A famous quote (unverifiably) attributed to American author Mark Twain, “Whiskey is for drinking. Water is for fighting,” isn’t wrong. It’s also not the whole story. Though water supply is a contentious issue in our often-drought-burdened part of the world, it is also where decades of local collaboration have, and continue to, serve the public good, often unnoticed. Invisible to most, no-fuss, practical, and critically important.
Water management decisions occur at the federal, state, and local levels. While state and federal players are important and often draw the most attention because of their size and the reach of their communication, they’re operating at a different level than we do. As a taxpayer, you may be heartened to know that interagency communication and planning are baked into how local government operates. The impacts of decisions on water are rarely limited to the organization making the decisions. Local needs drive local decisions, and water is a common and foundational thread running through our rural and urban communities.
Another important layer of local teamwork is with non-governmental organizations with a wide range of responsibilities. Though their roles may be very different, they share a focus on real world local needs and understand that improvements don’t happen without involving lots of different people to truly understand issues and identify fixes that do the most good.
In California water, SGMA may be one of the best-known acronyms. The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act of 2014 is a landmark three-bill legislative package that established a statewide framework requiring local agencies in California’s high- and medium-priority groundwater basins to form Groundwater Sustainability Agencies and develop plans to prevent overdraft and achieve sustainable groundwater levels by 2042. Its goal is to halt excessive pumping, avoid undesirable impacts like subsidence and contamination, and ensure reliable groundwater supplies through coordinated local management under state oversight.
Before SGMA was IRWM. The Integrated Regional Water Management (IRWM) program was also initiated by the State of California, also created a whole new type of local government, and predates SGMA by 12 years. The committed participation of locals and their figurative rock-breaking on IRWM built the regional cooperation framework local participants in SGMA were able to use and likely jumped the complicated and difficult SGMA work ahead as a result.
Organizations that normally may never interact or work together, were brought to the same table on a range of local water issues. They needed to figure out how to get to know each other and find ways to work together for local common good, and they did. That teamwork has strengthened over time, to the benefit of the communities the many partner agencies serve.
Likewise, the Blueprint has engaged with numerous other organizations and agencies on successful efforts to improve water supplies for Californians. Supporting federal infrastructure investments, clean drinking water through Prop 4, additional water supplies under President Trump’s Executive Order 14181, and regulatory rollbacks that prevented the loss of up to 200,000 acre-feet of water while still protecting the environment, all had Blueprint support. The steps taken provided support for actions that could save up to 67,000 jobs with potential economic benefits of $14.5 billion.
While there always have been and likely will continue to be fightin’ over water, the frequency and scope of local coordination and partnership continue to expand, to the benefit of the San Joaquin Valley’s lands and people.
