By David Guy, NCWA President
As part of Northern California Water’s priorities for the next five years, we offer a new riverscape vision for the Sacramento River Basin that blends the wisdom of leading scientists and local knowledge to better understand and take various actions to integrate our wonderful rivers and creeks with our landscapes and communities in a way that will bring the entire region to life through our precious water resources.
Three themes capture our priorities and the actions to vitalize this region through the riverscape vision. These actions together will help us all ensure water supply reliability and bring the region to life:
- Help ensure the human right to clean water for local communities;
- Implement holistic, nature-based solutions that restore ecological functions and support multi-benefit water management;
- Prepare for and adapt to extreme weather and climate change, which requires saving excess water wherever possible.
To implement these priorities in a successful, affordable, and timely manner, we need to navigate the current regulatory framework to improve water supply reliability and advance modern water management for multiple benefits. California has an important regulatory framework that—although more than 50 years old in many cases—can be modernized with the help of state and federal agencies to help advance this approach for serving multiple benefits and vitalizing healthy rivers, landscapes and communities in a way never seen before.
For a functional Sacramento River Basin, these regulatory structures need to be realigned with the values being advanced as part of vitalizing healthy rivers, landscapes, and our communities. Most importantly, the regulatory processes should encourage and even facilitate collaboration that will be necessary for success, with a strong regulatory backdrop when parties do not work together. As we envision a Sacramento River Basin with healthy rivers, landscapes, and communities, we describe several processes below that exemplify how new and innovative approaches within the existing regulatory framework can better serve these important purposes.
Click on the image below to see more on our approach.
These priorities are more than a roadmap; they are a catalyst, driving momentum, adapting to change, and sustaining long-term progress. These priorities reflect a commitment to water stewardship that is as dynamic as the productive working landscapes and the natural systems we seek to safeguard.
We welcome your thoughts and ideas on how we can better navigate the various regulatory processes in California to make the Sacramento River Basin a better place. Contact us at info@norcalwater.org.
For more details on NCWA’s priorities, see:
- NCWA’s 5 Year Priorities to Vitalizing Healthy Rivers, Landscapes, and Communities, by Roger Cornwell and Jim Mayer
- Vitalizing the Sacramento River Basin for Communities, Agriculture, and the Environment, chair’s remarks by Roger Cornwell at the NCWA Annual Meeting
- The Five-Year Strategic Priorities
- The Pillars for a Thriving Sacramento River Basin, by Roger Cornwell
