How is the Water Board’s CalWATRS database working out, and is it an improvement on eWRIMS? In summary, it’s changed, and so far the changes take more of our time to enter and review information. The Initial Statement to enter new water rights is working poorly.
The part of CalWATRS that works well is that there are a few really good folks that work with it, like Jeffrey Parks (Jeff.Parks@waterboards.ca.gov) and Carmen (Carmen.Artrip@waterboards.ca.gov). They and a few others are the most positive aspect of CalWATRS, I think. Jeff and Carmen always get back to me quickly, sometimes the same day. Of course, they want you to initiate all new contacts with CalWATRS-Help@waterboards.ca.gov and not bug people directly.
There was no pilot program with real water right holders before October 1, 2025. It would work much better if it had been tried out with 10 water right holders, including several who are not expert with the use of computers and have just one water right. That is a basic rule for any technology implementation – make it work for a few people first. The Water Board did not do that. Well, there is a possibility that some folks got to preview it, but none of what was learned was applied.
Instead, we ALL got to suffer through it, try things, complain when it failed, and sometimes just wait some days or weeks until it was fixed. So many things were working poorly that I waited until December to start filing annual reports. Our rallying cry is “CalWATRS will work in 2027!” We can only hope.
My experience filing several hundred annual reports for Water Year 2025 is that it takes about 1-1/2 to 2 times as long to file as it did in eWRIMS. The wait between pages is longer for some of the pages, and there are more pages.
When the form is ready to submit, there is a page to review your entered information. However, the page is mostly blank. Don’t worry – I have gone back and reviewed page by page the information, and all the information was usually there.
Once your information is submitted, a PDF can be immediately downloaded, the same as with the old eWRIMS system. The PDFs seem to have all of the entered information. They are harder to read than the eWRIMS forms, and it takes longer to review the information. Next year…hopefully….
The Initial Statement submittal process is mostly not working:
- There are no text boxes. There is not even a Supplementary Text Box at the end, somewhere before the signature, in which a user can enter text such as “Please refer to attached map “Real Map Of All Features Of This Water Right.pdf” to see the true map of this water right, including all Places Of Use, Points Of Diversion, Ditches, Measurement Devices, Etc.”.
- No existing maps can be uploaded and be visible in the Initial Statement. Maps can only be in attached files. When submitting paper Initial Statements before CalWATRS’s debut, maps were part of the submittal and were always visible when downloading the Initial Statement. Existing maps can include many types of relevant information that didn’t fit into the paper forms…and a lot less information is allowed to be entered into CalWATRS compared to the paper forms.
- No KMLs of polygons can be entered for the Place Of Use. Digitizing simple Places Of Use works okay, but complex polygons can take significant time.
- Only one Point Of Diversion can be entered. Many water rights have more than one POD, so the Initial Statement is inaccurate as soon as it is entered.
- Only one water source can be entered. For complex parcels or ranches with multiple water sources, this makes it impossible to list all the actual water sources.
- Points Of Diversion cannot be edited.
- Places Of Use cannot be edited.
- Most of the basemap layers are not working. For example, the public ownership parcels layer is not working. I wanted to enter a large Place Of Use polygon using ownership parcels, but there was no information to do that. Instead of fighting CalWATRS and alternating between Google Earth and CalWATRS for an hour or more, I finally digitized the boundaries of PLSS Sections that contain the Place Of Use.
- Uploaded maps have to be downloaded to be viewed. CalWATRS should allow uploading at least one, preferably many existing maps that are viewable within the CalWATRS Initial Statement itself. The modern Internet can easily handle image files including JPEG, TIF, PNG, BMP, GIF, and so on, as well as Adobe Acrobat PDFs.
- No Measurement Device can be entered.
- The CalWATRS Initial Statement entry system as it now exists does not allow water right holders, agents, consulting engineers, or others enter all the required information. Therefore, many people inputting an Initial Statement will have to lie to sign the document. One of my Initial Statements allowed only one of 22 Points Of Diversion to be entered at all, and the Place Of Use is only the boundaries of PLSS Sections that encompass the Place Of Use. I had to sign the document to enter it into the system. Without even one text box to enter comments, I could not make the document a true representation of the water right. No PDF of the entered information can be downloaded as a draft of what was entered into the Initial Statement. All that can be given to water right holders to prove an Initial Statement was entered is a cryptic email that does not have the Water Right ID. This forces a water right holder or agent to log in and go through all the pages just to see what was entered.
