Water & Environment Task Force

An Overview of the Voluntary Agreement by the State Water Contractors

Join us for an update on the historic Voluntary Agreement that will drastically improve California’s water supply outlook, operations and drought resilience for the Bay-Delta watershed. Jennifer Pierre, our speaker, will go over the recently signed Memorandum of Understanding as well as the term sheet for the agreement, and talk about how the agreement represents a significant pivot away from the more regulatory and litigious approach to water management that has stalled progress for decades, in favor of a more collaborative and innovative approach to streamline water decision-making and governance.
 
Signed by most of the Sacramento River water users, the state of California, and Bureau of Reclamation, the Memorandum of Understanding and term sheet outline a novel approach to implementing the Bay-Delta Water Quality Control Plan. The $3 billion program combines landscape-level habitat restoration with coordinated flows across the watershed, and implements a robust governance structure to make operational decisions, implement adaptive management, oversee a science program and develop synthesized reports. Jennifer will discuss the basis for the agreement, key details, and next steps. Additionally, Jennifer will provide up-to-date information on current and future drought management.

About our Speaker:
Jennifer Pierre is the General Manager for the State Water Contractors (SWC) – a statewide, non-profit association of the public water agencies that contract with the Department of Water Resources (DWR) to receive water from the State Water Project (SWP), which provides water to 27 million Californians and 750,000 acres of farmland. A UC Davis alumna with a bachelor’s in environmental biology and conservation, Jennifer has 20 years of experience in Delta management and applies that experience to advance the SWC’s primary purpose to improve water supply and operations for two-thirds of the entire state that depend on this water. Jennifer is a champion of collaboration and science-based decision-making, working towards solutions that meet the SWC’s mission in an environmentally sustainable way.