California Water ENEWS – 8/12/15

This week’s Water Plan eNews includes:

  • Turf and toilet replacement rebates are available to California homeowners
  • Symposium offers the latest research for dealing with climate change in California
  • Series of water audit workshops begins this month in Thousand Oaks
  • Asking what might happen if California’s drought continues for another year
  • Direct potable reuse seminar on tap next month in Berkeley
  • Applications being accepted for $31 million in restoration project funding
  • California Water Commission heading to Los Angeles for next week’s meeting

CDFW Releases Prop 1 Proposal Solicitation Notice – 8/5/15

Proposition 1 includes $372,500,000 to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) to fund multi-benefit ecosystem and watershed protection and restoration projects. CDFW will distribute these funds on a competitive basis through two grant programs, collectively referred to as the Proposition 1 Restoration Grant Programs. The Watershed Restoration Grant Program ($285,000,000) will focus on watershed restoration and protection projects of statewide importance outside of the Delta. The Delta Water Quality and Ecosystem Restoration Grant Program ($87,500,000) will focus on water quality, ecosystem restoration and fish protection facilities that benefit the Delta. Click here for Solicitation Notice.

California Water Plan ENEWS – 8/5/15

This week’s Water Plan eNews includes:

  • Efficient landscape ordinance to be discussed during webinar next week
  • Questions about draft UWMP guidebook will be answered at public meeting
  • Two workshops scheduled to answer agricultural water management plan questions
  • Contamination of California’s groundwater detailed in USGS report
  • DWR mapping tool open for public comment through August 28
  • One Water Leadership Summit to be held this month in San Francisco
  • Coastal commission posts final draft of sea level policy document

Take Care of the Land and the Land Will Take Care of You.

Here is an essay written by the late Farrell Cunningham in 2005, originally published in ‘News From Native California‘, in 2005.

Below is an obituary written for Farrell by Jane Braxton Little, of Greenville.

When the Mountain Maidu formed the Maidu Summit Consortium in 2002, Farrell Cunningham was an obvious choice for chairman. He had focused his adult life on learning his native culture, especially the relationships among plants and animals and the sacred connections throughout the natural world. At 26, he was the tribe’s most fluent speaker of Mountain Maidu. Cunningham threw himself into writing a land management plan to present to the Stewardship Council as part of the consortium’s application for title to Humbug Valley. The document follows the Maidu people from the time of Worldmaker’s creations through the first “white people” in Humbug Valley to an overview of Maidu traditional ecology. It includes plans for a Maidu culture interpretive center. To bolster the Maidu case, Cunningham met with Stewardship Council and agency officials—in Sacramento or Oakland when he had to, but as often as possible on the ground in Humbug Valley. His commitment to the effort to return Humbug Valley to Maidu people was absolute, said Ric Notini, the Stewardship Council’s director of land conservation. Cunningham died of natural causes in August at his home in Susanville. He was 37. His responsibility as Maidu Summit chairman included a series of deliberate steps that placed other people, both within and outside the organization, to carry out his vision, said Ken Holbrook, the consortium’s executive director: “Farrell did everything he could to put us in a position to succeed. We know that nothing the Maidu Summit Consortium is today could have been without him. What we are doing is a result of his lifelong passion and pursuit of authentic ideas.”

 

Download the essay here:

First Peoples and Water: Water Resource Issues for Native Americans – AWRA

For thousands of years American Indians lived in equilibrium on traditional lands, adapting to seasons and landscapes. This issue of Water Resources IMPACT highlights the benefits and importance of incorporating the knowledge and concerns of First Peoples into water resources planning. The feature articles range from a discussion of the traditional knowledge First Peoples can offer water managers today, to the fact that many tribes still have not had their water rights completely quantified, leaving them without a legally secure source of water. All of the authors affirm that authentically engaging and collaborating with native peoples is good for the tribes and good for water managers. Click here for Water Resources IMPACT Issue.

Joint Agency Symposium on Governor’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Goals – 8/5/15

This symposium will discuss strategies to secure and enhance carbon storage on natural and working lands, including farms, rangelands, forests and wetlands throughout California. Topics include protecting and managing land to minimize greenhouse gas emissions and increase carbon sequestration rates and opportunities to develop synergies that promote resource stewardship and contribute to greenhouse gas emission reductions in other sectors. Click here for meeting notice and details.

California Water Plan ENEWS – 7/29/15

This week’s Water Plan eNews includes:

  • Greenhouse gas reduction goals to be discussed at day-long seminar
  • Newsletter offers funding details for communities with contaminated water supplies
  • Meet the authors of new water sustainability book next week in Berkeley
  • DWR releases discussion paper for report on groundwater replenishment
  • Advisory committee set to meet on CWC’s Water Storage Investment Program
  • Latest edition of AWRA magazine provides insight on Native American water issues
  • A trio of fact sheets provides a glimpse of how water is used in California

California Water Plan ENEWS – 7/22/15

This week’s Water Plan eNews includes:

  • South Coast region groundwater chapter posted, webinar on tap next week
  • Groundwater basin boundary regulations available online for public review
  • DWR releases 2015 guidebook for agricultural water management plans
  • Water commission sets three public hearings on Water Storage Investment Program
  • Truckee, Watsonville, and Sacramento are next on the state funding fair schedule
  • Santee chosen as site for next meeting of potable reuse advisory group