Improving California’s groundwater sustainability requires strong oversight by local entities with backup support from the state, as well as comprehensive statewide water planning that improves surface water availability.

Those were some of the key messages delivered June 3 to the California State Board of Food and Agriculture during a meeting that focused on ways to manage the state’s groundwater sustainably.

Sustainably managing California’s headwaters will be the focus of ACWA’s annual regulatory summit which this year will be held Aug. 13-14 in South Lake Tahoe.

Titled – “Looking Upstream: Managing California’s Headwaters for Sustainability” – the event begins on August 13 with a tour of a Forest Management Demonstration Area in South Lake Tahoe.The tour will be followed by poster session and a welcome reception.

On August 14, the summit will continue, covering topics such as:

The nation’s first drinking water standard for hexavalent chromium – or chromium-6 – is set to become effective in California on July 1 following approval of final regulations by the Office of Administrative Law (OAL), officials with the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) announced today.

The Department of Water Resources (DWR) has scheduled workshops in Sacramento and Bakersfield later this month to provide information about applying for 2014 IRWM drought grants.

On Monday, June 2, DWR released final versions of the guidelines and proposal solicitation package (PSP) for the 2014 Integrated Regional Water Management (IRWM) Drought Grant Program. The newly released documents and additional information about the IRWM Grant Program can be found at http://www.water.ca.gov/irwm/grants.

The State Water Resources Control Board is seeking a manager for the state’s Drinking Water Program, an indicator that the program likely will soon be transferred from the California Department of Public Health and moved to the State Water Board under the Division of Drinking Water.

The Brown Administration has targeted July 1 for the transfer, as prescribed in a transition plan released in March. The move is included in the governor’s 2014-’15 budget proposal and a budget trailer bill.

The State Water Resources Control Board is asking urban water suppliers in California to complete a survey on actions instituted to reduce water use. Responses are requested by June 6.

To allow more time for review by members of the public and stakeholders, state and federal officials on Friday announced that they have extended the public comment period on the draft Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) and its accompanying environmental documents by more than a month from June 13 to July 29.

Notices have been sent to junior water-rights holders in the Sacramento River watershed, upper Russian River, and San Joaquin River watershed ordering diverters to immediately cease diverting water from affected waterways as part of a drought emergency plan, officials with the State Water Resources Control Board (State Water Board) have announced.