’s life choices and diverted and reduced flows that amplify everything.
Maybe the Delta answer requires each of us to change a little. Take a fresh look at your water needs and commitment to communities living below you. It’s about creating new landscapes that support all life in a healthy way; a landscape in terms of value to one another, a commitment to watershed health and behaviors that get the job done.
I have a dream ….
That we understand and support sharing resources because we see our connection with each other.
That people receiving imported water choose to use that water with great care and efficiency.
That farming goes back to its traditional appeal and appreciation.
Ground truth the facts, balance solutions through a common goal, create bridges and share success with everyone.
Water has a big job to do in California. Its’ benefits are needed from the headwaters of California’s watersheds to the lowest regions of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, bays and the Salton Sea. Make no mistake; each segment of water’s travel sustains life in many forms and through many processes.
Enduring time periods of limited water availability and degraded water quality are overcome when our leaders work together and the public participates in the process. This year’s presidential election is an example of the importance in public participation. Build on your water knowledge, share opinion and information, be transparent and honest and make decisions that honor personal and community needs for people and our natural resources. Water underlies the abundant physical successes that Americans have built into their lives.
Whether you resonate with Hillary for America, Feeling the Bern or simply know that this is huuuuuge and want to Make America Great Again, pass the word and get out and vote on June 7, 2016.
Operation Unite® conducted a 10-year fractured rock aquifer study in Placer and Nevada counties of California. Several outreach programs were devised from the results of this study. Bottom line is, "Fractured rock aquifers are vulnerable in different ways and intensities. “
"Being safe with plenty of water means being involved.“
Call about our Community Sustainable Groundwater Management outreach.
When citizens and local agencies take the bull by the horns, the state doesn’t need to engage in mandatory requirements. Felicia Marcus, State Water Resources Control Board is messaging this very thing. Assume the best and prepare for the worst. Continuing water conservation practices is an action that builds strength and brings communities together through the resourcefulness created from these actions. Get the message out. We will always have water working together and working together means responding to the uncertain water conditions of the future now.
Groundwater management is important for everyone. Find out how much interest your groundwater users have in monitoring their water conditions and solving their groundwater problems. A high level of public engagement yields staying on target. Low public participation sets your groundwater management efforts up to become dysfunctional in design and implementation. Public buy-in is critically important.
Encourage an activate public. This creates opportunity when building a Groundwater Sustainability Agency and is especially good for the long run. And yes, you guessed it, the Operation Unite® Relationship Building program gets it done! Give us a call.
Everyone has been wondering. Will the State of California really take over groundwater management in regions that communities are inactive or ineffective? The State doesn’t want to see failures however actions will be taken.
Assistant Chief Council, Andrew Sawyer, of the State Water Resources Control Board announced at a recent American Groundwater Trust conference on California Groundwater Law that the state is prepared and staffed to manage non-compliant medium or high priority water basins. He also pointed out state implementation comes at a much greater cost than locally implemented programs.
The state will exercise the highest degree of care. This translates into a high cost. Come on. Let’s keep local control.
It really isn’t farfetched to think that drought can completely erase a water supply for large cities. A 50-wagon train is traveling 212 miles every week to deliver water to a population of a half a million people right now in Latur, India. They are out of water after four years of drought! When you know something like this can happen, it is best to correct your behavior before catastrophe develops. California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act offers an approach that balances water demand with surface and groundwater availability, every year. It's all about adjusting to the available water resource not the other way around.
Groundwater knows physical boundaries and hydrogeologic conditions. Other boundaries, like political districts and property boundaries are simply invisible to groundwater. So, how can we effectively manage a groundwater resource in the world we live?
Whenever we try to manage groundwater exclusively from our own corner of the world, we sidestep success in the aquifer by building unintended dysfunction in behavior between our neighbors and ourselves. Independent decision making alone builds a tragedy of the commons. Today’s challenge is to manage groundwater basins by working together. Operation Unite® brings people together to solve water problems. We can make your job easier. Let us help!
Presentations at the recent UC Davis Climate Change conference in California and Pat Mulroy’scomments at the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento have a lot in common. “Not all groundwater basins are the same.” Look for opportunities and create partnerships. The opportunity that overdrafted groundwater basins provide is enormous. A good healthy mix of conjunctive use and a strong collaborative effort will yield health for the watershed and a practical solution to our overused aquifers.
Leadership and individual actions are paramount this year. California is in an exceptional drought that would take 200% to 270% of the average precipitation to catch up from the last three years of drought. Steve talks about some of the priorities that our state is focusing on and the value of resiliency. Everyone needs to do their part. Build resiliency to thrive. We can do this.
“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts”. This is a quote shared by Pat Mulroy, Senior Fellow at Brookings Institute, at a recent UC Davis conference in California. Steve discusses his gained new insight and a hopeful direction for California as demonstrated through thirty years of work that Pat Mulroy accomplished while General Manager at both the Southern Nevada Water Authority and Las Vegas Water District. Las Vegas was able to reduce within six years their water demand by a third and gain 400,000 people. This was accomplished by improving water efficiency, water reuse and water recycling. The practical goal was to remove as much evaporative loss as possible, recycle and reuse as much as possible and maintain a high quality of life and economic stability, even during serious drought.
So, what do you want to talk about?
You have an influence on what Operation Unite discusses. Let us know what topics are of interest to you and Operation Unite will make a strong effort to satisfy your request. Groundwater management, fracking, the California Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, rural water supplies, permit exempt well issues in Washington, Montana and Colorado and groundwater contamination are only a few categories. You tell us!
Email: stevebaker@operationunite.co
California is trying to save 1.3 million acre-feet of water (the amount currently stored in Lake Oroville) in 2015. Curtailment of1,611 junior water right holders in the San Joaquin River watershed and Scott River were issued and a statewide urban water restriction was announced. A lot of water districts and water agencies consider these requests unfair and a misuse of authority. Attempting to prioritize critical water demand from water uses that are not a fundamental need is where the angst is occurring. Reducing outdoor watering like lawns is a contentious issue.
It’s important to recognize the real reason for these water restrictions. We don’t want to go bone dry, reach dead pool, or experience anymore dry holes or empty groundwater wells. Running out of water is not an option. Governor Brown’s request is really fueling a California community concept. The concept is, “I got you covered and I know you have me covered. “ It is dependent on a lot of social and physical factors, that’s for sure but this can be accomplished with local voluntary agreements.
We ought to kno w! Operation Unite conducted a 10-year groundwater study on fractured rock aquifer behavior in rural residential and small agricultural environments in California.
Schedule a 60 Minute Presentation and an Energetic Question and Answer Session.
Designed to aid Groundwater Sustainability Agencies, counties, cities, water agencies, home owners associations, road associations, neighborhoods, NGOs, real estate and banking industriesand the general public.
Consequences that benefit some people and cause harm or discomfort to others is an innate outcome when changing how water flows in a natural system. This is certainly true when deciding how California can prevent salt water intrusion from migrating too far inland. Surface water runoff in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta does not have its normal volume of flow this year to hold back the salty ocean water. The proposed construction of salt water barriers may cause a backup of salty water that could impact some Delta farmers. Exercising tolerance, commitment and responsibility to each other while designing mitigating measures is a mainstay. There will always be a mix of concerns and we always want to remember that our community extends across the state. A realization of minimizing the pain for everyone is a necessity while elimination of the pain for everyone is extremely rare. The ability to hang in there, while having tolerance, commitment and responsibility toward one another is indispensable.
Operation Unite® produces a short segment radio program called, “Water is a Many Splendid Thing”. These shows identify the many interactions that water has in the physical world. Water relationships are shared with all nations of people, for all types of uses including natural habitats of walking, slithering and flying life that calls their natural landscape home. In most cases, these relationships overlap with one another.
I’d like to share one of these radio segments with you this week. The Paso Robles, California watershed is experiencing a lot of dry wells. What do you do as a community or individual when this happens? Listen up and find out.
Two hundred and fifty radio segments are ready for broadcasting across California and the U.S. Let’s make the connection. Operation Unite® would like to hear from your favorite radio station.
