If you thought that the 2014 Sustainable Groundwater Management Act’s (SGMA) addition of yet another layer atop California’s and the Southwest’s already highly layered and complicated water law wasn’t going to result in a bevy of litigation to determine access to the commodity that Mark Twain quipped was “for fighting, not drinking,” you were naïve.

January 31 came and went without the seven (7) states that form the Upper and Lower Basins of the Colorado River Compact coming to agreement on how to cede enough of their extant river allocations to meet the federal government’s (U.S. Bureau of Reclamation) short-term 2023-2026 requirements.

The atmospheric rivers that began pummeling California right after Christmas have produced more than enough snow in the Sierra Nevada and rain everywhere else to provide relief to those parts of the state dependent upon Mother Nature and the State Water Project for the bulk of their water needs – not permanent relief, but a timeout to regroup after the three driest years on record.

As 2023 opens, there is some good news, some bad news, some interesting news, and some no news to report.

As we suggested a few months ago, it was not a matter of whether but only of when the Metropolitan Water District’s (MWD) emergency drought order would be extended beyond the original 6 million state water project dependent customers that have been under severe restrictions since June 1 to the 13 million MWD customers with access to imports from both the state water project and the Colorado River Basin.

Our Northern colleagues conduct their version of a “golf & water summit” December 7 at Boundary Oak Municipal Golf Course in Walnut Creek.

As the weathercasters inform us that this precipitation year looks like another La Niña pattern with its warmer and drier conditions for California and we wait to see whether they’re right, please remember that it’s never the last 100 days of a calendar year that matter.

With California in its third year of a historic drought, the 6^th Appellate District Court has ruled that the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) lacks the power to interfere with the ability of “senior” water rights holders to divert water from California’s rivers and streams.

Water has been the subject of myriad forums and symposiums over the years. It is a staple of GCSAA Chapter meetings. It is the subject of multiple research and academic studies. University and college “Field Days” are dedicated to it. Magazine articles about it abound. And for good reason. Mother Nature may provide enough of it in much of the nation, but irrigation is the lifeblood of the game in California and the Southwest.

As the worsening drought crisis continues to impact communities across the West, the Department of the Interior today announced urgent action to improve and protect the long–term sustainability of the Colorado River System, including commitments for continued engagement with impacted states and Tribes.