California Climate Leadership?

On Feb 10, several members from the California State Senate introduced a package of legislative proposals that will strengthen California's leadership in powering a new clean-energy economy. The proposals include historic benchmarks for pollution reduction, energy efficiency, and petroleum use that will spur innovation and investment and maintain California's lead in creating jobs in the advanced energy sector. This will be the first series of bills introduced by Senate Democrats to combat climate change and preserve the environment.

Details of the proposals along with bill language, charts, articles, and statements from a broad coalition of supporters are online at the State Senate page.

Our Governor Jerry Brown wishes to attend COP 21, as the state's big utility providers are all aware. Brown hopes climate policy advances in California and other states can be used to pressure heads of state during international climate talks in Paris in December. Per the Sacramento Bee, “We call this policy the road to Paris, because the governor wants a seat at the table in Paris,” said Rob Lapsley, president of the California Business Roundtable. “We want to be supportive – we told them that – but we’ve got to have a policy that provides balance.”

The Bee goes on to note: One month after Gov. Jerry Brown proposed dramatically expanding California’s greenhouse gas reduction laws, California Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León announced legislation on Feb. 10 to enact the proposal. In a move to blunt opposition from business interests and moderate Democrats, de León cast the package of environmental measures as a jobs program. The legislative package includes measures to cut petroleum use in half by 2030 and to expand, from one-third to one-half, the proportion of electricity California derives from renewable sources such as wind and solar.

Yet the Governor got called out on his environmental grandstanding by a protest march this Feb 7, which calls for a ban on the increased fracking that is taking place in the state and poisoning groundwater supplies during a historic drought.

Across the country, Governor Jerry Brown benefits from the widely-held notion that he is a leader on climate issues, a legacy from his ecologically-framed "Governor Moonbeam" first two terms of 1974 - 1982. But over the last four years, Governor Brown has not delivered on his promise to put our water and health first in order to carry California into a new clean-energy economy. Instead, he’s chosen to expand extreme oil and gas extraction, which harms our communities and undermines his own greenhouse gas reduction goals for California. In March of last year, a protest march was held in Sacramento to urge the Governor to end fracking, and this issue has created tremendous public opposition activity to oppose the expansion of this destructive technology.

So, his new moniker has become "Big Oil Brown" to note the shift, and he is also favoring legislation that will drain water from the San Francisco Bay area with gigantic twin tunnels to direct water to the central valley agriculture community. For which the voters in Southern California are being asked to disproportionately to pay the bill. It's tragic that his legacy now consists of unsound environmental practices that directly counter his political posturing for the global climate movement, and critically undermines his credibility with the climate leadership in the US and throughout Europe.

Update 6/15/2015: Governor Brown isn't following through with the prudent approaches he has publicly outlined to California's climate and water issues.

California on Eaarth

The map above outlines the basic water supply issue in California. It's a massive system of hydraulic engineering developed since over 100 years ago to bring water into the drier areas of the state. While it supplements groundwater supplies and rainwater, it's a system that has been aging in an increasingly dry climate. There's much higher cost for this processed water, vs. the groundwater via wells; this is the expensive State Water Project (California Aqueduct via the Bay Delta) and Colorado River Aqueduct, which import water over huge distances. Los Angeles also has its own aqueduct from the Owens River.

Increasing water needs rely upon rebuilding and renovating the levees in the Bay Delta in order to prop up the heart of this aging water system in the state of California, which is vulnerable to drought and earthquakes. This year the State Water Project has limited allocations to nearly zero as the drought impacts water supplies.

Farming operations get the majority of the water. California agriculture uses about 80% of our water but provides only 5% of economic output. Humans drink less than one gallon of water per day, but livestock consumes up to 23 times that amount of water a day per animal, according to a North Dakota State University study. That’s a huge amount of water to keep millions of animals alive.The ongoing drought and shifts in federal policy are only making water more expensive. The ag farming practices of flooding vast tracts of rice fields and almond trees for export have also become unsustainable, according to the California Progress Report, basing it on subsidized water to the detriment of California's environmental and economic future. This has created a political and environmental issue around the Bay Delta.

So, finally after a couple of political cycles, the legislature has produced a new version of a water bond to address some of these issues, after subtracting lots of Steinberg pork at Jerry Brown's behest. The new version of the water bond approved by the legislature for November ballot excludes previously proposed water tunnels in the Delta. Because of these complexities, and the massive groundwater depletion resulting from these earlier practices, Sacramento is also developing regulation of underground water for the first time, so that wealthy corporations can't drain a common aquifer that supplies many different cities and farms. The wild, wild west has finally been tamed.

Many cities are now looking beyond groundwater, surface water and imported water, and are developing reclamation systems for existing water. This is a relatively new and very expensive approach to making up for the lack of snowpack and rain in this new climate. It's also affecting the building and development industry, since new subdivisions can't go in due to lack of water supplies, which are already vastly oversubscribed. The Los Angeles DWP and the region is looking at water recycling projects:

"The Upper San Gabriel Valley Municipal Water District, which supplies wholesale water to 1 million residents, is planning a recycled water project to recharge the basin with 10,000 acre feet a year of recycled water. An acre foot is equal to the water used by two families in Southern California per year.The $50 million to $75 million project would move treated water from the Sanitation District’s San Jose Creek Water Reclamation Plant in Whittier eight miles north to existing recharging areas that feed the porous San Gabriel River. It would reduce dependency on imported water by 25 percent, said Shane Chapman, USGVMWD general manager."

This follows a global trend for desalinization and water recycling, and it's changing the water business and the resource management practices necessary to conserve the dwindling water supplies. As a result, cities all up and down the coast are planning to install desalinization plants.Santa Barbara is planning to revive a plant that was previously decommissioned after the last drought ended. The Carlsbad desalinization plant is under construction just north of San Diego. Sand City in the Monterey Peninsula has built a desalinization plant. Huntington Beach is developing a desalinization plant as well, and Orange County has been recycling water since the 1970's.

Because of this current drought, which is a 100-year event that could last for several decades, California is now facing the biggest challenge the state has had since before it was founded in 1850. Critical cooperation between the water agencies and big users will have to take place. Climate change has come home to roost.

Update 9/08/14: Delta Stewardship Council Seminar -  Expanding desalination capacity along the California coast raises a variety of environmental, social, and economic questions, many of which are not fully answered.

Update 9/25/14: The Associated Press reported the area’s regional water supplier, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, could be without reserves by early 2016

Update 12/14/14: from KQED Science:  How California’s Water Rights Make It Tough to Manage Drought

Update 1/12/15: The California Drought: Who Gets the Water and Who's Hung Out to Dry? Photoessay from EarthJustice

Update 1/19/15: Chronicling the drought, LA Times

Update 4/24/15:  Drying Up: The Race to Save California From Drought, Newsweek

Update 7/20/16: California Water Fix - Paying for the Delta Tunnels. At Capitol Weekly's Water 2016 Conference, a panel discusses the fiscal impacts of the California Water Fix

Update 7/30/16:  Recently, the Sacramento Bee invited Jeffrey Kightlinger, General Manager of the Metropolitan Water District, to talk about the California Water Fix

Update 8/1/16:  Public review for new tunnel diversion points ahead in 2017

Update 2/11/19:  The Bay Delta and Statewide Planning Processes Resource Library.

Update 4/29/19:  Governor Newsom directs agencies to prepare a water resilience portfolio

Dead Ahead

US rainstorm maps dating back to 1948 show how the changing weather patterns anticipate a very dry southwestern USA in the foreseeable future. This climate change is heading straight for California and its major water and energy infrastructures. A summary of a report by the California Energy Commission and Natural Resources Agency that combines the work of dozens of research teams and will lay the foundation for a climate change adaptation strategy for the state is due out by the end of this year. The slide presentation of this study is here at Mercury News.

What's great about this study is that it examines many aspects of climate change impact, from energy and water to how high-elevation hydropower is particularly vulnerable to climate change and reduced snowpack. It also warns of deteriorating ecosystems and higher fire danger, more risk to our natural resources. Water is indeed the most critical resource for human civilization, as prehistoric habitation collapse has shown us.

This public policy document will seriously impact the statewide planning processes in the state going forward, particularly the critical Bay Delta Plan, which is still undergoing major disputes, mainly with the issue of draw down of water from the Delta for Southern California water supplies.The two water tunnels that would accomplish this are part of Governor Brown's controversial input into the Conservation plan. The chair of the Delta Stewardship Council, Phil Isenberg, has some cogent points laid out in his analysis of this proposal. The Stewardship Council was created by the legislature in 2009 to provide a balanced oversight of water plans for the California delta.

Another group, Restore the Delta, has a focus on preservation of the natural processes in the Delta. This is a group of local activists that got together in 2006 to give voice to this issue, and have proven very influential in state public policy. This is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of water policy and management, which is vastly complex in a state that developed at top speed over the last century. There are 3 main water sources coming into the Southern California region serving different geographic urban areas:

Los Angeles Aqueduct - constructed in 1908-1913

Colorado Aqueduct - constructed around 1940

California Aqueduct- constructed in the 1970s

There's also a mare's nest of agricultural water rights all throughout the central valley and Southern California, designed and built around the wettest years (1905 - 1924) on record in the region. So this system can't deliver the anticipated water quotas from historic periods, let alone the water needed to preserve the natural systems and supply the current urban areas of Southern California.

This is the resource and climate challenge that the human global impact has for all of us. Dead ahead.

Water Buffaloes

California has miles upon miles of aqueduct carrying open water across scorched deserts, particularly the Colorado River Aqueduct. The evapotranspiration of this water is fairly significant in this situation, despite denials from the Metropolitan Water District. Their claim that Federal permission is required to do something like this only applies to portions of the aqueduct system. What better way to reduce the loss of water in the vast aqueduct system, as well as produce additional power for the extremely high cost of pumping water uphill in places to get it into the Weymouth Plant in La Verne?

Provide solar panel covers along the stretches of aqueduct in the desert adjacent to the pumping stations, just as they have been built in India. These panels over a half a mile stretch of the Narmada Canal in the Indian state of Gujarat, now generate 1 MW of power distributed through nearby villages. If a third world country can do it, why can't California's Water Agency do it? Considering the critical water issues this state is dealing with, you'd think water conservation and power supply would be a top priority. The history of water in this state is complex and comprised of some of the biggest water engineering feats in history. The State is headed for even more complex engineering and supply issues with the plan proposed by Governor Jerry Brown, which contains provisions for a new Peripheral Canal that has been objected to by many residents, farmers, fisheries and environmentalists. It's a legacy from his father, former Governor Pat Brown. But the objections raised in earlier decades to this idea are being reinforced even more for this current plan, given the fact of local climate change as permanent drought.

The position of Restore the Delta is this: "The delta is in a biological meltdown. Taking more water won't restore an ecosystem that's already hemorrhaging from lack of flows," Jennings said. "This plan is not a path to restoration; it's a death sentence for one of the world's greatest estuaries." The price tag for this plan is also a huge concern for taxpayers. Estimates run as high as $50 billion for the total costs of the plan and the greatest share of all these additional costs will be borne by all California taxpayers, who will be saddled with increased borrowing and 30 to 40 years of interest repayments.

Typical of water politics in this state, the simple and ecologically balanced solutions get shoved out in favor of massive plumbing projects. Keeps the big boys employed and the rates on the rise.

Update 3/28/21: Why Covering Canals With Solar Panels Is a Power Move

Update 7/8/21: Huge Supply of Water is Saved From Evaporation When Solar Panels Are Built Over Canals

 Update 7/18/21:  Scientists in California just ran the numbers on what would happen if their state slapped solar panels on 4,000 miles of its canals.

Update 11/20/23:  A 2021 study from UC Merced estimated that covering California’s 4,000 miles of canals could save 63 billion gallons of water annually.

Update 11/21/23: California hopes to start construction this year on a similar pilot project.

Update 11/22/23: An Arizona tribe is about to break ground on a project to cover canals with solar panels.

Update 11/29/23: Water Saving Solar Panels On Canals In California - Project Nexus

Again, Bay Delta

The Bay Delta Water Plan is once again in the forefront of a major statewide debate about how to manage water infrastructure for a state that is already on the brink of its ability to supply water and manage it in a way that preserves the environment. I've covered this issue in several posts, along with concerns that the plan is grounded more in politics and money than science and ecology that would regenerate the natural processes that the entire state relies upon.

As a new water agency, the Delta Stewardship Council, formed by the 2009 California Water Legislation, is tasked with developing a Delta Plan.  As stated in their website, "The Delta Stewardship Council is charged with protecting the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and the critical role it serves in the water supply for millions of Californians and its unique ecosystem and way of life." A draft Delta Plan is online here, and can be reviewed and commented on by the public. There's already a major backlash from the Restore the Delta folks, who are angry that a conveyance canal is built into this plan, as well as insufficient development of the critical levee system in the Delta. Another issue, the critical costs and actual ratepayer bill for this plan, is being challenged via AB 2421. Food & Water Watch, Southern California Watershed Alliance, and Green LA Coalition challenged the Metropolitan Water District (MWD) for its opposition to an independent cost-benefit analysis of the proposed multibillion-dollar Peripheral Canal or Tunnel project which is incorporated as part of this plan.

The water agencies and the farming community are in favor of the plan as presented, since the proposed canal is considered the only way to provide adequate water for the planned future development in the southern part of the state, as well as to the agriculture in the central valley.

Cal Watchdog has a more critical view of what may be considered absent issues in the report, including the documentation of kinds of water available and where these water supplies should be transported to. Unfortunately the plan still relies upon the "plumbing model" of water management. It basically follows the money, not science or ecology. Alternate strategies such as using the storage capacity of existing underground water basins are also suggested by the same author in another article, published this January. It's a political history of the Bay Delta situation.

The big question here is, can more growth be accommodated? It's the historic engine of California's prosperity that right how has taken a massive hit due to the Wall Street boondoggle of leveraging debt. So the political climate right now may preclude a more enlightened set of strategies around the water supply issues. California will very likely end up being a very dry state with extremely high water and power rates due to a lack of vision in water management, and absent conservation based upon ecological principles. This could prove to be the demise of the state's capability to provide a fundamentally sound ecosystem supported by the natural systems which were formerly so abundant.

It's Water Day

Tomorrow is a day set aside as a campaign for water conservation first proposed at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro. It was subsequently declared as a global event by the UN General Assembly in 1993. The active site for tomorrow's push will be in Cape Town, South Africa. It's joined to the social justice movements globally for lobbying around the issues of industrialization and population growth, in the context of climate change and the impact of natural disasters on a growing human population that is overtaking global resources.

Locally, it hasn't amounted to much. Last year, World Water Day Los Angeles pulled together an event for the public, but it didn't create much participation, and it's absent this year undoubtedly due to budget issues, among other things. As a global public policy movement established by the UN, there hasn't been much traction in the United States due to its focus on perceived third world problems. It's the same issue as the perennial "starving kids in Africa" that our parents used to get us to clean our plates at dinner. Even the kids rolled their eyes at that one. A discussion of actual relevant "peak water" issues as they apply in this country is here.

It's more effective and more politic to focus on local water infrastructure, environmental management and urban solutions to the encroachment of development into riparian areas in the very dry environment of California. Of course, there's the Bay Delta issue and the ongoing water supply debates, but there's also California legislation that's been passed, mandating reduction in water use statewide beginning in 2012. This is in response to the rising pressures of water shortages from climate change as the population grows.

This will have a huge impact on available regional water supplies, the costs of water, and how communities manage their supplies. Going beyond that, there's the issues of the water contracts and the lack of cooperation around the public policy goals of affordable and responsible management of water contracts. The big water conglomerates are promoting "private water" as a solution, but that's been a clear failure both in policy and in water pricing. The example of Cal Am's takeover of Felton's water supply in the Bay Area, and the subsequent issues it has raised for water supply self-management, is a good case. The citizens used eminent domain through their city to take back their water supply. Lessons from the citizen takeover raise many important points in resolving costs and management of water at the local level. These water takeovers raise issues about the government's role in water service, which has diminished tremendously over the years. Corporate encroachment for profit has reduced the sphere of basic public services drastically, this is known as "disaster capitalism".

It would behoove the state to immediately move into a unified water policy that deals with this massively complex system of infrastructure, public policy and water contract management in a way that moves the system beyond the old ag water structure and into a new era of management that includes watershed and estuary restoration to preserve and enhance the natural hydrological cycle before the whole state breaks down under competing stresses. A compilation of essays covering these issues and their possible solutions is available from Alternet.

The Crux of It

The video above, from the Coalition for a Sustainable Delta, runs at 8.5 minutes or so. Sit back and relax. It summarizes the Bay Delta issues I've been covering for over a year now, in these posts.

Now for the politics: NORTHERN CALIFORNIA REJECTS LONG-TERM WATER TRANSFER AGREEMENT 2/25/11

Just days away from a program scoping process comment deadline, northern California water irrigation districts stand firm behind their February 2nd letter, which states they will not agree to sell their water to Central Valley water contractors.

The proposed U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s 10-year “Long-Term North to South Water Transfers” program, would ship up to thousands of acre-feet of water from northern California to the San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority; which represents agricultural water districts in the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California. The realization of this program is contingent on the willingness of northern California sellers and that willingness has yet to be seen.

A week few weeks ago, Glenn-Colusa Irrigation District, Maxwell Irrigation District, Natomas Central Mutual Water Company, Pelger Mutual Water Company, Princeton-Codora-Glenn Irrigation District, Provident Irrigation District, Reclamation District No. 108 and River Garden Farms, all rallied to formally submit a letter withdrawing their participation in the long-term water transfer program. In the letter, the districts voiced concern for the long term protection of the right to their water supplies. The letter further explain, “[the Bureau of Reclamation’s] position threatens landowners within our service areas of not having enough water to irrigate crops, puts at risk endangered species and water fowl that rely upon the continued irrigation of their lands, and could ruin the regional economy.”

With this in mind, it begs the question: In these cash strapped times, is it necessary to spend state, federal and local money on pursuing the development of the water transfer program when a vital component is not willing to participate?

From Public Policy Institute of California:
The pdf section "path to reform" on this website is an excellent outline of proposed statewide policy that asks for integrative balance of resources and environmental restoration in watersheds.

So we are at a critical point in the dialogue between the state government, private interests, cities and counties, and the residents of this State over its most important resource, water. Hopefully things will break along the lines of conservation dialogue, not the "pumping out the Delta to its limits" dialogue, that's the old MWD and Army Corps of Engineers "rape pillage and burn" approach. The regenerative and life cycle positions are critical for the preservation of this resource for future generations. In other words, a sustainable approach.

The impact of short-sighted policies and infrastructure are being debated right now because of the 9.0 earthquake and resulting tsunami in Japan. The intelligent view of the world and allocation of resources and effort are a result of learning the limits of resources and the human intervention into natural cycles. That's the lesson of systems. You can't push into natural systems without consequences, our human impact is that large now. That means not building in flood plains and fire-prone areas, for example. Pull back. Conserve energy, money and resources for societal benefit as well as the conservation and restoration of the natural world that provides life for all of us.

The Final Conclusion?

An excellent summary article about the issues surrounding water use and supply in California basically comes down to the understanding that there's currently not enough water to supply farmers, cities and environmental preservation needs in this state as of right now. Written by Matt Jenkins, a High Country News contributing editor based in the Bay Area who has been covering Western water politics for nearly a decade, it's a concise description of the battle that has been playing out into the current crisis.

This way of viewing the necessity of water use in a sustainable fashion is clearly illustrated in the EarthTrends analysis of the problem which uses mapping to show how the actual need for water to remain in the natural environment constrains the amount of water that can be demanded by agriculture and urban areas. A global overview of the bleak picture of excessive water demands is shown, and identifies the key water-stress indicators in watersheds across the globe. We're clearly consuming water far beyond the ecosystem's ability to replenish it, and at the same time the demands keep increasing in the areas with the highest stress, including California and the western United States.

It's critical for the State to take a position on science-based investigation and base its ultimate water policy on realistic water consumption in the face of climate change. Which means, as the High Country article lays out, a reduction in demand because the ecological systems are experiencing failure. Once they go, there's nothing left. So actually the decision is easy, demand will be reduced because to do otherwise will mean extinction of food resources and an implosion of industry. Bay Delta collapse (which is very close) would be the end of California regardless of the politics involved. The question is simply how to reduce demand and recycle water so that the ecosystem survives.

The State needs to face this problem directly and unfortunately with rather draconian strategies, since the overreach has gone so far."Limits to Growth" is a reality now.

The Science of It

The recent Bay Delta draft plan proposal has been roundly criticized by the environmental organizations and the fishing industry as a disastrous violation of the key agreement in State policy that water users should cut their dependence on the Bay-Delta and secure alternative water supply sources. The chart above, from NRDC sources, shows the increasing water withdrawals over the years that is creating the crisis in the water situation for California.

The NRDC took the position a year ago that the "urban water story" that this plan is based upon was not accurately portrayed in a 60 minutes episode in 2009, it's about the ecological collapse brought about by overdrawing water from the Bay Delta for agricultural uses. The construction industry collapse has been responsible for unemployment in the San Joaquin valley, not agricultural losses from drought.

A recent open letter from the fishing industry recommends that this draft plan, advocated by Schwartzenegger, be abolished so that the ecosystems and fisheries can recover from the drastic overdrafting of the water in the Bay Delta ecosystem, threatening collapse of levees and intrusion of salinated water. Its first of seven recommendations is as follows:

Issue an executive order mandating all state agencies to comply immediately with the provisions of the federal biological opinions protecting Central Valley salmon, Delta smelt and other species. To comply with these decisions, the state and federal governments must reduce water exports, better manage water releases from dams, remove dams and provide fish passage for fish above dams.

The conservation groups are appealing to the incoming Brown administration to improve this plan with a rigorous scientific basis for the Bay Delta plan, not a political one driven by agricultural interests and water agencies seeking to increase income at the expense of these natural systems that provide the basis of most of California's wealth of resources. As of today, that element will begin to play out.

Update: On the Governor's new official website up today, Issue No. 7 is "Water for the 21st Century":

Ensuring safe and sufficient water supplies for the 21st century requires significant investments in our water infrastructure and natural ecosystems. After five decades of divisive wrangling, the time has arrived for the governor to provide real leadership and solve our longstanding water problems. The goal must be to maintain and enhance water supplies for all Californians and take action to restore the Bay-Delta and meet California's true water needs.

Sounds like he's on board.

Bay Delta Decision

The USGS California Water Science Center has been working in the Delta for decades. Their work includes water monitoring, experimental wetlands and fish tagging. This data is the basis for the evaluation of the ecological health of the Bay Delta. The 2008 Bay Delta environmental study was ruled last Tuesday to be based upon faulty science and called for a rewrite of the US Fish and Wildlife plan for the Bay Delta.

This decision by Judge Wanger in the complex case of resolving the water management issues in California's critical water supply has reset the terms of discussion and future agreements of managing this resource, based upon information from all parties and the benchmarking by the USGS. The Fish and Wildlife Service has always emphasized the Delta Smelt issue as being key to measuring the Delta's health and functioning, and this ruling upends that argument. The responses cheering this decision are primarily from Southern California entities which filed the lawsuit and that are demanding more water from the Delta, including the MWD and its associated Water Contractors. The decision opens up the opportunity to send more water to Southern California and to agriculture, which drives the requirement for the Peripheral Canal construction to move more water out of the Bay Delta.

This Peripheral Canal would be funded by a water bond that was postponed from the midterm elections to the next statewide ballot in 2012. The proposed implementation of the Peripheral Canal has been covered very comprehensively by the Los Angeles Times. Today's edition covers a compromise "tunnel" option to the canal and existing pumping systems that's also on the table.

Aquafornia has a review and discussion of how the Bay Delta functions as the hub of water storage and and delivery, but also points out the deterioration that has taken place in the levees and water flow management. It also reviews the earlier decision by Judge Wanger in 2007. In March 2007, a state court ruled that DWR was in violation of the California Endangered Species Act by repeatedly failing to protect the smelt and endangered salmon over the last two decades. The judge threatened to shut down the pumps in 60 days, but the decision was appealed. In May, Judge Oliver Wanger, a federal court judge, threw out the federal permit, ordering all parties back to the court in August 2007. This decision had the effect of cutting water exports from the Bay Delta, but only in a temporary fashion. Now the Federal Secretary of the Interior has weighed in with support on the "tunnel option" as a solution to the impasse on dealing with this situation.

This battle for water as a diminishing resource in the State of California will only become more critical going forward, so it's imperative to develop a major plan for managing this key water resource in a responsible way. Its degradation shows just how treating it all as a plumbing problem to supply the highest water bidders is shortsighted and eventually disastrous.

The Water Barons

Serious water issues are impacting California in the near future, particularly considering the Bay Delta fisheries collapse and the environmental degradation it has experienced from being overdrafted. The picture of ground water withdrawals above is from the Ground Water Atlas, online at the USGS website. The site is full of maps and charts illustrating the situation with our water use in this state. Most of the groundwater usage is in the central valley for agriculture, and also in Los Angeles County. In Southern California, this groundwater is not sufficient for our population or industrial/agriculture needs, so we rely on the State Water Project, the Colorado River Aqueduct, and the Los Angeles pipeline from Mono Lake.

Aside from the politics of multiple water districts and their subcontracts, formal supply requirements and allocation of water useage, there's the important issue of the agricultural water. It is being consumed by corporate farms for very inappropriate kinds of produce for the environmental conditions and fed by very inefficient water systems and meters. An illustration of this is a story from Alternet, which covers the story of Roll International, owned by the Resnicks, which controls most of the claimed water in Kern County. The Resnicks became billionaires growing almond and pistachio trees with their takeover of a public water bank. They developed this tree farm on the Westside of the Central Valley, which is marginal land that should never have been used for irrigated farming, particularly water-intensive crops like the trees.

However, the currently dying trees made for good copy for water demands based upon the lingering drought of June 2009 in the valley, creating the impression that increased water supply was critical to propping up this water-intensive crop.

This is an example of the very difficult situations that must be resolved with new Bay Delta policies that need to implement environmental restoration, system upgrades and repairs with a balance of appropriate allocations for use in California. We're at our limit of water consumption, with the aquifers being currently overdrafted and a dwindling supply of water from imported water due to climate change. The BDCP study shifts the emphasis to appropriate use and conservation rather than continuing to consume water in our current pattern. Reform of agricultural water use is thus a high priority. As the article points out,

The Delta is the hub of California’s water engineering system and the current focal point of the state’s infamous water wars. Environmentalists and Delta communities want to reduce water exports. Irrigators in the San Joaquin and their strange bedfellows in the powerful Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which draws water pumped through the Delta, want to increase water exports. There is one thing all sides agree on: The Delta is a disaster waiting to explode.

Bay Delta - the Details

Following up yesterday's post on the controversy surrounding the BDCP study, the Los Angeles Times published an excellent article, photos and map of the proposed peripheral canal. Click on the map produced by the LA Times to go to the complete story.

The Shrinking Delta Pie

The Bay Delta water issues are coming to a head this week, with the release of a preliminary study of the Bay Delta water allocation now scheduled for final form at the end of the year, just before new Governor Jerry Brown takes office.

The preliminary BDCP is posted on the state website for the Department of Natural Resources. The proposal has been in development for five years and is finally being completed in draft form. Unfortunately, it is considered seriously flawed by a coalition of Northern California cities and agencies because of the inclusion of a peripheral canal which removes more water from the Bay Delta ecosystem. The consensus is that this ecosystem is already over-allocated, and there is disagreement about how this proposed canal (a holdover from the original state water plan that was never built) would affect the estuary. The Northern California groups contend that it's a Southern California water grab.

It's an issue that's been controversial for years, with protests from some of the stakeholders. The plan generally focuses on old engineering and dam technologies to pipe water around, as opposed to using natural systems to relieve the demands on the ecosystem. The Bay Institute, a member of the BDCP steering committee, publicly criticized the plan. The environmental organizations are at loggerheads over this draft, principally with the Westlands Water District .

According to the PCL Insider,

This week Westlands Water District (Westlands) issued a press release withdrawing its participation from the Bay Delta Conservation Plan process. Jean P. Sagouspe, the President of Westlands’ Board wrote to the Department of Interior, "As a public agency, Westlands cannot continue to spend millions of our ratepayers' dollars on a project that is likely to deliver no more and potentially less water to the public than they are receiving today.”

There is overwhelming scientific consensus that diversions from the Delta must be reduced in order for its ecosystem to be revived. Although Westlands does not like the broad scientific consensus, they are beginning to realize that diversions will be reduced, not increased.

Westlands’ withdrawal does create the possibility that the other parties to the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, including the yet-to-be appointed Brown appointees, will be able to develop a reasonable approach that will provide what everyone really needs, not just what some want.

It will be a special challenge for the new Governor to resolve these issues, given the support of the BDCP peripheral canal solution by Schwarzenegger, Feinstein, and the Metropolitan Water District. Once again, it will come down to big agency politics, water profits and a possible intervention by mother nature - her diminishing ability to provide sustenance to natural systems and the demands of human habitation. In the face of global warming, studies have shown that there are clear impacts that must be accounted for, as required by another state agency concerned with future statewide resources.

Left hand and right hand need to work in concert, and not confuse public policy.

Update Nov 29th: SEC Should Investigate Westlands: The (Salmon Water Now) letter asks, how could the largest irrigation district in the United States with declining revenues, highly leveraged debt, an uncertain water supply, and few actual water rights, borrow $50 million in a bond market still reeling from the credit collapse of 2008? Add to this Wall Street mystery, the fact that the borrowing was to quietly finance the early phase and highly uncertain phase of California’s most controversial public works project--- the “Peripheral Canal” -- a massive project previously defeated by the state’s voters in 1982.

Water

Today is Blog Action day, and the topic is water. It's the UN topic for a global effort directed at providing clean water to people all over the globe, largely in impoverished countries. But it's also about preventing pollution, cleaning up waterways and restoring them so that they perform their natural functions in ecosystems that have been degraded by urban development. That greatest store of our water on the planet, the oceans, have become the dumping ground of toxins that will disintegrate the chain of life if this activity proceeds unchecked.

I've written extensively on this blog about the state of water supply in California, particularly as it extends to the plumbing approach taken by the State Water Projects and the primitive engineering of the Bay Delta, as well as emerging watershed management and regenerative land planning approaches that preserve natural systems. Here's the list of my posts involving water and its vital importance to life and all of its processes. Just about every sustainable land use and building practice involves completing the circle of the water cycle.

I can only hope that we can learn to live within our environmental means before we go the way of the Anasazi.

Dry Pipes

An article from the New York Times yesterday has highlighted the problem of water supply that exists along the lower Colorado water system that ultimately supplies water to California via the Colorado River Aqueduct. The entire watershed system that supplies the water is undergoing severe drought stress, and the population around Las Vegas has grown exponentially since the 1950's. This is building into a long-range scenario due to climate change, and strategies for conserving water are inadequate in the face of this plumbing design that was created for a different climate, and assumed that certain high-consumption lifestyles were to remain the norm. Las Vegas is quite close to the dry pipe scenario right now, which will escalate tensions about water supplies and rights in this region. An article in The Smithsonian describes how that urban region is trying to deal with the shortage created by development and climate change.

An excellent National Geographic article published in April of this year examined the statewide scope of the water supply problem in California. It traces the history of water supply evolution from the Bay Delta provision for the farming areas of the San Joaquin valley to the State Water Projects that sent imported water over miles of pipeline to rapidly-growing urban areas. This water system, now nearly obsolete, has fostered the illusion of plentiful water in basically a desert environment. Since this system has clearly hit its limits, other strategies must come into play. As the article states:

Therein lies a crucial part of the solution, water experts say, one much simpler and closer to home than a massive plumbing patch: learning to live within the water resources of an arid landscape. Fully 70 percent of residential water in southern California is used outside the home for lawns, pools, and other niceties. Reducing that demand by using drought-resistant plants and recycling wastewater offers the fastest and cheapest potential water savings in the state.

I would add to that the design of "net zero" structures (energy and water) and landscaping that not only conserves water but produces it without consuming huge amounts of energy is key to the solution. This involves employing the natural cycles in place, and the use of site-based design to create self-sustaining environments with the buildings and facilities acting as "partners" in the process, rather than economic behemoths that try to overwhelm nature and stifle its processes in order to create "investments". Restoration of natural systems and terrain in an intelligent approach to this problem would provide sustainable urban and suburban habitation as well as mitigate the impact of human system on local ecologies.

The method of accounting for these costs and balances, as I've detailed before, is a methodology known as Natural Capitalism.

Best Laid Plans

The ongoing evolution of water planning in this state is beginning to make itself known in the shifting political structures that are responsible for resolving water distribution and planning issues. A new agency is taking shape that will take up the reins from the old order of the CALFED group, and put greater emphasis on the environmental concerns of water and fisheries in the Bay Delta region. This is the plan (CASP) that needs to go forward as a consensus, and is being dealt with as a separate problem solution from the immediate need to coordinate conservation of water in farming practices, as I blogged about previously.

The new Delta Independent Science Board (ISB) comprised of 10 nationally and internationally prominent scientists will hold its first meeting Sept. 30-Oct. 1. During the initial public meeting, the Delta ISB charge will be given and the Delta ISB Chair and Vice-Chair will be elected. Additionally, there will be a Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) Panel discussion and an update from the National Research Council Committee on Sustainable Water and Environmental Management in the California Bay-Delta.

The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Reform Act of 2009 (Delta Reform Act) established the Delta ISB, whose members were to be appointed by the Delta Stewardship Council, which was also created by the Delta Reform Act as an independent agency of the State of California. The Delta ISB replaced the previous CALFED Independent Science Board.

The Delta Stewardship Council clarifies its role, arising from its establishment as an independent state agency by this Act. Its duty is to develop and adopt a Bay Delta Conservation Plan (CASP) by January 1. 2012. It is meeting on Sept. 23 and 24 to outline the directives being given to the ISB regarding the Bay Delta water quality and fisheries elements of the Bay Delta, which now includes a charge to identify the impact of recent information from NOAA on the policies for this region.

The complex political and environmental issues are being addressed in this manner so as to account for all the impacts of water planning decisions in a statewide, synergistic way. Some policies currently in place directly contradict effective water management solutions, such as are pointed out by Wayne Lusvardi in his review of the book, Running Out of Water:

SB375 requires regional planning agencies to put into place sustainable growth plans. It will require that new housing development be shifted from the urban fringe, where groundwater resources are more abundant, such as San Bernardino County, to highly dense urban areas near public transit and light rail lines, such as Los Angeles and Pasadena, where local water sources are patchy and often polluted. The environmental intent of SB375 is to reduce auto commuter trips, air pollution and gasoline consumption.

However, the legislation will unintentionally result in more reliance on imported water supplies from the Sacramento Delta, Mono Lake and the Colorado River for thirsty cities along California's coastline instead of diverting development to inland areas that have more sustainable groundwater resources.

The fundamental issue here is that the cost, and the power required to move all this water to populated areas, is the major cause of unsustainable development. The existing water projects are already at their limit, and are being impacted by climate change that reduces the snowpack and rainfall. Groundwater resources are important, but these sources are also at their limit with some of the aquifers under populated areas already being overdrawn, such as the Raymond Basin. Therefore these solutions will have to be crafted in a way that don't rely on moving massive amounts of water across the state. This basically speaks for recycling wastewater into landscape irrigation (the biggest usage - up to 80% - in residential areas), since this wastewater is already produced by heavily populated areas. Toilet to tap, as they say, but all water has to be processed because of the pollutants and organic waste (fish poop!) that occurs naturally in lakes and streams. Which is why you can't safely drink water from a river without a filter mechanism.

Climate Change Impacts Water Supply

From the Planning and Conservation League, a notice of a new report on anticipated future water supplies and solutions.

A new report by the consulting firm Tetra Tech reveals the impact climate change will have on water supply reliability in the United States and clearly demonstrates that urgent action is needed to move California toward more sustainable water supplies. You'll note in the chart from their report above (click to enlarge) that the water issues in Southern California are in extreme risk to water sustainability conditions under climate change.

As part of its analysis, Tetra Tech used an index to assess risks to water supply reliability on a county-by-county basis. Fully one-third of all counties in the lower 48 states will face high risks of water shortage by 2050, and nearly half of those will face extremely high risks of water shortage. Water use in some of these high-risk areas like the Great Plains and the Southwest is already unsustainable. As climate change affects temperature and precipitation levels, the number of counties facing high water shortage risks will increase, and areas like the Great Plains and the Southwest may not have any available precipitation at all.

Higher temperatures mean less water for two principal reasons. First, a changing climate means shifts in precipitation, including a change in how much, where, and when rain falls. In California, we are likely to see more rain and less snow, for example. Second, warmer temperatures cause an increase in evaporation both from ground surfaces like lakes and reservoirs and through vegetation.

In the report Tetra Tech took into account an increase in water demand over the coming decades, estimating that total water demand in the United States may grow as much as 12.3% by 2050. Their analysis shows that climate change will have a significant effect on future water supplies, particularly in places like California that already contends with shortages. The Tetra Tech report can be downloaded here.

The PCL has produced a paper on solutions to the water issues that address these problems in a new way, particularly with respect to the damage that a peripheral canal solution would have on the entire Bay Delta region. Their solution consists of a much smaller tunnel instead of a canal, and a series of projects that restore the hydraulic functioning of the Bay Delta and preserve the fish populations that have collapsed recently. That report can be downloaded here.

There has been a long discussion by many parties across the state regarding the problem solutions to the Bay Delta. The whole dialogue seems to finally be coming around to the necessity of restoring the natural processes and conserving water wherever possible, and implementing reclaimed water strategies in order to replenish local aquifers and rivers. The next order of business is to manage growth and change its form to accommodate the realities of the future that's rapidly descending upon us. Which means changing the whole "growth" mantra into a sustainable economic model as well.

How It Gets Here

The massive water infrastructure that draws water from the Sierras and the Bay Delta to supply southern California is a marvel of engineered water channels, tunnels pumping stations and treatment plants. This is the MWD water system, supplying Southern California with its imported water supply to supplement the wells that draw down our aquifers.

I was on a Metropolitan Water District field trip in 2001 out to Lake Havasu and Parker Dam and back. It started out along the Colorado River Aqueduct from the Weymouth Filtration Plant to Diamond Valley Lake and the Copper Basin Dam and Reservoir. Next it was on to to the Hinds Pumping Plant (shown in photo - click to enlarge) and the old Gene basin reservoir to understand how the system uses power and complex control facilities to pump those tons of water supplies up over the hills and down into Los Angeles.

I took a second MWD field trip in 2003 from Sacramento along the California Aqueduct up through the Bay Delta area around Oroville Dam and reviewed MWD materials regarding the water issues in habitat restoration and the restoration of the San Joaquin River flows. The ecosystem restoration in the Bay Delta was considered successful by the MWD at that point, despite not yet having addressed the levee and salinity issues, and the Peripheral Canal was then off the table. There was quite a bit of greenwashing by MWD to the point that growing rice (intensive water use) was justified by saying it was bird food.

One of the best water resource books that I've used is "Water and Land Use" by Karen Johnson and Jeff Loux. It explains the basics behind the numbingly complex legislation and water rights in our Byzantine water supply structure. It's still difficult to grasp the fiscal and political realities behind the watersupply plumbing system that I've had the opportunity to observe. The book shows in clear diagrammatic form the process involved by the water purveyors to prove that they have the resources to provide for the amount of development contained in City General Plans. Water use and Land use are thus intertied in the General Plan documents. This is analyzed in the Governor's Office of Planning and Research, which is responsible for overseeing the CEQA process.

We're now in a permanent period of severe water shortage, not the least of which is due to a built water supply in Southern California for 3 or 4 million people, and now it's pushing 20 million population. This situation is creating a new water market that involves a water transfer system, which is supposed to balance out water supplies. This will be very expensive, similar to the power shortages California experienced in 2001, where the system was gamed for money. The Department of Water Resources oversees the water contracts and the projection of water needs throughout the state, and will be where the action is in the next few years as water allocations face reality in this permanent climate change.

Meantime, the MWD site posts a rather ridiculous call to "conserve" water and consume 20% less while Sacramento is handing out CEQA waivers for huge developments that will massively increase urban water demand. At the behest of these same regional agencies that got the legislature to pass SB 375 and a recent new batch of "allowances".

Supply and demand, I suppose? Follow the money.

Related articles: Water and Sheila Kuehl, Legal Water, Water is Always Politics, Water Redoux, Bay Delta Crisis, Water-Paper-Scissors

Water and Sheila Kuehl

Since the water situation in California is heading for political meltdown, Sheila Kuehl has established a consulting business to sort out the Bond issues coming up for a vote this November. Her post in the California Progress Report is part of an initial volley to the voters about the good, bad and ugly in this legislation. Her full set of essays and discussion about the California water situation are on her website.

The bottom line appears to be that there are some huge giveaways of public money to private farming interests, along with draconian urban water reduction requirements (meanwhile SCAG is ramping up a huge buildout mandate through its RHNA numbers). These bills don't seem to help the situation, and are not focused on sustainable strategies, but rather the same old tired plumbing solutions. With the Draft Water Plan in process for final input, it seems that these bills are an attempt to railroad the situation before a comprehensive strategy is put into place as public policy that is then funded with various income streams.

Hence my vote of no confidence on these water bills in November.

Water is Always Politics

The Draft California Water Plan is now up on the State's website for public review. It's interesting that its focus is on climate change as official policy, and all the arguments for integrated water management are based upon this premise. This document is in preparation for the Final Water Plan Update 2009 in Febuary 2010.

This addresses a comprehensive view of all of the water issues, especially the critical Bay Delta component. The competing interests are, as usual, the water and farming interests as well as the urban and suburban demands, particularly in the southern part of the state. An indication of the powerful politics around this issue is a critique by Jane Wagner-Tyack (Restore the Delta) of 60 Minutes' program on the issue which had a chance to take on agribusiness and water, but instead left many issues unaddressed.

Whether California's water system ends up with an old-style plumbing upgrade focused on a peripheral canal revival or a new approach grounded in ecologically effective systems remains on the political table.

Background:

Land and Water in California in the Twentieth Century. This is an excellent presentation on the big historic overview presented by a UCLA professor to the Public Officials for Water and Environmental Reform Conference in 2002.

California Ecology and natural water distribution (cites Kharl). MWD's growth beyond its historic original charter is here (download pdf document for a fascinating read).

Note that the 1979 California Water Atlas was produced by William Kahrl, as a premier government resource for the water infrastructure industry in California.