Water Sector News

More and more often, water agencies throughout California are being asked to work together to bolster water infrastructure. For instance, the Friant-Kern Canal is currently being repaired thanks to a partnership between the state and federal government and local water agencies, local groundwater sustainability agencies have been tasked with community engagement for the sake of groundwater management, and Governor Newsom’s Water Resilience Portfolio Initiative sets out a plan for spending billions over the next decade on water storage and conveyance projects.

But a recent scientific study asked: who is ultimately paying for these projects, and what outcomes should investors take into account other than the water that they gain? For instance, when it comes to local water agencies that are funded by rate payers, “their users will be paying for this infrastructure in the form of debt and that debt is paid off over generally several decades, and so these have long-standing impacts,” said Andrew Hamilton, a civil engineer at Cornell and the lead author of the new study. “And so if they’re going to take on this debt, we really want to understand, okay, what will they be gaining in terms of new water supplies and how will those water supplies be distributed across the different water providers who are partnering together?”