3:45 PM - 5:00 PM | Sessions 16, 17, & 18
Session 16: Community-Driven Solutions to Coordinate Land Use Planning & Groundwater Management
The 2014 passage of California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) is having rippling impacts across the state’s water and land-use planning. While SGMA is specific to California, the challenges addressed through integrated water and land-use are widely applicable. Groundwater managers must reduce overall water use to meet new regulatory requirements while protecting local economies, communities, and the environment. This panel discussion, moderated by Local Government Commission, will highlight the interplay between land use planning and sustainable groundwater management, with a focus on the role that nonprofits play in supporting coordinated planning and equitable community engagement. Panelists will share their perspective on integrated planning, protections for drinking water and groundwater-dependent ecosystems, strategic land repurposing approaches, community-driven solutions, and inter-jurisdictional collaboration. Each speaker will highlight tools and resources to inform water-smart land use planning, and help participants identify opportunities to develop healthy, sustainable communities.
Moderator:
Danielle Dolan, Local Government Commission
Presenters:
- Anna Schiller, Environmental Defense Fund
- Vicky Espinoza, Environmental Systems Ph.D. Student, UC Merced
- Amanda Monaco, Leadership Council for Justice and Accountability
- Emily Finnegan, Local Government Commission
Session 17: Water Funds Generating Myriad Benefits for Communities Around the Globe
Water funds and analogous initiatives have produced multiple benefits for communities around the globe, from Ecuador to South Africa and the United States. This panel will explore three examples that illustrate how water funds can pull rural and urban communities together, for example, to: produce clean drinking water supplies; protect corridors of protected recreational open space and wildlife habitat; sustain working farms and forestry operations; manage stormwater flows; reduce nutrient loads; and enhance water, air and soil quality. These case profiles will illustrate how project proponents have mastered a wide diversity of challenges to succeed, including: project conceptualization and design; formation of multi-stakeholder teams and coalitions; satisfaction of regulatory requirements; assembly and implementation of conservation finance packages; and the adaptation of organizational structures over time. Panelist will offer their perspectives on the future of water funds and their importance to regional climate change adaptation strategies.
Moderator:
Jim Levitt, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and International Land Conversation Network
Presenters:
- Chandni Navalkha, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, "Pioneering Water Fund Initiatives in Ecuador"
- Spencer Meyer, HighStead Foundation, "The Sebago Clean Water Initiative in Maine, USA"
Session 18: Gila River Indian Community: Sovereignty and Water Policy Connecting Land and Water
With the 2004 Arizona Water Settlements Act, the Gila River Indian Community has once again become a water partner in Arizona. The AWSA statutorily recognized an annual water budget of 653,500 acre-feet. This has enabled the Community to re-connect an assured supply of water with its land-use planning and agricultural expansion and economic development. Community leadership has identified the vision of reconnecting people with the land and connecting land and water to restore an economy that was once a way of life. This economy today not only includes putting land to agricultural use with the Community serving as a water partner within the State of Arizona and beyond, but it also includes riverine restoration of the portions of the Gila River through managed aquifer recharge. These river flows, along with the flora and fauna they engender, is having positive impacts on culture, recreation, economic development, agricultural expansion, and restoring the aquifer beneath the Community. The panelist are all experts in their fields and are intimately involved in the Community’s efforts to restore its agricultural economy and utilize its water resources in a manner that is most advantageous to the Pima and Maricopa.
Moderator:
Sharon B. Megdal, University of Arizona Water Resources Research Center
Presenters:
- Jason Hauter, Akin Gump, Representing the Gila River Indian Community
- David H. DeJong, Pima-Maricopa Irrigation Project
- Will Antone, III, Gila River Indian Community Department of Environmental Quality