Jessica Law became executive director of the Water Forum in January . In 1993 , the City and County of Sacramento launched negotiations to figure out how to ensure reliable water supplies and safeguard the environmental needs of the Lower American River . In 2000 , 40 different agencies signed the Water Forum Agreement , which has guided the organization ’ s work ever since . Law , who grew up in Miami , Florida , has a bachelor ’ s degree in biology from Connecticut College and a master ’ s degree in regional planning from the University of Massachusetts , Amherst . She came to the Water Forum with more than 15 years of experience in water and environmental resource management , public process and land-use planning .
You came to this position from working as chief deputy executive officer of the Delta Stewardship Council . How does that work translate to your job now ? I ’ ve been living in Sacramento going on 15 years now . For the majority of my career , I ’ ve been working on water and environmental issues and really working on a lot of these very complex environmental projects , everything from high-speed rail to the ( Bay ) Delta Conservation Plan to the work that I was doing at the Delta Stewardship Council , which was really helping to support ecosystem restoration in the ( Sacramento-San Joaquin ) Delta , along with a whole host of other projects . Regardless of position , I ’ ve been really focused on policy and strategy and how you improve conditions … throughout the state to support stronger resource management and really support the natural resources of the state .
Through all of this work , there ’ s policy and there ’ s strategy , and then there ’ s the art of decision-making . This work is not all facts and figures . A lot of this work is about relationships and building trust . … I ’ ve done a tremendous amount of work in facilitation and conflict resolution . I ’ ve found that that is really the space where these decisions are made — groups of people coming together to collaborate , to communicate , to show up and to really be able to share where their interests and their positions are and to work toward common goals . I ’ ve been practicing that for the past 15 years , trying to reach common ground on really , really complex environmental issues , and the Water Forum has such a unique history of working together to bring diverse voices to the table .
What does this year ’ s drought mean for the Water Forum in terms of the work you ’ re doing or any shifting priorities for the organization ? I ’ ve been impressed with just the tremendous amount of institutional knowledge within this group about how we dealt with the last drought . But let me explain a little bit more about the Water Forum and our role during this drought in particular . The Water Forum Agreement outlines actions that water districts need to take during the drought to cut back on diversions from the river . Our objective is to work with the Bureau of Reclamation — they are the ones that manage Folsom Reservoir — to see how they can keep enough water in Folsom that would protect fish in the river . The reason that ’ s important is because you want to make sure there ’ s enough cold water to keep water temperatures in the river at tolerable conditions or better for the fish , and also to really make sure we have sufficient water supply not just this year but also going into next year .
We provide technical support and modeling to support decision-making by the state and federal agencies . These include the Bureau of Reclamation , State Water Resources Control Board , Department of Water Resources , National Marine Fisheries Service , California Department of Fish and Wildlife . We come together as agencies and partners and stakeholders to think through these decisions and it really is a very collaborative process . If you asked me this question in February , what this year was going to look like , I would have said that we were cautiously optimistic , because we had pretty good snowpack levels , but that snow didn ’ t show up . It didn ’ t show up in Folsom , it didn ’ t show up in lakes and reservoirs upstream . … We are working very carefully now to fine-tune the information we have and to help plan for this year and beyond .
Snowpack levels not showing up in the reservoirs and Folsom Lake — what does that mean exactly ? It means that instead of being runoff — instead of melting and flowing downhill — it was absorbed into the groundwater or sublimated . We got some really cold storms this year . I am not a meteorologist , so my understanding is we got really cold storms this year , the ground was dry when snow hit it , and so as the snow was melting , it was absorbed into the ground . Imagine a really dry sponge ; you put ice cubes on top , it ’ s going to get absorbed in , as opposed to if your ground is wet already and then you ’ ve got snow on top , it would run off . Part of this is just an indication overall of how dry conditions are throughout the West . Soil is really dry .
Back in February , as you said , you would have been cautiously optimistic . What ’ s your outlook now for this water year ? As we go through the year , we ’ re understanding more and more about the conditions right now . So June , we know that it ’ s worse than it was in ( the historic drought of ) 2014-2015 , this time of year . If you go out to Folsom and look at lake levels , they ’ re at around 360,000 acre-feet . We know those levels are going to be dropping to about 200,000 acre-feet by the end of September , and that is a management goal we have in common with the federal agencies and state agencies . We know it ’ s going to be dropping , but that is what we ’ re aiming for in terms of best management for this year in really challenging conditions . I ’ d say we are doing a lot to understand and fine-tune the information coming in to make sure we have accurate models and accurate forecasting as much as possible
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