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In December 2017, the Department of Water Resources (DWR) funded the Olivehurst Education Outreach Program through a Proposition 1 IRWM Disadvantaged Community Involvement (DACI) grant. 

This project supported extensive outreach to the various elementary schools within Olivehurst – via principals and teachers, beginning in June 2018 through September 2019. The focus of the outreach was 4th grade classes, as this is the grade when the water cycle is first presented to students. The Olivehurst schools which participated in the program were Ella Elementary and Arboga Elementary – via their 4th grade teachers and classes. The program was focused on assisting children to understand the water cycle.

During the 2018/19 timeframe, the initial program was designed and the planning for the 2019/2020 school year was conducted. As the DWR funding did not include implementation of the full first school year for the 4th grade education component, Yuba Water Agency stepped up to fund the first full year (2019/20) of the 4th grade program to support their strategic plan goals. Due to Covid the program, and YWA support, continued into the 2020/21 school year.

The original scope of work for Year 1 Pilot Project sought to provide deep learning experiences while complementing existing core curriculum for two school sites (impacting 80+ students) a nd is more fully described in the XXXXX section (click here). With the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, all schools across the county were closed and the program had to adapt and redesign using virtual technology. Some of the activities in the original scope of work had not yet been fully designed and were replaced (following monthly consultation with area teachers) with three Distance-Learning activities. As a result of these joint DWR/YWA efforts and notwithstanding the impacts of Covid, the product of this work effort has been an integrated exportable hands-on learning curriculum that meet multiple educational standards for the 4th grade, importantly including STEM standards and consistency with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) . The program components included: Experiment Boxes Literature Bundles Read Alouds Salmon Run

The Integrated Regional Water Management (IRWM) Disadvantaged Community Involvement Program seeks to identify water and wastewater needs across California and to develop strategies and solutions to address those needs. The California Department of Water Resource’s Proposition 1 IRWM funding program designated $3.7 million of Disadvantaged Community Involvement funding for this purpose to the Sacramento River Funding Area (SRFA). The SRFA is comprised of six IRWM regions: Upper Sacramento-McCloud, Upper Pit River Watershed, North Sacramento Valley, Yuba County, Westside, and American River Basin (see SRFA Map below).

The SRFA DACI Program has the following objectives:

1. Coordinate disadvantaged community and Tribal outreach across the SRFA
2. Identify the full array of water and wastewater needs of disadvantaged people and Tribes in this area
3. Provide technical support and training to help disadvantaged communities address critical water and wastewater needs
4. Support project development and access to funding sources to meet these identified needs

Are you a water or wastewater system operator, owner or board member within the SRFA with any of these issues?

• Aging and failing infrastructure
• Costs of service that rates don’t cover
• No capital improvement planning (CIP)
• Overwhelmed and aging staff or board members
• Difficulty in finding and keeping trained staff
• Out-of-date policies and procedures
• Billing problems
• Unprepared for an emergency (Emergency Response Planning)
• Problems with State Compliance reporting
• Unsure of where to look for help