Ringside: Will Advocates for More Water Supply Projects Find Unity?

There’s only one way to restore reliable water allocations to farmers, avoid turning our cities into rationed “xeriscaped” heat islands, and cope with whatever the climate ultimately delivers. That’s to build more infrastructure to safely and sustainably produce millions of acre feet of new fresh water every year.

There are many practical ways to accomplish this. Some are controversial. Others, less so. But chances are slim that any of them will happen anytime soon unless advocates for more water are unified.

The single biggest variable in water supply projects and management priorities is the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. A new organization, The Great Valley Farm Water Partnership, joins together farmers from the delta and the San Joaquin Valley to “foster mutually beneficial water and environmental solutions through collaboration and expert guidance.” They have identified seven priority issues:

1 – Sediment remediation in the South Delta (dredging).
2 – Predation suppression.
3 – Invasive aquatic weed control.
4 – South delta permanent operable gates.
5 – Delta levee investment improvements.
6 – Improved ability to export water through the delta following high inflow events.
7 – Enhanced south of delta water storage capacity.

Agreement by farmers from two distinct regions on common objectives for the delta is something that should extend to the rest of the state. Maintaining delta health and resiliency while safely extracting more water during storms also benefits water importers in the state’s coastal cities. And it helps developers everywhere, whether they’re building homes or data centers.

This fact makes the efforts of another group, the Water Blueprint for the San Joaquin Valley, also carry benefits that reach beyond the valley to affect the entire state. The Blueprint is a “coalition of water users, water districts, farmers, commodity groups, and municipalities engaged with environmental non-governmental organizations, community-based groups, and academia to advance common sense water solutions for our state.”

The biggest project of the Blueprint is the United Valley Water Plan, which they have been working on for two years. They expect to complete the final sections early in 2026 with specific project and policy recommendations. What we can anticipate in much greater detail centers around three top priorities:

1 – Secure federal and state funding and streamlined permitting so agencies can immediately implement the “easy” projects. There are literally thousands of relatively small scale, relatively non-controversial projects designed to improve water quality and increase water supply.
2 – Develop and implement new regional connections to improve California’s remarkable but aging capacity to move large quantities of water long distances.
3 – Manage the delta and invest in projects there to move more water safely while improving fisheries.

The United Valley Water Plan focuses on state policies but includes references to federal funding and federal regulations. Which brings us to an unavoidable challenge that must be met: How to work productively with federal agencies to further efforts to bring more water to California’s farms and cities.

To this end the major water agencies representing the Central Valley have come up with a “playbook” to govern negotiations with the state as well as requests to the Trump administration. They hope that Washington can help reset California water policy by:

1 – Naming a strong federal lead,
2 – Driving a structured negotiation with California,
3 – Putting all major issues into one roadmap,
4 – Tying progress to timelines and guardrails,
5 – Turning the final agreement into federal law,

and according to the Playbook, the federal roadmap should include:

6 – Approving system-wide water operational improvements for the State and Federal water projects to allow water to flow as originally designed to farms in the Central Valley and southern California cities,
7 – Head off the disastrous plan proposed by the State Water Resources Control Board and instead formalize implementation of the plan developed by the water agencies called the “Healthy Rivers & Landscapes” plan,
8 – Shasta Dam modernization (including raising the dam and improving cold-water management),
9 – Swiftly approve construction of new water infrastructure projects identified to help meet increased water needs throughout the state.

Among these three lists, from three different groups, politically sensitive details are most explicit in the Playbook’s description of their ideal federal roadmap, items 6-8. But there are answers.

The modifications to the delta hydrology proposed by the Great Valley Farm Water Partnership – dredging, gates, levee improvements, new and safer facilities for water diversions – are environmentally beneficial ways water can “flow as originally designed,” i.e., in the volumes we need to save our farms and spare our cities from punitive rationing.

Similarly, the Blueprint’s strategy to “invest in projects to move more water safely while improving fisheries” is consistent with the “Healthy Rivers and Landscapes” plan referenced in the Playbook. This plan offers a comprehensive alternative to the State Water Resources Control Board’s inflexible proposal to mandate a percentage of “unimpaired flow” in delta tributaries.

As for a moderate expansion to the capacity of Lake Shasta, proponents haven’t tried hard enough. It is the most cost effective surface reservoir enhancement in the state, which creates huge space for negotiations.

Growing unity among farmers and farm water agencies is an encouraging development, but more unity, with more participants, can only help. Where are the big urban water agencies? Where is public recognition that water resiliency in California requires not only reimagining delta management and project priorities, but also statewide agreement that urban water supply projects are also an integral part of a unified strategy?

Will farmers support urban wastewater recycling, urban runoff harvesting, urban aquifer remediation, and large scale seawater desalination projects? Will urban water agencies support the increasingly unified voice of farmers, and their agenda to restore reliable water allocations?

There’s more.

Will private sector labor unions endorse these projects and regulatory reforms, not only to create tens of thousands of jobs, but to build infrastructure that will yield genuine, generational economic dividends for all Californians?

Will practical environmentalists appreciate the environmental upside of massively abundant water, which if accomplished might enable some of their most cherished dreams, such as the demolition of O’Shaughnessy Dam and the restoration of Yosemite’s twin – the magnificent Hetch Hetchy Valley?

And will all water interests in California fight with one voice for a level of federal and state investment in practical water supply infrastructure at a level we haven’t seen since the 1950s and 1960s, where in 2026 dollars, literally hundreds of billions of dollars were committed? Because that’s what it’s going to take. But the results are worth it.