State Water Resources Control Board
The California State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) is one of six branches of the California Environmental Protection Agency.
California State Water Resources Control Board.
Operator Number: Social Security Number (Last 4 digits): Click here to return to the Log-In Screen: State Water Resources Control Board. You must pass a written exam given by the State Water Resources Control Board. Wastewater treatment plant operator certification exams are given twice each year, once in mid-April and once in mid-October. Exams for all five grades are given at the same time at several locations throughout the state. The State Water Resources Control Board is located in the Cal/EPA building in downtown Sacramento. If you plan to visit us, please check in at the visitors' center in the main lobby. You'll sign for a visitor's pass, and a Water Board employee will escort you to the appropriate floor.
History
This regulatory program has had the status of an official government department since the 1950s.[1] The State Water Pollution Control Board, as well as 9 regional boards, were established by the Dickey Water Pollution Act of 1949.[2] The board was renamed to the State Water Quality Control Board by an Act of 1963.[3] The State Water Resources Control Board was established from the State Water Quality Control Board and the State Water Rights Board by an Act of 1967.[4]
California's pioneering clean water act is the 1969 Porter-Cologne Water Quality Control Act (Porter-Cologne Act).[5] Through the Porter-Cologne Act, the State Water Board and the Regional Water Boards have been entrusted with broad duties and powers to preserve and enhance all beneficial uses of the state's immensely complex waterscape. The Porter-Cologne Act is recognized as one of the nation's strongest pieces of anti-pollution legislation, and was so influential that Congressional authors used sections of the Act as the basis for the Federal Clean Water Act.[6]
Mission
The late SWRCB chairman, Don Maughan, wrote:
The State Water Board has never had the luxury of advocating protection of just one water need, such as the environment or agriculture or that of large cities. Our charge is to balance all water needs of the state. Some call it a superhuman task, but through the years this Board, aided by its excellent staff, has done what I call a superhuman job of accomplishing that mandate despite the intensive historical, political, and economic pressures that always accompany California water issues.
The State Water Board oversees the allocation of the state's water resources to various entities and for diverse uses, from agricultural irrigation to hydro electrical power generation to municipal water supplies, and for safeguarding the cleanliness and purity of Californians' water for everything from bubble baths to trout streams to ocean beaches.
The State Water Board is separate from and has different responsibilities than the Department of Water Resources (DWR), which manages state-owned water infrastructure, such as dams, reservoirs and aqueducts. DWR, like any other water user, must apply for water rights permits from the State Water Board.
Under the Federal Clean Water Act and the state's pioneering Porter-Cologne Water Quality Control Act the State Water Board has regulatory authority for protecting the water quality of nearly 1,600,000 acres (6,500 km2) of lakes, 1,300,000 acres (5,300 km2) of bays and estuaries, 211,000 miles (340,000 km) of rivers and streams, and about 1,100 miles (1,800 km) of exquisite California coastline.
The State Water Board also provides financial assistance to local governments and non-profit agencies to help build or rejuvenate wastewater treatment plants, and protect, restore and monitor water quality, wetlands, and estuaries. It also administers a fund to help underground storage tank owners and operators pay for the costs of cleaning up leaking underground storage tanks.
The State Water Board coordinates the state's nine Regional Water Quality Control Boards (Regional Water Boards), which serve as the frontline for state and federal water pollution control efforts. Together, the State Water Board and the nine Regional Water Boards are referred to as the California Water Boards.
Operations
Water Quality
The Water Quality Division of the State Water Board develops statewide water protection plans and establishes water quality standards like the California Bays and Estuaries Policy. The Division has two branches: a surface water branch and a groundwater branch. The surface water branch focuses on monitoring and regulating storm water discharges and wastewater (sewage) treatment. It also monitors surface water quality, oversees protection of wetlands and the ocean, is active in environmental education and environmental justice issues, identifies and oversees clean-up of contaminated sites, and promotes low-impact development (LID).[7] The groundwater branch provides statewide guidance and oversight for discharges to land and cleanup of sites with contaminated groundwater.
Water Rights
The Water Rights Division of the State Water Board allocates surface water rights based on the state's extremely complex system of water rights laws, and assists Board members in exercising the Board's judicial power in water rights disputes. The State Water Board is solely responsible for issuing permits for water rights, specifying amounts, conditions, and construction timetables for diversion and storage. Decisions about water rights are based on such factors as water availability, historical water rights, and flows needed to preserve in-stream uses, such as recreation and fish habitat.
California recognizes several different types of rights to take and use surface water. Some water rights can only be held by government. These include pueblo rights, which can only be held by municipalities that were originally Mexican or Spanish pueblos, and federal reserved rights, which can only be held by the federal government.
Groundwater
For the purpose of administering water rights, California categorizes groundwater as either a subterranean stream flowing through a known and definite channel or percolating groundwater. Groundwater that is a subterranean stream is subject to the same water right permitting requirements as surface water. California has no statewide water right permit process for regulating the use of percolating groundwater. A subterranean stream meets the following four characteristics: (1) A subsurface channel must be present; (2) The channel must have relatively impermeable bed and banks; (3) The course of the channel must be known or capable of being determined by reasonable inference; and (4) Groundwater must be flowing in the channel.
In most areas of the state, landowners whose property overlies percolating groundwater may pump it for beneficial use without approval from the State Water Board or a court. In several basins, however, groundwater use is regulated in accordance with court decrees. Further, in Ventura, Los Angeles, San Bernardino, and Riverside counties, groundwater pumpers are required to report their groundwater extraction amounts to either the State Water Board or a local groundwater management agency.[8]
Laws and Regulations
The State Water Board and the Regional Water Boards are responsible for swift and fair enforcement when the laws and regulations protecting California's waterways are violated. The State Water Board's Office of Enforcement assists and coordinates enforcement activities statewide.
Enforcement serves many purposes. First and foremost, it assists in protecting the beneficial uses of waters of the State. Swift and firm enforcement can prevent pollution from occurring and can promote prompt cleanup and correction of existing pollution problems. Enforcement ensures compliance with requirements in State Water Board and Regional Water Board regulations, plans, policies, and orders. Enforcement not only protects the public health and the environment, but also creates an 'even playing field,' ensuring that dischargers who comply with the law are not placed at a competitive disadvantage by those who do not. It also deters potential violators and, thus, further protects the environment. Monetary remedies provide a measure of compensation for the damage that pollution causes to the environment and ensure that polluters do not gain an economic advantage from violations of water quality laws.
The State Water Board is currently revising its water quality enforcement policy with the goal of creating an enforcement system that addresses water quality problems in the most efficient, effective, and consistent manner.[9]
Financial Assistance
State Water Resources Control Board Operator Certification
The State Water Board's Division of Financial Assistance (DFA) has a number of programs designed to help local agencies and individuals prevent or clean up water pollution. The DFA provides loans and grants for constructing municipal sewage and water recycling facilities, remediation for underground storage tank releases, watershed protection projects, and for nonpoint source pollution control projects. (Nonpoint source pollution usually involves contaminants flowing into a body of water from diffuse sources such as runoff from storm water, which may contain road dirt or fertilizers and pesticides from lawns, as well as water that collects debris from construction sites and fecal matter from barnyards and flows into nearby rivers, streams and lakes.)
The DFA has allocated about 4 billion dollars for the construction of sewage treatment plants in communities throughout the state through the Clean Water State Revolving Fund (SRF) program. Also, a billion and a half dollars in bond funds have gone to communities for water quality protection, including water quality planning, treatment of storm water and clean beaches since 2000.
DFA also administers the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRI) funds through the State Revolving Fund. The money awarded is in the form of grants and ultra-low interest zero and one-percent loans for projects that include wastewater treatment plant construction, upgrade and infrastructure improvements as well as 'green' projects such as wastewater recycling. Under the 2009 stimulus program, the State Water Board handled $270.5 million in addition to more than $300 million normally loaned by the SRF each year.[10]
Membership
State Water Board members are appointed to four-year terms by the governor and are confirmed by the State Senate. Each salaried member fills a different specialty position. Positions include civil engineer, professional engineer, water quality expert, attorney member/water rights expert and public member.
As of April 12, 2018 the members are Felicia Marcus (chair), Steven Moore (Vice Chair), E. Joaquin Esquivel, Tam Doduc, and Dorene D'Adamo.[11]
As of April 12, 2018 Felicia Marcus is the Board Chair. Before her appointment to the Water Board, Felicia was the Western Director for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a national environmental leader in bringing science, law, and policy expertise to solving our world's pressing environmental and conservation challenges. Felicia also served as the Regional Administrator of the U.S. EPA Region IX in the Clinton Administration where she was known for her work in bringing unlikely allies together for environmental progress and for making the agency more responsive to the communities it serves, particularly indian tribes, communities of color, local government, and agricultural and business interests. While at EPA, Felicia worked extensively on the range of environmental issues under EPA's jurisdiction, most heavily in air quality, Bay-Delta water, tribal, and US-Mexico border issues.[12]
As of April 12, 2018 Steven Moore is the board Vice Chair. He has worked over 20 years on water issues as a consultant and as both staff and a Board Member with the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Board. His experience includes preparing Environmental Impact Reports, conducting engineering studies, developing project plans and specifications, and managing Water Quality Control Plans. He has experience in NPDES and wetland permitting, water quality standards, watershed and stream protection policies, development of the Board's Surface Water Ambient Monitoring Program (SWAMP), and statewide coordination of water quality programs. He is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers.
Tam Doduc is a licensed civil engineer who holds a Bachelor of Science in BioEngineering from the University of California at Berkeley, a Master of Science in Civil Engineering from the California State University in Sacramento, and a Master of Business Administration from the University of California at Berkeley. Her career began in 1989 in environmental consulting. She became a State Water Resources Control Board staff member and later held a similar position at the California Air Resources Board. Ms. Doduc provided business and technical aid to manucturers and environmental technology developers while serving in the Office of Environmental Technology and later as California Environmental Protection Agency (Cal/EPA)'s Assistant Secretary for Technology Certification. She has also served as Cal/EPA's Assistant Secretary for Agriculture, Air and Chemical Programs. Ms. Doduc most recently served as Deputy Secretary at the Cal/EPA directing that agency's environmental justice and external scientific peer review activities, coordinating environmental quality initiatives, and providing general oversight of children's environmental health programs.[11]
E. Joaquin Esquivel was born and raised in California's Coachella Valley the son of educators and grandson of farm workers. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in English from U.C. Santa Barbara. He worked for eight and a half years in the Washington D. C. office of California's U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer. He started as an intern, leaving as Senator Boxer's Legislative Assistant. His portfolios for Senator Boxer covered agriculture, Native Americans, water, oceans, and nutrition. He was also Director of Information and Technology. In July 2015 he was appointed to the California Natural Resources Agency where he also served in the Washington D. C. office of Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. as Assistant Secretary for Federal Water Policy. There, he co-ordinated the interests of that agency and its departments with those of the Governor's Office, the California Congressional delegation and federal stakeholder agencies. Governor Brown appointed him to the State Water Resources Control Board in March 2017.[11]
Dorene D'Adamo was appointed to the board by Governor Brown in 2013. She previously served on the California Air Resources Board from 1999-2013 under the Brown, Schwarzenegger and Davis Administrations, where she was instrumental in the board's air quality and climate change programs and regulations.
Regional Water Quality Control Boards
The nine semi-autonomous Regional Water Boards were created in 1949 by the Dickey Water Pollution Act and have been responsible for protecting the surface, ground and coastal waters of their regions since then.
In adopting the Dickey Act the Legislature was acknowledging that California's water pollution problems are regional, and are affected by rain and snowfall, the configuration of the land, and population density, as well as recreational, agricultural, urban and industrial development, all of which vary from region to region.
The Regional Water Boards develop basin plans for their natural geographic characteristics that affect the overland flow of water in their area, govern requirements for and issue waste discharge permits, take enforcement action against dischargers who violate permits or otherwise harm water quality in surface waters, and monitor water quality.
The Regional Water Boards are unusual in this state because their boundaries follow natural mountain chains and ridges that define watersheds rather than political boundaries.
The 9 Regional Water Quality Control Boards are the:[13]
- North Coast RWQCB - rivers draining to the Pacific Ocean between the Oregon border and Tomales Bay
- San Francisco Bay RWQCB - rivers draining to San Francisco Bay (except the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers) and to the Pacific Ocean from Tomales Bay south to Pescadero Creek.
- Central Coast RWQCB - rivers draining to the Pacific Ocean from Pescadero Point south through Santa Barbara County.
- Los Angeles RWQCB - rivers draining to the Pacific Ocean in Ventura and Los Angeles Counties.[14]
- Central Valley RWQCB - the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers and their tributaries.
- Lahontan RWQCB - rivers draining into the Great Basin.
- Colorado River Basin RWQCB - the Colorado River and tributaries.
- Santa Ana RWQCB - rivers draining to the Pacific Ocean from Huntington Beach south to Newport Beach.[15]
- San Diego RWQCB - rivers draining to the Pacific Ocean from Laguna Beach south to the border with Baja California, Mexico.
Reports and portals
- Performance report
The Water Boards released a first-of-its-kind Performance Report in 2009 describing the performance of the State and Regional Water Boards in protecting California's waters through implementation of existing water quality and water rights laws.[16]
Along with the Performance Report, the Water Boards led the State's Water Quality Monitoring Council's effort to launch a coordinated, statewide web portal named 'My water quality' that communicates the actual quality of California's waters. These tools are being continuously improved and will soon describe actual targets for environmental improvement over the coming years.[17]
In 2014 during the drought, 28 small California communities cycled onto and off of a list of 'critical water systems' that the Board had determined could run dry within 60 days.[18]
See also
- Index: Water in California
References
- ^'CAL-EPA: SWRCB history'. ca.gov. Archived from the original on 25 December 2016. Retrieved 18 May 2018.
- ^Dickey Water Pollution Act, Cal. Stats. 1949, Ch. 1549, enacted July 28, 1949
- ^Cal. Stats. 1963, Ch. 1463, enacted July 13, 1963
- ^Cal. Stats. 1967, Ch. 284
- ^Porter-Cologne Water Quality Control Act, Cal. Stats. 1969, Ch. 482
- ^California, State of. 'Welcome to the California Watershed Portal'. www.conservation.ca.gov. Retrieved 18 May 2018.
- ^'CSWRQCB: Water Quality Division'. ca.gov. Retrieved 18 May 2018.
- ^Board, California State Water Resources Control. 'Division of Water Rights - California State Water Resources Control Board'. www.waterboards.ca.gov. Retrieved 18 May 2018.
- ^Board, California State Water Resources Control. 'Office of Enforcement - California State Water Resources Control Board'. www.waterboards.ca.gov. Retrieved 18 May 2018.
- ^Board, California State Water Resources Control. 'Financial Assistance Funding - Grants and Loans - California State Water Resources Control Board'. www.waterboards.ca.gov. Retrieved 18 May 2018.
- ^ abc'SWRCB'. Retrieved June 23, 2018.
- ^Megerian, Chris (April 14, 2015). 'State water regulator flexes new muscle in response to drought'. Los Angeles Times.
- ^'CSWRQCB: Regional Water Quality Control Boards — locator map, with links'. ca.gov. Archived from the original on 2010-01-08. Retrieved 18 May 2018.
- ^Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board: homepage . accessed 7.14.2013
- ^Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board: homepage . accessed 7.14.2013
- ^'CSWRQCB: Performance Report'. ca.gov. Retrieved 18 May 2018.
- ^'My Water Quality'. www.waterboards.ca.gov. Retrieved 18 May 2018.
- ^Becerra, Hector (September 25, 2014) 'Drought has 14 communities on the brink of waterlessness'Los Angeles Times
Further reading
- Porter-Cologne Water Quality Control Act — complete text with 12-28-2012 revisions, effective 1 January 2013.
- Non-fiction - 'Cadillac Desert'; by Marc Reisner.
External links
California Bays and Estuaries PolicyThe Water Quality Control Policy for the Enclosed Bays and Estuaries of California is published by the California State Water Resources Control Board as guidelines to prevent water quality degradation. The policy is revised as needed.
Castac LakeCastac Lake (also known as Tejon Lake) is a natural saline endorheic lake near Lebec, California. The lake is located in the Tehachapi Mountains just south of the Grapevine section of Interstate 5, and within Tejon Ranch. Normal water elevations are 3,482 feet (1,061 m) above sea level.
Certified Unified Program AgencyCertified Unified Program Agencies, or CUPAs, are local agencies that are certified by the Secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA) to implement the CalEPA Unified Program elements in the CUPA's jurisdiction. The CalEPA Unified Program consolidates, coordinates, and makes consistent the administrative requirements, permits, inspections, and enforcement activities of six environmental and emergency response programs in California. These six programs (and their corresponding state oversight agencies) are:
Hazardous Materials Release Response Plans and Inventories (Business Plans) - California Governor's Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES)
California Accidental Release Prevention (CalARP) Program - California Governor's Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES)
Underground Storage Tank (UST) Program - California State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB)
Aboveground Petroleum Storage Act (APSA) - Office of the State Fire Marshal (CAL FIRE-OSFM)
Hazardous Waste Generator and Onsite Hazardous Waste Treatment (tiered permitting) Programs - Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC)
California Uniform Fire Code: Hazardous Material Management Plans and Hazardous Material Inventory Statements - Office of the State Fire Marshal (CAL FIRE-OSFM)The mission of the Unified Program is to protect public health and safety, to restore and enhance environmental quality, and to sustain economic vitality through effective and efficient implementation of the Unified Program.
The Unified Program was established by California Senate Bill 1082 (Calderon) in 1993. Regulations were written to implement and enforce this law and the first CUPAs were certified in 1996. There are now 83 CUPAs in California and CalEPA regularly evaluates them for compliance with established statutory and regulatory standards. DTSC was also certified, effective January 1, 2005, to be the CUPA for Imperial and Trinity Counties.Under Secretary of CalEPA Matthew Rodriquez, Assistant Secretary for Local Program Coordination and Emergency Response Gregory Vlasek is head of the Unified Program (June 2017 to present). Previous Assistant Secretaries were James Bohon (2012-2017) and Don Johnson (1994 -2011). .
CUPAs have statutory authority to require permits, inspect facilities, issue violations, and perform enforcement actions - including the authority to photograph any hazardous material or hazardous waste, container, container label, vehicle, waste treatment process, waste disposal site, or condition constituting a violation of law found during an inspection (California Health and Safety Code, Chapter 6.95, Section 25511(a) and Chapter 6.5, Section 25185(a)(5)).
EE (named e , plural ees) is the fifth letter and the second vowel in the modern English alphabet and the ISO basic Latin alphabet. It is the most commonly used letter in many languages, including Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Hungarian, Latin, Latvian, Norwegian, Spanish, and Swedish.
Groundwater Ambient Monitoring and Assessment ProgramThe Groundwater Ambient Monitoring and Assessment Program (GAMA) is an all-inclusive monitoring program for groundwater that was implemented in 2000 in California, United States. It was created by the California State Water Resources Control Board as an improvement from groundwater programs that were already in place. GAMA monitors various aspects in groundwater such as the water quality and allotment total through research projects conducted by multiple agencies both statewide and locally sourced. GAMA wants to improve public awareness for groundwater resources as well as improve monitoring on groundwater research across the state to assess potential hazards from this resource.
Integrated Regional Water Management PlanningThe California State Integrated Regional Water Management (IRWM) Planning is the process that promotes bringing together and prioritizing water-related efforts in the region in a systematic way to ensure sustainable water uses, reliable water supplies, better water quality, environmental stewardship, efficient urban development, protection of agriculture, and a strong economy. IRWM incorporates the physical, environmental, societal, economic, legal, and jurisdictional aspects of water management into regional solutions through open and collaborative stakeholder processes to promote sustainable water use.
Administered by the California Department of Water Resources and California State Water Resources Control Board through bond-funded Grant Programs, IRWM encourages the development of integrated regional strategies for management of water resources by providing funding, through competitive grants.
Mono Lake CommitteeThe Mono Lake Committee (MLC) is an environmental organization based in Lee Vining, California in the United States. Its mission is to preserve Mono Lake, by reducing diversions of water from the Eastern Sierra watersheds by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP).
The Committee was founded in 1978 by David Gaines, David Winkler, and Sally Judy. In 1975, David Winkler, Jefferson Burch, and Christine Weigen obtained a grant, with help and encouragement from David Gaines, from the NSF to study the ecology of Mono Lake. He had found that, starting in 1941, LADWP's diversions of water from Mono Lake's inflow creeks had caused it to lose half its volume and double its salinity. These changes, Gaines reported, reduced the ability of the lake to support its saline ecosystem.
Mono Lake is an important habitat for migratory birds (including the California gull). The lowering of the water level endangered the bird nesting grounds on Negit Island in the middle of the lake: a land bridge had formed, which allowed predators to attack the bird nests.
In 1979, the MLC, along with the Audubon Society filed suit in Mono County, California Superior Court, claiming that LADWP's water diversions violated the public trust doctrine: that all navigable water must be managed for the benefit of everyone. In 1983, MLC won the argument in front of the California Supreme Court, who directed that the public trust doctrine overrides prior water rights.
Eventually, multiple litigations were adjudicated in 1994, by the California State Water Resources Control Board. In that ruling, LADWP was required to let enough water into Mono Lake to raise the lake level 17.4 metres (57.1 ft) above the then-current level of 42.4 feet (12.9 m) below the 1941 level. As of 2018, the water level in Mono Lake has risen 7.3 feet (2.2 m) of the required 17.4 feet (5.3 m). Los Angeles made up for the lost water through state-funded conservation and recycling projects.
New Melones DamNew Melones Dam is an earth and rock filled embankment dam on the Stanislaus River, about 5 miles (8.0 km) west of Jamestown, California, United States, on the border of Calaveras County and Tuolumne County. The water impounded by the 625-foot (191 m)-tall dam forms New Melones Lake, California's fourth largest reservoir, in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada east of the San Joaquin Valley. The dam serves mainly for irrigation water supply, and also provides hydropower generation, flood control, and recreation benefits.
The dam was authorized in 1944 as a unit of the federal Central Valley Project, a system designed to provide irrigation water to the fertile agricultural region of the Central Valley. It would be built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps), and transferred to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) upon completion. In 1966, work began to clear the foundations for a high dam that would replace an earlier, much smaller structure built by two irrigation districts. Construction of the main embankment began in 1976, and was topped out in late 1978. The filling of New Melones Lake commenced in 1978, and the dam's hydroelectric station produced its first power in mid-1979.
New Melones was the focus of a long environmental battle during the 1970s and early 1980 s; critics protested the flooding of a long scenic stretch of the Stanislaus River, which flowed over whitewater rapids through the deepest limestone canyon in the western United States. The protestors employed a variety of methods, some extreme, to prevent the filling of New Melones Lake until 1983, when record-setting floods filled the reservoir and nearly breached the dam's emergency spillway. The fight over New Melones galvanized the river conservation movement in California and influenced major water policy changes on the state and federal levels; since its completion, no other dams of its size or importance have been built in the United States.The New Melones project has continued to generate controversy, due to the water yield from the project being lower than expected, and the use of New Melones water to meet federal environmental standards at the expense of farming. The reservoir is considered 'over-allocated'; in an average year, it is unable to meet all the demands placed on it. The debate over water rights continues today, with environmentalists seeking to further increase fishery flows, and the Stanislaus irrigation districts asserting their senior rights to the river.
New Spicer Meadow ReservoirNew Spicer Meadow Reservoir is a reservoir in the Sierra Nevada, within the Stanislaus National Forest in eastern Tuolumne County, California.
It is located near the western Alpine County line, at an elevation of 6,621 feet (2,018 m).
North Fork Eel RiverThe North Fork Eel River is the smallest of four major tributaries of the Eel River in northwestern California in the United States. It drains a rugged wilderness area of about 286 square miles (740 km2) in the California Coast Ranges, and flows through national forests for much of its length. Very few people inhabit the relatively pristine watershed of the river; there are no operational stream gauges and only one bridge (Mina Road) that crosses the river, near the boundary between Trinity and Mendocino Counties.
Southern California Coastal Water Research ProjectThe Southern California Coastal Water Research Project (SCCWRP) is a research institute focusing on the coastal ecosystems of Southern California from watersheds to the ocean. SCCWRP was created as a joint powers authority (JPA), which is an agency formed when multiple government agencies have a common mission that can be better achieved by pooling resources and knowledge. The purpose of SCCWRP is to gather the necessary scientific information to allow member agencies to effectively and cost-efficiently steward the Southern California coastal environment.
Stanislaus RiverThe Stanislaus River is a tributary of the San Joaquin River in north-central California in the United States. The main stem of the river is 96 miles (154 km) long, and measured to its furthest headwaters it is about 150 miles (240 km) long. Originating as three forks in the high Sierra Nevada, the river flows generally southwest through the agricultural San Joaquin Valley to join the San Joaquin south of Manteca, draining parts of five California counties. The Stanislaus is known for its swift rapids and scenic canyons in the upper reaches, and is heavily used for irrigation, hydroelectricity and domestic water supply.
Originally inhabited by the Miwok group of Native Americans, the Stanislaus River was explored in the early 1800s by the Spanish, who conscripted indigenous people to work in the colonial mission and presidio systems. The river is named for Estanislao, who led a native uprising in Mexican-controlled California in 1828, but was ultimately defeated on the Stanislaus River (then known as the Río de los Laquisimes). During the California Gold Rush, the Stanislaus River was the destination of tens of thousands of gold seekers; many of them reached California via Sonora Pass, at the headwaters of the Middle Fork. Many miners and their families eventually settled along the lower Stanislaus River. The farms and ranches they established are now part of the richest agricultural region in the United States.Early mining companies were formed to channel Stanislaus River water to the gold diggings via elaborate canal and flume systems, which directly preceded the irrigation districts formed by farmers who sought a greater degree of river control. Starting in the early 1900s, many dams were built to store and divert water; these were often paired with hydro-power systems, whose revenues covered the high cost of the water projects. In the 1970s the construction of the federal New Melones Dam incited major opposition from recreation and environmental groups (documented on the Stanislaus River Archive), who protested the loss of one of the last free-flowing stretches of the Stanislaus. Although New Melones was eventually built, its completion is considered to have marked the end of large dam building in the United States.Water rights along the Stanislaus River are a controversial topic, with the senior rights of farmers coming into conflict with federal and state laws protecting endangered salmon and steelhead trout. The Stanislaus irrigation districts contend that diverting water for fish damages the local economy, especially in years of drought. Water managers have struggled to find a balance between competing needs, which also include groundwater recharge, flood control, and river-based recreation such as fishing and whitewater rafting.
Takashi AsanoTakashi Asano (浅野 孝, Asano Takashi, born 1937) is a Japanese-born environmental engineer and a professor emeritus at the University of California, Asano has more than 40 years of academic and professional experience in environmental and water resources engineering, specializing in water reclamation, recycling, and reuse. During 1978–1992, he served as the water reclamation specialist for the California State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) in Sacramento, during the formative years of water reclamation, recycling, and reuse. Asano has conducted water reclamation and reuse studies at the SWRCB and the University of California at Davis, many of which contributed to the scientific and technical basis for State of California's Title 22 regulations (State of California Water Recycling Criteria). For his research on quantitative microbial risk analysis and groundwater recharge, Asano was awarded the 1999 Jack Edward McKee Medal by the Water Environment Federation (WEF), which was shared by Hiroaki Tanaka (Kyoto University, Japan) as well as Asano's colleagues, Edward D. Schroeder and George Tchobanoglous at the University of California at Davis. Previously, Asano taught at Montana State University, Bozeman, 1971–75, and Washington State University, Pullman, 1975–78. He has continued to lecture widely and publish on topics current and ancient.Asano was awarded the Stockholm Water Prize in August 2001. That same year, Asano was elected a member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts. The Government of Japan honored him with The Order of the Sacred Treasure, Gold and Silver Star, in Spring 2009. Asano co-authored with Franklin L. Burton, Harold L. Leverenz, Ryujiro Tsuchihashi, and George Tchobanoglous the widely used textbook entitled Water Reuse: Issues, Technologies, and Applications by the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., New York, NY. In 2004, Asano was awarded an Honorary Doctorate Degree from his alma mater, Hokkaido University in Sapporo, Japan. In addition, in 2008, he was awarded the Doctor Honoris Causa distinction by the University of Cádiz, Spain for his contributions in water reuse studies in the Mediterranean region.
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