California Water Policy Speaker Series Jay Lund

Mark Cowin, director of the California Department of Water Resources, whose agency would own and operate the proposed new export tunnels in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, discusses the agency's evolution from water "extraction" to sustainable and integrated water "management."

Next to New Orleans, Sacramento has the greatest flood risk of any major urban area in America. Most residents live below the water level flowing by in the Sacramento and American rivers. Tim Washburn, Director of Planning for the Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency, discusses how river levees and bypasses are managed to minimize the risks.

Felicia Marcus, a member of the California State Water Resources Control Board, talks about the governance of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and why she is optimistic on warring water interest reaching a compromise on the management of the estuary as both a major ecosystem and heart of the state's water delivery system.

Marcus says the five-member board is at a critical juncture in California's water history. "The next four years will see a series of decisions that have the promise of both improving public health protection and of meeting the 'co-equal' goals of water supply reliability and ecosystem protection (in the Delta)," she said last August in a news release on the Senate confirmation of her board appointment, by Gov. Jerry Brown. "The state board will either make or be a critical player in those decisions."

California Natural Resources Secretary John Laird tells why he's optimistic that the state will reach resolution on critical water decisions in the near future. A former Santa Cruz mayor and state assemblyman, Laird has long championed environmental protections and water conservation. As resources secretary, Laird is charged with completing the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, which aims to restore wildlife habitat in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta while improving the reliability of water supplies exported from the estuary. The plan includes a controversial new diversion tunnel system on the Sacramento River.

Peter Moyle, one of the foremost experts on California’s freshwater fish, talks about the future of the species. Moyle is a UC Davis professor of fish biology and an associate director of the university's Center for Watershed Sciences. He authored "Inland Fishes of California," the definitive reference on the subject. His research has strongly influenced state and federal management of endangered fish.

Tim Quinn, executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies, discusses California's challenges in managing water reliability and Delta ecosystem health "coequally," as mandated by the state Delta Reform Act of 2009. Quinn leads the largest water organization of its kind in the nation. The association's 450 public water agency members are responsible for about 90 percent of the water delivered in California.