[Water_news] 1. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS - Top Items for 5/21/07

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation for DWR personnel of significant news articles and comment

 

May 21, 2007

 

1.  Top Item --

 

 

Watershed moment in reservoir campaign

Coinciding warnings driving push for dams

San Diego Union Tribune – 5/20/07

By Michael Gardner, COPLEY NEWS SERVICE

 

SACRAMENTO – Seizing on a unique convergence of warnings that California's water supply will continue to shrink, supporters of new reservoirs are confident they can overcome historical resistance to dams and perhaps secure a new delivery system through the ecologically fragile Sacramento Delta.

 

Influential business, agricultural and city officials, energized by support from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, are mapping plans to independently launch a ballot initiative next year if the Democrat-controlled Legislature continues to block a $5.95 billion bond package.

 

“It's now or disaster,” said Randy Fiorini, president of the Association of California Water Agencies, representing urban and farm suppliers.

 

Why? This year's dry spell all along the Sierra Nevada is gripping much of California. The Colorado River system, a primary source for California and the West, has had only one normal water year since 1999. Climate changes brought on by global warming could disrupt weather patterns, leaving the state vulnerable to punishing drought with few places to bank early snowmelt. To protect endangered fish, a judge has threatened to shut down state pumps that move water out of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

 

“It's created a perfect storm,” said state Sen. Dave Cogdill, a Modesto Republican carrying the governor's bond package in the Legislature.

Yet this sense of urgency may pass with the next big round of storms. One year of dry weather does not make a drought. >From San Diego to Redding, California is far more prepared than it was during the last prolonged statewide dry period, which ended 15 years ago. State reservoirs are at normal levels. The Colorado River, despite its woes, has enough water stashed away to provide full deliveries for the next few years.

 

And influential environmental and fishing interests still resist reservoirs.

 

“It's a simple matter of choice,” a coalition of more than 15 major environmental and fisheries groups wrote in urging Schwarzenegger to abandon his push for reservoirs.

 

In the letter, the Planning and Conservation League, California Trout and the Natural Resources Defense Council, among others, said: “We can choose to wisely invest millions in efficient water-use technologies and programs that we know will reduce demand. Or, we can choose to invest billions in costly and environmentally destructive dams.”

 

There is no disputing that Mother Nature held back this winter and spring.

 

“This was a dry year. It hurt,” said Art Hinojosa, the state's chief hydrologist. “It's way too early to say it's the beginning of an official drought.”

Just in case, Southern California water agencies are encouraging conservation.

 

“It's going to be a long, hot, dry summer. Every bucket saved today is a bucket saved for tomorrow,” said Jeffrey Kightlinger, general manager of the giant Metropolitan Water District.

 

Metropolitan will launch its campaign over the Memorial Day weekend.

 

“If you take a 10-minute shower, take a nine-minute shower. That's 10 percent right there,” Kightlinger said.

The San Diego County Water Authority plans a similar push.

 

Metropolitan and the county authority have held down deliveries despite phenomenal growth, moving aggressively to conserve and secure supplies, vowing never to relive the nightmarish 1987-92 statewide drought caused by a stingy Sierra Nevada snowpack. (The Colorado, suffering a drought today, is a separate supply network.)

 

The San Diego County Water Authority deliveries were close to 1991 levels: 553,710 acre-feet. At the same time, storage has increased nearly 25 percent.

“It's not a catastrophe right now because we have made plans as a region to conserve more water and to increase reliability,” said John Johnson, a county water authority director from the city of San Diego.

 

Over the last quarter century, Metropolitan has increased its storage tenfold, to more than 3 million acre-feet. At the same time, use has remained steady.

Otherwise, “it would have been instant rationing after one year,” Kightlinger said.

 

That's not to say Metropolitan has been spared. Kightlinger said the agency, which supplies 18 million Californians, including most San Diego County residents, will have to draw as much as 200,000 acre-feet from reserves. An acre-foot is nearly 326,000 gallons, or enough to serve two average households for a year.

The drought on the Colorado is taxing Metropolitan. While the Los Angeles-based wholesaler can still draw its full river allotment of close to 550,000 acre-feet, Metropolitan would have access to as much as 600,000 more acre-feet of surplus if supplies were bountiful out of Lake Mead and Lake Powell. Those giant reservoirs are half-empty.

 

Another dry year could mean tapping more from Diamond Valley Lake and other reservoirs, perhaps as much as 400,000 acre-feet, Kightlinger said.

Nevertheless, urban residents are not likely to be squeezed then. Metropolitan may, however, reduce deliveries to farmers by 30 percent if necessary.

Southern California's struggle to sustain deliveries is being held up as evidence that the fast-growing state needs even more storage for emergencies and flood protection.

 

“We are not at a crisis point right now – not yet. But we are almost there. The signs are there,” Schwarzenegger told water agencies at an annual meeting May 9.

The leading reservoir candidates are at Sites, northwest of Sacramento, and along the San Joaquin River outside Fresno at Temperance Flat.

Glen Peterson, a Metropolitan board member, said building projects in the north is only logical.

 

“Why do they rob banks? Because that's where the money is,” he said. “It's the same thing with dams. There are more resources in Northern California.”

Momentum for a bond measure has been slowed by prominent Democrats who want the state to concentrate on restoring the Sacramento Delta, 1,100 miles of waterways through which two-thirds of the state's water flows. Also, Democrats see groundwater and conservation as priorities. The governor's proposal includes money for both of those efforts.

 

“Everything we do ought to be done through the prism of fixing the delta, said Sen. Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento.

 

Years of diverting fresh water out of the delta have taken a toll on the environment. The network of levees, highways, energy pipelines and railroad tracks is in danger from floods or earthquakes.

 

At the same time, it is becoming increasingly difficult for the state to guarantee water will move south. Ongoing litigation over declining smelt and salmon numbers threatens to shut down, or slow, the massive state pumps that push supplies out of the delta.

 

There is talk of allocating state money to local projects in the south that would provide more storage as an alternative to one of the two proposed northern reservoirs. Storage built farther south could give the state more flexibility to operate the pumps differently when fish are in peril.

 

The San Diego County Water Authority's $552 million plan to add 117 feet to the 220-foot San Vicente Dam could benefit if that kind of deal emerges.

Widespread concern about the delta has lead some to argue that it is time to build a new conveyance system, despite the ghost of the Peripheral Canal that has waylaid more recent efforts. Voters rejected the canal plan for the delta in 1982, with many in the north fearing it was a water grab by Southern California.

Business leaders preparing a backup initiative in case legislative talks collapse say early polling suggests the public looks more favorably on a package that would include both storage and conveyance. The same holds true among lawmakers, they say.

 

“The raw politics is there is a reality in the Capitol that if you want conveyance, you aren't going to get there unless you have storage. If you want storage, you're not going to get there unless you have conveyance,” said Rex Hime, a lobbyist representing major commercial developers. “It's going to be one of the largest horse-trading events.”

 

For the ballot, the timing could not be better given the convergence of dry weather, increasing climate-change concerns and the crisis in the delta, initiative supporters say.

 

“Voters are ready to give us a one-time shot at this,” Hime said. “If we don't get it right, it will be another generation.”

 

Yet unanswered is who would pay. The governor's proposal would require water agencies to commit to $2 billion of the package before concrete is poured. The other $3.95 billion in debt would be paid off by taxpayers.

 

The largest district, Metropolitan, is not sold. It wants new plumbing and a restored delta before getting behind reservoirs.

“Unless there's a conveyance fix, it's not clear we can get the benefits of reservoirs in the north,” Kightlinger said.

 

The federal government also cannot commit. “How much money we can bring to the table is a tough question. That will be a real struggle for us,” said Robert Johnson, commissioner of the federal Bureau of Reclamation.

 

It is clear that the political battle over a bond package will persist through the summer. More hazy is whether enough winter storms materialize to influence a public vote next year.

 

Still, California is more prepared after the experience of the 1987-92 drought, when the federal and state governments were slow to impose cuts on cities and farms. If necessary, deliveries probably will be slowed sooner.

 

“It's one of the lessons learned,” said Jeanine Jones, a state water-policy specialist.

On the Colorado, California and six other Western states sharing the river are on the verge of agreeing to a process for mandatory reductions if the drought persists. No cuts have been imposed, despite the grim outlook.

 

Even at half full, the system can provide full deliveries to California farms and cities for some time, said Johnson, the federal commissioner. The depleted river system still holds about 30 million acre-feet. That is nearly three times the 11 million acre-feet that can be stored in federal facilities in Northern California.

“Other than the Missouri,” Johnson said, “there is no other river system in the country that could sustain this.” #

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20070520/news_1n20dams.html