The Jordan College of Agricultural Sciences and Technology will host two water management events that are free to the public on Thursday, March 19.

The International Center for Water Technology (5370 N. Chestnut Ave.) will sponsor its quarterly Water Cluster meeting from 9-11 a.m. Topics covered include the future of irrigation and monitoring oil concentration in oil field-produced water and other sources for reuse.

The meeting features business innovators presenting products and services with the potential to revolutionize the water industry and is attended by industry representatives, government agencies and Fresno State staff and students.

Online registration for the event is at http://bit.ly/FSJordanCollege20150311a.

From 9:30 a.m.-3 p.m. on March 19, the Center for Irrigation Technology will co-host a workshop entitled “Challenges of the 2015 Drought: Water Project Operations.” The event will be held in the Alice Peters Auditorium (Room 191 in the Peters Business building). The California Department of Water Resources and Water Education Foundation are co-sponsors.

The area is coming off a record-dry three-year period that resulted in water allocation cutbacks last year to State Water Project and federal Central Valley Project contractors.

This briefing will educate the public on this year’s water project operations, conditions in the California Delta and actions being taken to balance impacts to cities, farms and the environment.

More workshop information and a registration link is available online. The workshop schedule is:

  • 9:30 a.m. – Registration
  • 10 a.m. – Hydrologic Conditions Overview and Drought Status – Jeanine Jones, deputy drought manager and interstate resources manager, California Department of Water Resources
  • 10:30 a.m. – Institutional Constraints on Central Valley Project/State Water Project Operations – Paul Marshall, chief of the Bay Delta Office, California Department of Water Resources
  • 11:15 a.m. – State Water Project Operations in 2015 – John Leahigh, chief of Water Operations Office, California Department of Water Resources
  • Noon – Lunch
  • 12:45 p.m. – Central Valley Project Operations in 2015 – Paul Fujitani, deputy operations manager, Central Valley Operations Office, Water Operations Division, Bureau of Reclamation; and Rufino Gonzales, South Central California Area Office, Bureau of Reclamation
  • 1:30 p.m. – Activities of the State Water Resources Control Board – Les Grober, assistant deputy for the Division of Water Rights, California State Water Resources Control Board
  • 2 p.m. – Groundwater Conditions in the San Joaquin Valley – Dane Mathis, chief, Groundwater and Regional Planning Section, California Department of Water Resources South Central Regional Office
  • 2:30 p.m. – Drought Impacts: Estimating Land Fallowed in 2014 – Forrest Melton, senior research scientist, NASA Ames
  • 3 p.m. – Adjourn