• Achieve sustainable surface and ground water supply.

• Provide multiple benefits from management of water resources, diversions and infrastructure.

• Reduce impacts from catastrophic fire.

• Protect infrastructure, equipment, and property from flooding.

• Protect and improve watershed resources through land use practices.

• Manage sediment for water resources, infrastructure and habitat value. 

• Reduce mercury contamination in waterways.

• Reduce contamination of surface and ground water resources.

• Protect and improve fisheries and aquatic biota through water resources management.

 1. Improve storage capacity.

2. Implement measures to manage and reduce erosion and sedimentation.

 3. Meet and/or attain Regional Water Quality Control Board (RWQCB) standards.

 4. Work collaboratively to restore state designated impaired water bodies (303(d)).

 5. Support forest management practices that benefit water resources.

 6. Protect, restore, and enhance beneficial sediment transport processes.

 7. Manage recreation to minimize impacts to watershed resources.

 8.  Reduce levels of methylated mercury

 9. Implement measures to manage and reduce contamination of waterways.

10. Protect and restore riparian, wetland and seasonally flooded habitats.

11. Manage water infrastructure to optimize in-stream temperatures.

12. Investigate effects of drought and climate change and need for water management strategies.

13. Reduce degradation and optimize benefits resulting from inter-basin transfers of water.

14. Optimize efficient use, conservation and recycling of water resources.

 
15. Identify and promote strategies for hydroelectric facilities to provide multiple benefits.

16. Maintain and promote recreational and environmental values associated with water infrastructure.

17. Evaluate and modify water infrastructure to improve efficiency.

18. Minimize impervious surface cover and improve infiltration.

19. Promote community and regional storm water management plans.

20. Increase knowledge of groundwater system and establish groundwater management practices.

21. Protect and restore connectivity of floodplains, stream channels and groundwater.

22. Evaluate and minimize negative flood impacts on water infrastructure and water quality.

23. Manage rivers, tributaries and infrastructure to provide flow regimes that benefit ecosystem function.

24. Conserve and restore native species and diverse habitats.

25. Promote comprehensive land use planning.

26.  Sustain agricultural viability through effective water management

Monitoring

• Monitor key indicators of watershed health (stream flows, soil cover, vegetative cover, fuel loading, aquatic      biota, water quality).
• Assess sources of bacterial pollution.
• Conduct research and modeling to describe and understand watershed dynamics and promote integrated and sustainable water management practices.
• Monitor temperature and water quality impacts of flow releases on native fisheries.
• Increase capacity and coordination of agencies, watershed groups, and Resource Conservation Districts (RCDs), to collect, analyze, and report water resources data.
• Inventory and monitor threatened and endangered species and habitats.

Mercury and other Contamination

• Support efforts to restore and remediate legacy mine sites.
• Develop and implement strategies to remove and stabilize mercury and other legacy contaminants, and reduce mercury methylation.

Resource Mapping

• Inventory sources of sediment.
• Monitor and remove noxious and invasive species.
• Create region-wide GIS database to house and coordinate CABY-wide water quality and resource data.
• Inventory watershed resources and conditions, point and non-point sources of pollution.
• Implement education and community outreach regarding sustainable water use.

Land Use Coordination

• Provide assistance to counties to modify ordinances and zoning to benefit watershed resources.
• Purchase land or easements to protect water or riparian resources. 
• Manage OHV activities to reduce sediment inputs.  
• Promote land use practices (recreation, forestry, development, roads) which protect water resources.
• Promote collaboration between local governments, land use, and water supply agencies to inventory and determine water supply needs.     

Water Conveyance

• Determine opportunities to use natural channels for water conveyance.
• Develop opportunities for water transfers for multiple benefits.
• Protect watershed resources by developing guidelines that regulate water transfers.
• Assess inter-basin water transfers and their impacts on water quality and aquatic habitat.
• Evaluate and balance the relationship between open conveyance systems, watershed impacts and water supply.
• Develop alternatives that minimize inter-basin transfer of water.

Climate Change

• Assess ability of ecosystems to adjust to climate change and develop a CABY-wide adaptive management plan.
• Develop or update current drought management plans to incorporate climate change scenarios.

Groundwater Management

• Develop management practices to address the impacts of groundwater withdrawals on water supplies and river hydrology.
• Investigate potential pathways for groundwater contamination.
• Identify relationship between surface and groundwater resources, including the hyporheic zones.
• Support efforts to understand fractured rock systems and groundwater movement and quantities.
  
• Establish groundwater banking and conjunctive use opportunities.

Stream flow

• Explore reservoir management for reservoir and downstream water temperature improvements.
• Acquire water rights from willing sellers for environmental benefits such as in-stream flow and water quality.
• Develop and implement strategies for river and infrastructure management that provide environmental and recreational benefits, especially in critically dry years.

Water Conservation and Recycling

• Establish new and expand existing water recycling and conservation programs.
• Promote water quality and efficiency BMPs for agriculture, forestry, ranchettes, municipal, urban, private and industrial water uses.
• Examine water supply infrastructure for inefficiencies and vulnerabilities.

• Assess and develop new storage opportunities to meet long-term water needs.
• Develop a regional drought plan.
• Perform water availability and demand analysis.

Recreation

• Incorporate recreation and community participation in existing and proposed hydroelectric and/or water supply projects.
• Develop appropriate BMP's for recreational use in the rivers and floodplains.
• Support efforts to facilitate and improve communications and scheduling of flow releases for recreation.

Agriculture

• Assess and address the impacts of irrigation practices on water supply.
• Support efforts to facilitate the agricultural waiver program.

 Flood Management

• Provide local and region wide early warning systems for flood events.
• Protect hydroelectric, water, and wastewater treatment facilities from flooding.
• Coordinate with adjacent IRWM and other regional efforts.
• Create development guidelines that reduce the negative impacts of flooding.
• Support the ability of waste water treatment plants to accommodate flood events.

Water Quality

• Promote a standardized regional water quality assessment, monitoring, and reporting program that includes groundwater.
• Develop guidelines to reduce sediment in waterways.
• Develop guidelines to reduce contaminant inputs to waterways.
• Reduce non-point source impacts to watershed health.
• Reduce water treatment costs by implementing land and water management strategies to avoid water contamination.
• Evaluate and address the impacts of septic systems on water reuse and groundwater recharge.
• Collaborate with state to identify sources and remedies for 303(d) listed water bodies.

Environmental Restoration and Preservation

• Develop and implement riverine and watershed restoration projects, and evaluate completed projects.
• Identify landscapes of high ecological and/or agricultural value to be preserved.
• Implement restoration strategies for areas that have experienced catastrophic fire.
• Design and implement actions that promote ecologically sound fire and fuels management and reduce the risk of catastrophic fires.
• Design and implement strategies that benefit native fish and aquatic biota populations (flow augmentation, gravel augmentation, passage, and floodplain connectivity).
• Increase the participation of hydroelectric utilities in watershed planning.

Wetland Enhancement and Creation

• Explore wetland mitigation and restoration opportunities.
• Protect, enhance, and where appropriate restore key corridors for plants, insects, and wildlife.
• Identify, restore, and protect wetland habitat (including riparian buffers, meadows, springs, etc).