Innovative Water Management in the Northwest   The shortcomings
in current policies and management include:    • Lack of basic
information: We withdraw billions of gallons of water every day
from rivers, streams and aquifers across the state, yet we are
missing essential information about how much water is withdrawn
and when. Similarly, we don’t know the validity of most claimed
water rights, and some have existed only on paper for over 100
years. In many places, there is no adequate monitoring of
groundwater and aquifer levels, despite the fact that most of
our drinking water comes from underground sources.   • Lack of
essential environmental protections: Roughly two-thirds of the
rivers and streams in Washington lack protections to ensure they
have adequate flows of water. For those rivers and streams that
do have recognized “minimum instream flows,” many of the
protections are outdated and do not include any mechanisms to
get water back into the river.   • Lack of accountability:
States in the Northwest su