The above image includes a collage of photographs from the water-related issues covered on the Home Page water blog of this website and the Community Spotlight section of the site.

As 2021 ends, and we look toward a new year that will undoubtedly bring challenges—but also hope—this blog post seeks to reflect on the year from the standpoint of water and community stories covered.

It goes without saying that 2021 was a difficult year as COVID-19 continued its grasp on all aspects of life. Even in the face of the pandemic, the work of providing water as an essential service continued for every agency with the responsibility of making sure their constituents have the water they need to sustain their communities, farms and businesses. This past year highlighted the challenges statewide and throughout the Colorado River Basin associated with providing that water service in the face of a

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Pictured is the Managed Marsh, a key environmental mitigation project in the Imperial Valley funded by the the Quantification Settlement Agreement Joint Powers Authority. Phase three of the project, the final stage of construction, will soon be complete. This image is from the San Diego County Water Authority’s archives.

Nine thousand trees.

That’s how many (primarily) willows are being planted in the final construction phase of the Managed Marsh, a nearly 1,000-acre marsh habitat off Highway 111 between the city of Calipatria and the community of Niland in northern Imperial County. Funded by the Quantification Settlement Agreement Joint Powers Authority (QSA JPA), the habitat, located close to the Salton Sea, is a key environmental mitigation project to serve the needs of wildlife that depend on area surface drains in the Imperial Valley. With the planting of the 9,000 trees now underway, the Managed Marsh will be completed by

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A file photo of the Salton Sea taken from a hilltop overlooking the sea at the Sonny Bono National Wildlife Refuge.

The story of the Salton Sea is complex, often dominated by the understandable concerns that restoration has been slow to move forward, and that exposed playa represents a threat to surrounding communities. While such concerns should not be minimized, there are also the positives worth telling when it comes to the sea. One of those positive aspects of the sea’s story came recently with the announcement that the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation would be awarding $1 million for a restoration project in Desert Shores—a community on the southern shore of the state’s largest inland lake.

The $1 million is a renewed sign of federal commitment to the Salton Sea, and one more indication that that both the state and federal governments are recognizing the importance of the sea to

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