The Obama Administration released an action plan for long-term drought resilience that will impact the way state and local water agencies interact with the federal government on drought prevention and response efforts.

The “Federal Action Plan of the National Drought Resilience Partnership” outlines the funding programs that federal agencies can make available to local water planners and providers, and assigns responsibilities to specific agencies for certain goals.

The Plan “outlines the ways in which the member departments and agencies of the National Drought Resilience Partnership can use existing resources to take additional steps to work with state, regional, tribal, and local partners to respond to drought and lay the foundation for long-term resilience within existing authorities.”

In describing the ongoing drought emergency, the White House specifically mentioned California’s sparse mountain snowpack in its introduction. The National Drought Monitor reports that about 90 percent of California is still facing moderate to exceptional drought conditions.

The Plan includes:

• A call for coordinating data from all sources (from moisture probes in cropland to stream flows in parks to satellite imagery from space) that would support responses to drought.
• Analysis of localized health effects of drought and the development of predictive models. It would develop a drought-resource guide for local health departments to identify at-risk populations and suggest how to decrease risks of drought-related diseases and ailments.
• Assessment of long-term drought impacts on critical infrastructure, and the government would prepare sector-specific guides for technical assistance.

California is an area of special concern in the planning process. “The study will examine the broad implications of a prolonged drought in California, based on a hydrological drought scenario of a five-year extension of drought conditions,” the White House said.

The Plan then calls for connecting existing watershed-level planning programs to the National Integrated Drought Information System. The Department of Agriculture would work with states to remedy drinking supplies that have been compromised by drought.

Importantly for rural agencies and communities, USDA would make drought-impact planning a condition for funding for new water and waste infrastructure projects.

The Plan also calls for extending work pioneered in California to other water basins in the country. It said that the Department of Interior’s WaterSMART and the USDA’s Environmental Quality Incentives Program, which are funding grants in California, would be deployed in those other areas.

Further, the plan calls for streamlined procedures for granting deviations from Army Corps of Engineers Water Control Plans, adding that these deviations create opportunities to mitigate drought impacts.

The National Drought Response Plan also echoes the California state groundwater management goals in encouraging investment in projects that have multiple benefits, such as an erosion control project that would also channel much-needed water into a local stream for water supply or aquatic life.

As for local oversight, the White House said the federal government would develop a national communication plan for recommending best practices at the municipal level. It would also take information from recent grants it has funded and disseminate a series of technical-assistance documents that would increase water recycling efforts.

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