[Water_news] 2. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: SUPPLY - 5/14/07

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment 

 

May 14, 2007

 

2. Supply

 

GROUNDWATER:

Creation of a reservoir - Sacramento Bee

 

SIERRA SNOWPACK:

The Warming Sierra: Water woes ahead; The April 1 snowpack is 20 percent less on average than it was in the 1950s and 1960s. Less snow means lower water reserves - Reno Gazette Journal

 

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA WATER SUPPLY:

Drought declared in parts of Ojai Valley; Residents asked to conserve water; controls may follow  - Ventura County Star

 

Editorial: It's a drought; Southern Californians can't pretend that word doesn't apply - Santa Rosa Press Democrat

 

WATER POLICY:

Guest Column: Water storage a big priority; Schwarzenegger's plan is critical - Stockton Record

 

Column: Water train heads for derailment; Worries about flooding nothing compared to supply shortage looming in California’s future - Capitol Press

 

COLORADO RIVER ISSUES:

Colo. River pact updated; S. interior secretary reviewing plan to divide water in dry times - Denver Post

 

DRY SPELL, BEHIND THE SCENES; How west was won, with Nevada water; Nevada turns Colorado River warfare on its ear, by giving thirsty rival states an out - Las Vegas Sun

 

DESALINATION:

Guest Column: Desalination key to addressing drought - North County Times

 

CENTRAL COAST WATER ISSUES:

Guest Column: Coastal Water Project drought-proof, sound - Monterey Herald

 

 

GROUNDWATER:

Creation of a reservoir

Sacramento Bee – 5/13/07

By Tom Philp, staff writer

 

The seeds of a Sacramento Valley water conflict were planted, oh, a few million years ago. Blame it on two volcanoes. One was Mount Yana, the other Mount Maidu. They once towered over the Valley, equals to today's Mount Lassen. But, they were unstable. And volcanic mudflows, lasting perhaps a million years, leveled these massive mountains.

 

When nature was done spreading these volcanoes across the landscape, they had become a hidden labyrinth of nooks and crannies below the Earth's surface. And they became ideal repositories for water. Year after year, as Sierra snowmelt and Valley rains percolated into the ground, the sediments of these two long-dead volcanoes became a living aquifer.

 

The existence of this geologic formation of an underground reservoir -- the Lower Tuscan Formation -- has been known for years. But nobody until recently began methodically looking at just how big its footprint spans beneath the Valley floor, just how much water it holds. That changed when a state geologist, Toccoy Dudley, began snooping around. He discovered what he thought was a potentially huge cache of water many times the size of Shasta Lake.

 

The news made some folks in the Valley very excited. Others became very nervous. The discovery of the Lower Tuscan created a buzz in the water world of California. And political fault lines began to appear. Questions of who might pump the water, who might sell it and who might try to take over the resource began to surface. There are no solid answers. The initial human instinct is to defend one's turf, but from whom?

 

"It is all about fear," said David Guy, the outgoing head of the Northern California Water Association. "Fear of the unknown.

 

You can't see groundwater. It is sacrosanct. There is a whole other level of religion on groundwater that you don't have on surface water. Most people, groundwater is their only source ... the last supply. People rightfully guard it very jealously."

 

Here is what is so screwy about how Californians manage our water. Every last molecule of water in a river is subject to scrupulous management by the state. The state says who can use the water and how much, and the state can take the water rights away if water is being wasted. It's a public resource. If the water happens to be below the ground, however, none of the same rules apply. Groundwater is very much private property. The courts can get involved if property owners sue one another, and a judge is forced to divvy up the supply. And a local government can try to monitor and oversee the groundwater uses, if it dares to try. But the Sacramento Valley is all too typical for California of the primitive understanding and management of groundwater. For a state that is a pioneer on resource issues in so many ways, this isn't one of them.

 

Groundwater management?

 

When it comes to groundwater management, "this is the worst state anywhere west of the hundredth meridian (an unofficial boundary for the Western United States)," said Joseph Sax, a retired professor from the University of California, Berkeley, who is considered the godfather of groundwater law. California's lack of groundwater regulation is only rivaled by that of anything-goes Texas. And as Sax points out in terms of pioneering public policy, "nobody has expectations of Texas."

 

Efforts to bring California groundwater management into the modern world occasionally come and go. Sax tried a few years ago with a proposal before the State Water Resources Control Board, the guardians of the state's surface water. His proposal was met like "some kind of plague," Sax recalls. "There's a strong desire of the water users not to be regulated."

 

There are, however, some ways that California ends up managing groundwater. Lawsuits from landowners worried about over-pumping and drying aquifers can force the courts to divvy up groundwater rights -- a process known as adjudication. Many groundwater basins in Southern California, for example, are adjudicated. In addition, local governments can choose to manage groundwater basins. In the Sacramento area, for example, the Regional Groundwater Authority, a coalition of more than 15 water districts, is trying to coordinate pumping groundwater and pumping surface water from the American and Sacramento rivers. A local government can even go so far as to tell a farmer how much or how little water he can pump from his land. "If," said Sax, "they have the political will to do it."

 

In the Sacramento Valley, that political will showed little sign of surfacing. What looked like a geographically unified valley was, in fact, a rather balkanized water society. To the west, in communities such as Maxwell and Willows, farmers are served by the federal government, which built Shasta Dam and the Central Valley Project. To the east in Chico and Butte County, farmers either pump water from the ground or receive water from the state government, builders of the Oroville Dam on the Feather River. The main road on the east side is Highway 99. The artery to the west is Interstate 5. California State University, Chico, its resident intelligentsia and a growing tradition of environmental activism anchor the politics of the east side. The west side is uniformly rural and Republican.

 

"It is almost like there is a cultural divide," said Guy.

 

Not almost.

 

The divide truly exists.

 

Dudley, the engineering geologist, didn't mean to merge their worlds through a water conflict, but he did. An employee of 31 years for the California Department of Water Resources, Dudley convinced his bosses in Sacramento to let him move north, to Red Bluff, about 10 years ago. He was curious about the region's groundwater behavior. He had heard of the Lower Tuscan.

 

And he began looking for it through new drillings and old records from logs of gas wells. He thought that if he could find volcanic sediments, he would find the Lower Tuscan. He found it under four counties -- Butte, Glenn, Tehama and Colusa. And he began estimating its bounty of water. "If, for some reason, you could extract the Tuscan Formation, there would be about 30 million acre feet of water," he said.

 

How much water is that? It's about seven times the amount of water behind Shasta Dam, when the lake is full. Or 30 times what Folsom reservoir can hold. Or roughly 20 times the annual consumption of Northern California water by all of Southern California. Any way you slice it, it's a lot of water.

 

The Lower Tuscan is the sole source of water supply for the city of Chico and for many Butte County farmers. On the east side of the Valley, the aquifer is just below the surface. On the west side, it is hundreds of feet deep, because many more layers of sand and sediment have filled the western half of the Valley over geologic time. In Butte County, Dudley said, there are about 13,000 wells and most are drilled into the Lower Tuscan. On the west side, few farmers, if any, have tapped this water supply, opting for aquifers closer to the surface. But few knew that the Lower Tuscan existed. Now they do, thanks to Dudley's research.

 

As word spread of Dudley's discovery that the Lower Tuscan was much more expansive and plentiful than previously understood, the news became a hot topic of civic conversation. The Lower Tuscan was a highlight of the 2005 Fall Coffee of the Chico Women's Club. And it caught the attention of activists in Chico, home of the Sacramento Valley Environmental Watershed Caucus. They began connecting the proverbial dots -- whether the dots really exist or not.

 

What dots?

 

Well, Dudley had been looking for the Lower Tuscan as an employee of the California Department of Water Resources; he now works for Butte County. The Department of Water Resources runs the State Water Project, and the State Water Project supplies Southern California with water. And the State Water Project is known to buy extra surface water supplies during droughts from Sacramento Valley farmers who turn around and pump water from the ground. And now the state is looking at the Lower Tuscan and its vast underground water supply. Dot. Dot. Dot.

 

"Several schemes are unfolding to inject our groundwater into the state water supply," activist Jim Brobeck told a 2005 gathering of the Sacramento Valley Environmental Watershed Caucus, as chronicled in the Chico News and Review. "And they're doing so without the science."

 

People on the east side of the Valley began worrying about those on the west side. And those on the west side began to feel horribly misunderstood. An example is John Amaro. When he's not growing rice near Willows, he's selling auto parts at his store in town. When he's not doing that, he is on the Tehama County Board of Supervisors. He has a well 300 feet deep that taps another aquifer, the Tehama Formation. But he sees the entire groundwater basin, and its various aquifers, as part of a sophisticated new way of maximizing water supplies.

 

"A groundwater aquifer is just like a dam up there at Shasta or Oroville," he said. "If you don't release any water out of it, you don't have room for storage." At the moment, there is little room in Sacramento Valley aquifers to store much water, because the aquifers are generally full. To learn how an aquifer can recharge itself with new supplies, "you have to exercise the aquifer," Amaro said. Exercise, as in pump some water out.

 

Why pump?

 

"If you never pulled any out, you'll never be able to bring new water in for the next year, and for the next year," Amaro said. A dam above ground can't capture more water if it is full. The same holds true of a groundwater basin, according to theory. So if storage is created in a groundwater basin by pulling water from it in dry years, the aquifers can theoretically recover in wet years as more water percolates underground. This concept is hardly revolutionary, but an established way of maximizing the use of water supplies. It is what the Sacramento area, through the Regional Water Authority, is trying to accomplish. But cooperation among many local water interests and jurisdictions is needed. And for the Sacramento Valley, it would mean bridging the east-west cultural/political divide into a single, coordinated, sophisticated water strategy.

 

"In California, you just cannot any longer remove yourself from the politics in the water world, nor how the systems are connected," said Thad Bettner, general manager of the Glenn-Colusa Irrigation District and a leader of the Valley's west side. "Groundwater is inextricably connected to every system in between."

 

Of course, there is no state law to force the would-be stewards of the Lower Tuscan aquifer to connect themselves through a political partnership and manage this groundwater basin. This is California. Groundwater is more of a private property right than a public resource. So efforts to jointly manage groundwater, even to jointly monitor it, are acts of the highest diplomacy.

 

Little by little, groundwater management in the Sacramento Valley is heading into the modern world. Under Guy, for example, the Northern California Water Association recently completed an integrated groundwater management strategy that would merge east and west. The Glenn-Colusa Irrigation District on the west side has partnered with the Natural Heritage Institute to study methods of groundwater management. The four counties sitting atop the aquifer have signed a "memorandum of understanding" to continue understanding and cooperating on groundwater-related issues. And the state Department of Water Resources is trying to contribute some science by improving efforts to monitor the aquifers so some basic facts -- where this aquifer gets its water and how the water moves under ground -- are understood.

 

Where is all this leading?

 

Could a politically fractured Valley emerge as a united force that nimbly manages its most important natural resource, whether the water is above or below ground?

 

"I am not going to blow smoke at you," Butte County Supervisor Curt Jossiasen said. "None of us knows what this means yet."

 

The effort could turn to mud, just like Mount Yana and Mount Maidu did a few million years ago. Or maybe, just maybe. The Sacramento Valley is growing up because, quite frankly, it ultimately will have no other choice.

http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/176759.html

 

 

SIERRA SNOWPACK:

The Warming Sierra: Water woes ahead; The April 1 snowpack is 20 percent less on average than it was in the 1950s and 1960s. Less snow means lower water reserves

Reno Gazette Journal – 5/14/07

By Jeff DeLong, staff writer

 

A Sierra snowpack so crucial to the water needs of Northern Nevada and California could be one of the costliest casualties of global warming.

 

Warming temperatures are expected to cause more mountain precipitation to fall as rain instead of snow. Snow levels could rise to higher elevations and springtime runoff could come significantly earlier -- changes experts say could impact water supplies for cities and homes, industry and agriculture.

 

It's already happening.

 

"Generally speaking, the snow is melting earlier now," said Michael Dettinger, a hydrologist with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

 

In parts of the West, Dettinger said, the April 1 snowpack is already 20 percent less on average than it was in the 1950s and 1960s.

 

If humans continue to increase the rate of discharge of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and thus drive up temperatures, the situation could become worse, Dettinger said.

 

"By 2025, we'll probably be looking at dramatic changes in snowpacks in the West," Dettinger said. "By about the middle of the century, we would anticipate about a third of the snow we have counted on would no longer be there."

 

A 2006 study into the impacts of climate change on California's water resources mirrors those concerns.

 

Research suggests that for every 1.8 degree Fahrenheit rise in temperature, the Sierra snowpack would retreat about 500 feet upwards in elevation, said Francis Chung, a principal planner with the California Department of Water Resources. An increase of about 5 degrees would raise the snowpack about 1,500 feet, resulting in an annual loss of 5 million acre-feet of water previously stored in the snowpack.

 

By 2100, California's average temperature is indeed expected to rise those 5 degrees, state climatologist Michael Anderson told lawmakers discussing climate change and water supplies in January.

 

With California depending on the Sierra snowpack for nearly half of its water supplies, legislators and water managers are debating how to respond. Discussions includes the possible billions that might have to be spent to build new reservoirs.

 

"People are sort of scrambling to sort out where they stand," Dettinger said. "There is no single answer for every reservoir and water system."

 

When it comes to warming's impact on water supplies, the Truckee Meadows could be in a more fortunate position than many places.

 

That's because the area is supplied by a series of high-elevation reservoirs, the biggest of which is Lake Tahoe, said Lori Williams, general manager of the Truckee Meadows Water Authority. The authority, jointly operated by Washoe County and the cities of Reno and Sparks, serves more than 89,000 homes and businesses across the greater urban area.

 

Elevation of the reservoirs -- the highest, Tahoe, at 6,223 feet above sea level and the lowest, Boca, at 5,521 feet -- should give the region some breathing room if the climate warms as many predict, Williams said.

 

The situation is of far more concern to water systems depending on low-elevation reservoirs as are common in California, Williams said.

 

"As (precipitation) moves up, some of the lower-elevation reservoirs might not be seeing any precipitation," Williams said. "At Tahoe, more may be falling as rain instead of snow, but it's still making it into the lake."

 

What might have to change, Williams said, is the timing of releases of water from reservoirs into the Truckee River. More water might have to be stored longer than it is now so it can be released later in the summer, when it's needed most, Williams said.

 

The long-anticipated Truckee River Operating Agreement, which would alter management protocol of the Truckee River and give operators far more flexibility in such matters as reservoir releases, would help in that way, she said.

 

In a report prepared for the authority last year, scientists at the Desert Research Institute concluded too little is known about the regional impacts of warming to justify costly alterations in management of the area's water supplies.

 

"It is something that they need to pay attention to, but it is premature to start making any management changes at this point," DRI researcher Mark Stone said.

 

A warmer climate could increase the demand for water, with longer summers increasing the length of the irrigation season.

 

"That is what you would anticipate, that you would potentially see a higher demand," Williams acknowledged.

 

Water awareness

 

But any increase could at least be partially offset by what appears to be a greater awareness of the need to conserve water, Williams said. One potential sign of that is the fact that while Reno and Sparks have continued to grow rapidly in recent years, water consumption has not kept up with that pace, she said.

 

Peak water demand in 2006 was 140.8 million gallons per day, less than any of the previous four years, despite continued growth across the area.

 

"We've certainly seen that trend in recent years -- that we're adding customers but demand isn't increasing," Williams said. "There's evidence of a flattening of demand right now, even in warmer years."

 

The challenge could be greater in Northern Nevada communities without major high-altitude reservoirs, including those that rely on the Carson River.

 

"It always gives you pause for thought, for sure," said Ken Arnold, public works operations manager for Carson City.

 

Girding for the lengthy droughts that regularly hit the region, Nevada's capital is making plans that could also aid it should a warming climate lower river levels earlier in the year, Arnold said.

 

Chief among them is expansion of an aquifer storage and recovery system. That involves capturing excess river runoff during the winter and injecting that water into wells where it can be stored for use later in the summer.

 

"We can actually capture that water instead of losing it," Arnold said. "We bank that water underground."

 

Should warming ultimately result in long-term problems for water supplies in Northern Nevada, local governments might have to cut back on growth or rely on additional importation of water, Williams said.

 

"We have the flexibility and capability to adapt," he said.

 

Despite an existing level of comfort that sufficient water exists even if the climate warms, officials are watching developments closely, she said.

 

"Do we take it seriously? We take it very seriously," Williams said. #

http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070514/NEWS16/705140331/1016/NEWS

 

 

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA WATER SUPPLY:

Drought declared in parts of Ojai Valley; Residents asked to conserve water; controls may follow

Ventura County Star – 5/12/07

By Toni Biasotti, staff writer

 

It's official, at least in one section of the Ojai Valley: We're in a drought year.

 

The Ventura River County Water District, which provides water to 2,200 homes in and around Oak View, passed a resolution this week declaring "drought conditions" and asking customers to conserve water. The groundwater that the district's wells tap into is about half of its normal levels, so the district is asking people to cut their water usage by about 20 percent and to avoid watering their yards between noon and 5 p.m.

 

Just 5.75 inches of rain have fallen since Oct. 1 in Oak View, about one-fourth of the usual total. It's been an extraordinarily dry year everywhere in Southern California; in Ventura, if there's no more rain this season, it will be the third-driest year ever, and the driest since 1948.

 

But most water agencies in the county aren't worrying about their supplies yet. The Calleguas Municipal Water District, which serves Oxnard, Port Hueneme, Camarillo and the entire east county, is in "pretty good shape right now," said its manager of resources, Eric Bergh.

 

"That doesn't mean we're not casting a wary eye to the future," he said. "One dry year does not cause serious concern for us."

 

During the last extended drought, in the late 1980s and early '90s, California's major water districts developed plans to store water so they could ride out a few dry years, Bergh said. Calleguas's water comes mostly from Northern California, via the California Aqueduct, and from the Colorado River. It's been stored in reservoirs that could be tapped if the region has another dry year.

 

The Ventura River County Water District's problems are compounded by the fact that one of its four wells is out of commission.

 

 It failed over the winter due to old age, and the replacement well should be finished next month, said Tom Jamison, a member of the district's board of directors.

 

In the meantime, the district is buying water out of Lake Casitas from the Casitas Municipal Water District and asking people to keep an eye on their taps.

 

"It's a waste to put water out there on your lawn in the middle of the day, because it's just going to evaporate," Jamison said.

 

"We're asking people to voluntarily not do that, because later on if the situation gets worse, we may have to restrict the use of the water." #

http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2007/may/12/drought-declared-in-parts-of-ojai-valley-asked/

 

 

Editorial: It's a drought; Southern Californians can't pretend that word doesn't apply

Santa Rosa Press Democrat – 5/14/07

 

Driving into Los Angeles during April, a visitor from Northern California expects to see explosions of wildflowers along Highway 5 through the Tehachapi Mountains. But this year there was only a scattering of color on hill sides of brown.

ADVERTISEMENT

Without the most unlikely of events, heavy rainfall in May and June, 2007 will be the driest year on record in Southern California, the Los Angeles Times reported on Tuesday.

Since last July 1, less than four inches of rain have fallen in downtown Los Angeles.

Even the blankets of California poppies, which annually attract visitors to the Antelope Valley, failed to make an appearance this year.

In the Southland, there are increased concerns about fire danger -- wildfires this week blackened hundreds of acres in L.A.'s Griffith Park and swept across Catalina Island -- and about predators and snakes which are following their natural prey into urban areas where water can be found.

The prospect isn't quite so grim in Northern California, but, as Staff Writer Guy Kovner reported on Sunday, the combination of a dry winter and new stream-flow regulations make conservation the order of the day in Sonoma County as well.

In this weather year, which extends from July 1 to June 30, Santa Rosa's rainfall is about two-thirds of normal.

This drought will inevitably become part of the speculation about the impacts of global warming (though skeptics will note that the previous year saw heavy rainfall).

Whether climate change or new environmental regulation is blamed, water is re-emerging as a major issue in California.

Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to spend $4 billion to build two new dams, a plan that has attracted opposition from Democrats in the legislature and from environmental groups.

Given rising costs for new construction and the inevitable political controversies associated with hydro-projects, what we know for sure is this: In California and in Sonoma County, too, conservation is the quickest and most cost-effective way to limit the impacts of a water shortage.

While local communities have good stories to tell about a variety of programs to reduce water consumption, more can be achieved through the expanded use of recycled water and with the planting of landscaping that uses less water.

After this week's record heat, expect this conversation to continue in what we hope is not a long, hot summer. #

http://www1.pressdemocrat.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070512/NEWS/705120312/1043/OPINION01

 

 

WATER POLICY:

Guest Column: Water storage a big priority; Schwarzenegger's plan is critical

Stockton Record – 5/12/07

By Rep. Dennis Cardoza, D-Merced

 

The state of California and the San Joaquin Valley constantly are faced with a feast-or-famine situation with water.

 

We either don't have enough water to meet our state's growing needs or we're inundated with floodwaters.

 

The single most important action we can take to protect the public from the devastating impacts of flooding and meet the water-supply needs of our state's growing population is to invest in building new surface water storage facilities.

 

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's plan to invest $4.5 billion to develop additional surface water storage is a big step in the right direction and complements actions we've taken in Congress to identify possible reservoir locations.

 

Several promising sites have been identified in the Central Valley and Sierra Nevada as the most effective way to capture additional water from winter storms and from spring snow- melt runoff.

 

Additional surface storage will ensure that California residents, farms and businesses have enough water during dry periods and will protect lives and property from flood damage.

 

It also will provide clean energy production and greater opportunities to manage our water system for fisheries and water quality.

 

This plan takes action after decades of inaction.

 

For far too long, our farmers and the livelihood of our communities have been threatened by a severe lack of long-term solutions to the water-supply problems that plague the Valley.

 

For example, this year, as a result of the dry winter, Department of Water Resources and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation officials have provided Central Valley farmers with just over half of the water they need to grow their crops.

 

The state's population is expected to grow by as much as 30 percent in the next 20 years, further exacerbating an already serious situation.

 

Furthermore, scientists predict global warming will impact our water supplies, with rising temperatures increasing the likelihood of drought and flooding.

 

The bottom line is we need to be prepared for either too much or for too little water.

 

Investing in surface storage long has been a priority for the San Joaquin Valley congressional delegation.

 

Our delegation is committed to working closely with the governor to move forward now on these water-storage projects. #

http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070512/A_OPINION02/705120324/-1/A_OPINION06

 

 

Column: Water train heads for derailment; Worries about flooding nothing compared to supply shortage looming in California’s future

Capitol Press – 5/11/07

By Bob Krauter, Capital Press California Editor

 

In the wake of hurricane Katrina and the calamity it caused in New Orleans, communities in flood-prone areas across the nation have reacted with concern.

Just a few weeks ago, a 415-member delegation from the greater Sacramento area trekked to Washington, D.C., as part of the Sacramento Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce's annual Cap-to-Cap lobbying trip.

Among the top issues was flood protection as Sacramento sits adjacent to the confluence of two major rivers, the Sacramento and the American.

While concerns about flooding cannot be dismissed for many low-lying communities like Sacramento, and it was important for big and small city lobbyists to meet with key members of Congress, ironically it was a lack of water causing concern back in California.

The growing symptoms of drought have appeared in many parts of the state.

Wildflowers usually abundant in Sierra foothills were few, the result of one of the driest springs on record.

Cattle have been moved off pasture because there is no grass. Beekeepers, hungry for forage, have found no sanctuary in the parched hillsides that supported a variety of wildflowers to sustain their bees in past years.

The signs of trouble are everywhere. The state's fifth and final snow survey May 1 is a harbinger of trouble. The California Department of Water Resources reported that the statewide Sierra snowpack averaged 29 percent of normal, the lowest level since 1988.

Water officials, while not alarmed, have called for added conservation efforts by local and regional water agencies to stretch supplies as far as practical.

State Water Resources Director Lester Snow has stated that California isn't in crisis yet thanks to water supplies behind the state's major dams.

But how much can California continue to capture or store water?

Snow has emphasized, "We know that current and future droughts are going to be deeper than historic droughts."

Many counties and cities have called for conservation.

The ramifications of drought for California are a real and present danger. Even if there are healthy snows and rains, California's thirst continues to increase to unquenchable levels.

The California Department of Finance, in its latest estimate released May 1, calculates that the state had grown by 470,000 in 2006 to 37.7 million residents on Jan 1. That's enough people added in one year to populate a city larger than Sacramento, which is the state's seventh largest city. That means more water for people, urban landscapes and their food, not to mention water needed to satisfy growing environmental needs.

Snow's agency this week appealed an Alameda County Superior Court order that the State Water Project export pumps be shut down to protect Delta smelt and salmon species in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Hopefully the state's appeal will give Snow's staff more time to assess how to protect fish species while providing water to major urban water customers in the Bay Area and San Joaquin Valley farmers.

The conflict illustrates the divide that exists on how to allocate a precious and limited resource. Fish need more water, but so do farmers and urban residents.

While the Delta pumps conflict plays out, California continues to bulge at the seams. We will likely end this decade with 39 million people who will need adequate water to keep affordable food on their tables, their lawns green and swimming pools filled.

Something's got to give. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who championed the cause of global warming as he pushed for landmark caps on greenhouse gas emissions in 2006, has staked a claim this year to solve the state's looming water crisis. He has proposed a $5.9 billion bond plan to augment existing water supplies by building two new off-stream reservoirs near Fresno and in the Sacramento Valley.

His plan has received luke warm support so far in the Democratically-controlled state Legislature. Rather than build dams and reservoirs, State Senate Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, favors conservation and relying on groundwater storage as the solution.

He and other like-minded leaders in Sacramento need to get real.

Conservation, while important, has its limits. Perata is betting on farms and cities scrimping and saving water to survive the next severe drought.

Currently, 2 million customers of the San Francisco Public Utility District are asked to reduce their water usage by 10 percent.

The call for conservation has gone out to others. The East Bay Municipal Utility District has asked its 1.3 million customers to cut their water usage by 15 percent.

It seems outrageous that while communities face the prospect of serious water shortages, their community leaders worry about floods and pressing elected leaders on Capitol Hill to help fortify levees to protect residents from too much water.

Political priorities are askew. Something is seriously wrong.

Yes, flood concerns are important, but unless state and federal representatives honestly examine and act to address the growing water crisis in California, farmers and consumers will be at great peril sooner or later.

Our existing water supply system is inadequate to meet our needs today, and if our elected leaders don't wake up and act soon, we will all be looking back and wondering why something wasn't done to prevent a train wreck when we all saw it coming. #

http://www.capitalpress.info/main.asp?SectionID=84&SubSectionID=777&ArticleID=32226&TM=77873.45

 

 

COLORADO RIVER ISSUES:

Colo. River pact updated; S. interior secretary reviewing plan to divide water in dry times

Denver Post – 5/14/07

By Jeremy Meyer, staff writer

 

A proposal to give Colorado and other upper-basin states that use the Colorado River more flexibility during droughts can be traced back to 2002 when the waters of Lake Powell were dwindling.

 

"Lake Powell in 2002 was literally within a couple of years of going dry," said James Lochhead, an Aspen attorney who represents several Colorado water districts and users.

 

That scenario could have led to disaster for the four upper-basin states that use the river's waters - Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming.

 

Under the Colorado River Compact, lower-basin states - California, Nevada and Arizona - could issue a basin call, shutting off water rights in the upper basin awarded after 1922.

 

That would have meant the Western Slope, Denver, Aurora and Colorado Springs would have seen their use of the basin go dry.

 

Seeing the looming problem, then- Interior Secretary Gale Norton in 2002 told the seven states that rely on the Colorado River to draw up a set of shortage measures to help manage the water during drought.

 

Norton set deadlines for an agreement and said she would impose her own plan if those deadlines were not met.

 

"We've been working on it ever since," Lochhead said.

 

On April 30, the seven states that use the Colorado River signed an agreement.

 

The proposal is being reviewed by Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne.

 

The plan permits upper-basin states to release less water to lower-basin states during a drought and when less-than-average snowpack accumulates on the Rocky Mountains' western slopes.

 

The agreement enables lower-basin states to look elsewhere for water supplies, said Scott Balcomb, Colorado's commissioner to the Upper Colorado River Commission.

 

It also sets a framework in which Lake Mead and Lake Powell would operate in conjunction to ensure the dams have enough storage.

 

"This may be the first time that the seven states in the Colorado River Basin have come together," said Chris Treese of the Colorado River District.

 

The proposal updates the 1922 Colorado River Compact.

 

The compact sets rules for states using the river, which flows from Rocky Mountain National Park through the Grand Canyon and disappears in the Sonoran Desert before reaching the Gulf of California.

 

Under the 85-year-old compact, states are divided into two basins.

 

The lower-basin states and Mexico, under a different treaty, get a guaranteed amount every year - a total of 8.23 million acre-feet. The upper basin divvies up the remainder.

 

The 1922 compact was drawn up assuming 17.5 million acre feet of water were in the river every year. But between 2000 and 2005, the river averaged a total of approximately 9.62 million acre-feet.

 

An acre-foot is almost 326,000 gallons, enough water to supply two families of four for a year, according to water authorities.

 

Lake Powell serves as a type of savings bank for water for the upper basin - catching river water before releasing the required amount to the lower basin.

 

"Lake Powell is our protection against a compact call," Treese said. "When Lake Powell is low, it increases a risk of a compact call."

 

The lake reached its lowest level in April 2005, when it was 33 percent of capacity.

 

Since then, the region has had snowy winters and wet springs but is still in the grips of a drought.

 

In other Colorado basins, the South Platte River is below average this year, and the Arkansas River is above average, Treese said. #

http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_5889766

 

 

DRY SPELL, BEHIND THE SCENES; How west was won, with Nevada water; Nevada turns Colorado River warfare on its ear, by giving thirsty rival states an out

Las Vegas Sun – 5/13/07

By Emily Green, staff writer

 

It was friendly, too friendly. As April came to a close and May breathed a spring furnace over the Mojave, rivals from seven Western states and the Republic of Mexico met in Las Vegas to present a 20-year austerity plan for managing the drought along the Colorado River.

 

In wetter years, the states would have fought over rights to every last drop from every last Colorado River tributary. But as they gathered in the Florentine Room of the Tuscany Suites, all but Mexico had already agreed to the compromise.

 

If proof were needed of climate change, the good behavior from this crew of sworn enemies was it.

 

The Colorado River is in realignment, its supplies are dwindling, and for reasons as freakish and unpredictable as the American West, Southern Nevada is at the center of the shift.

 

Just what happened among the seven states in the Florentine Room that day is a tale of power, cleverly exercised. To understand it is to understand water in the West, and how a gambling metropolis with the smallest allocation of Colorado River water came out not only as peace broker, but the apparent winner in the worst drought of the past 100 years.

 

When taking to the stage to snatch triumph from the teeth of disaster, it helps to know the host. It helps even more to be the host.

 

The Colorado River Commission of Nevada hosted the gathering of the seven states. But not so subtly in the shadow stood a co-host: the Southern Nevada Water Authority, the agency charged with keeping water running in a certain desert city.

 

The Nevada commission and the Water Authority were a study in mutual admiration. George Caan, executive director of the commission, introduced Water Authority General Manager Pat Mulroy, the keynote speaker. He called Mulroy a "leader, a visionary and advocate for the protection of our natural resources," not to mention "Nevada's most valuable resource on the Colorado River."

 

As Mulroy took the stage, she had a message for the delegates concerning the water austerity plan they were forwarding to the Interior Department.

 

"I am convinced that next week we will have all the signatures on the documents," she said. "You know why: We cannot afford to fail. Not a one of us has 20 years to go to court" to battle over water rights.

 

Her audience had long been headed that way. You might say they live that way. Their warring factions are no strangers to the U.S. Supreme Court. Soothing them now took finesse.

 

So the unlikely love fest began with what amounted to encounter therapy for malcontents as representatives from the seven states took their seats on the stage.

 

The floor went first to representatives from Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico and Utah.

 

Under the Colorado Compact, those northern river states are collectively guaranteed 7.5 million acre-feet of water a year, or enough in urban terms to supply 15 million households.

 

For the better part of the past century, every year they have let 1 million, 2 million, 3 million acre-feet of it flow south unused on the understanding that one day they would need it.

 

Runaway cities, including Las Vegas, sprang from the surplus, a behavior the northerners regard as wanton. In the words of Don Ostler, executive director of the Upper Colorado River Commission, "We're not saying that we're smarter than you are, but we plan our growth."

 

At the conference, each northern delegate delivered the same message. The days of surplus are over.

 

"Utah intends to use all of the water that is allocated to us," said Dennis Strong, director of the Utah water resources division.

 

Wyoming is going to flood irrigate and no southern region with more people than farms is going to tell it to stop.

 

New Mexico has a duty of social justice to the Navajo.

 

Colorado will keep its water (as soon as its voters have the wit to pony up the bond money to pay for the water-catching infrastructure).

 

Under the Colorado Compact, which governs water allocations, the southern states and the unplanned cities of Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Diego and Tucson are also guaranteed 7.5 million acre-feet a year. But if the drought worsens, as shortages click in, that could be as low as 7 million.

 

In one of the worst-case scenarios modeled by the Bureau of Reclamation, in as little as six years, Arizona could face losing 480,000 acre-feet of water a year. Under Arizona's drought plan, it will come first at the expense of farms and underground water banks. To put it in perspective, that's enough for 960,000 households.

 

Nevada could lose 20,000 acre-feet, or enough for 40,000 households.

 

California, however, wouldn't take a hit because it has senior rights on the river. Hence the source of abiding warfare among the southern states.

 

Because of a congressional deal in the 1960s, when surpluses were the rule, Arizona thinks it has been shortchanged. The state agreed then to take the first shortages on the river in exchange for California's backing of the Central Arizona Project, a vast canal from Lake Havasu City to Tucson.

 

Now that those shortages are bearing down on the south, California is immune until the Central Arizona Project runs dry and a Nevada intake in Lake Mead draws air.

 

That leaves California quite sated and smug. So when, at the conference, the Californian ventured that "some of the chips have to be taken off the shoulders," the Nevadan fidgeted and the Arizonan's eyes bulged.

 

But there was little more spoken of the looming shortages, particularly dry times ahead for Arizona.

 

Nevadan heraldry was beating in the wings.

 

After state delegates left the stage and the man from Reclamation finished a PowerPoint presentation bearing some painful water math, Nevada came on with a story of triumph wrenched from adversity.

 

Yes, Southern Nevada may be losing 20,000 acre-feet of river water a year , but in presentation after presentation, the Water Authority touted its plans to bring Las Vegas a projected 200,000 acre-feet of new water.

 

This would come from the Groundwater Development Project, a scheme calling for 285 miles of pipeline, three pumping stations, buried storage reservoirs, two electrical substations and 265 miles of overhead power lines marching from the unspoiled heart of White Pine County south to Las Vegas.

 

Thus the conference morphed from discussion of shortage on the river to new plenty for Las Vegas, a fresh supply that will not only let the city grow, regardless of what states up river think, but will also take heat off the river as it does so.

 

If it seems odd that the Colorado River Commission should be devoted to a ground water project, it helps to meet Caan, the executive director and tireless Las Vegas booster.

 

To Caan's mind, Southern Nevada may have missed a California -size share of the river when it was divided up originally, but ground water now offers the state an opportunity to catch up.

 

Moreover, the plan is consistent with the advantages other southern states enjoy. Southern California has alternatives to the river: the State Water Project and Los Angeles Aqueduct. Arizona has its massive canal and deep reserves of ground water.

Las Vegas, however, has some dwindling springs and is 90 percent dependent on the Colorado River, and water managers say that credit line is maxed out.

 

The normally genial Caan was so vehement on the subject at a lunch two weeks before the conference that he stabbed the air with his fork as he declared : "California has done for itself. Arizona has done for itself. Now Nevada is doing for itself!"

And part of that doing was this very conference.

 

With Caan booking the speakers, the list included a Southern Nevada Water Authority ground water engineer, its landscaper and its hydrologist. From Caan's staff came a lawyer and two resource analysts.

 

Opponents didn't make the playbill.

 

"We had requested equal time and didn't get it," said Susan Lynn of the Reno-based Great Basin Water Network, which is fighting the ground water plan. "The conference was so scripted by SNWA that we didn't bother to attend."

 

Environmentalists weren't completely shut out. Jeff van Ee of the Sierra Club was there to speak after dismal turn out at a film he had made opposing the plan.

 

In enemy territory, he was so depressed by the time the microphone reached him that the best he could do was mutter vaguely about the good old days when Las Vegas was sustained on spring water and traffic was tolerable.

 

If the conference made the pipeline seem a foregone conclusion, it is not there yet.

 

State Engineer Tracy Taylor last month issued the first permit to remove ground water from only the first of five valleys. The entire plan also has yet to emerge from a Bureau of Land Management environmental impact study.

 

For opponents of the plan, this offers fresh opportunity for scrutiny, which they say the ground water plan needs and won't pass.

 

They are regrouping behind the Bureau of Land Management, one of the last federal agencies with the power to stop the pipeline.

 

But the opponents have been dealt what might prove a political coup de grace.

 

The peace that Nevada brokered with six other states on the river was made over the pipeline plan.

 

Instead of relying on the Colorado for 90 percent of its water, a Nevada with a pipeline would see its river draw fall to 60 percent. That soothes an anxious north. At least one ballooning southern city, the driest, the thirstiest and the most cash-rich and canny, wouldn't try to seize northern water.

 

Thus the river and Nevada's pipeline may be two sources of water, but in the words of conference shadow host Mulroy : "They couldn't be more linked. We wouldn't have a basin states agreement were it not for the ground water application."

 

So as Nevada, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Wyoming, Utah and Colorado signed off on their cover letter to the Interior secretary for the new drought plan for the river, they might as well have signed a petition for the pipeline.

 

Thus, the not-so-subtle subtext of the conference was: It's not just Nevada asking for permission to build a pipeline, it's the entire West.

 

Boil it down and the West backed a plan with the Nevada pipeline built into it for the simple reason that , in a time of staggering loss, there was the prospect of some relief.

 

The beauty of it was that there were no losers, at least on the river. Those were miles inland, in the valleys of White Pine County, where even before pumping has begun, they can sense the ground water slipping from beneath their feet. #

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/lv-other/2007/may/13/566641717.html

 

 

DESALINATION:

Guest Column: Desalination key to addressing drought

North County Times – 5/13/07

By Claude A. "Bud" Lewis, mayor of Carlsbad and R. Michel Beauchamp, board chairman of the Sweetwater Authority, a South Bay water agency

 

In less than 60 days, 25 million Californians could lose access to their primary source of drinking water. The Superior Court-ordered shutdown of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta pumps is just the latest warning that the state has a perilous handle on its drinking water supply. While the catastrophic shutdown of the Delta is still avoidable, it's a reflection of broad threats ---- legal, regulatory and environmental ---- that are leading scientists and state water officials to conclude that California has entered the "perfect drought."

As public water agency officials gather in Sacramento this week for the Association of California Water Agencies conference, the state's capital is enveloped by trepidation ---- if not outright alarm ---- over the future of our water supplies. Water reliability is not a new issue. In fact, it has proven to be one of the more politically charged and vexing issues throughout our state's history. However, unlike scares in the past, our state is facing an unparalleled confluence of threats, from global warming to legal mandates and regulatory gridlock. For some, the question is not if California will have a full-blown water supply crisis, but when.

 

In an effort to avoid an economic and public health crisis, responsible government officials are turning their attention to the largest reservoir in the world ---- the Pacific Ocean ---- as one solution to California's water needs. Proven desalination technology allows us to produce high quality water right where it is needed, at a comparable cost and without damaging environmentally sensitive habitats and watersheds such as the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Saltwater desalination has proven to be a tried-and-true means of quenching the world's growing need for water. There are now more than 21,000 desalination plants producing 3 billion gallons of drinking water a day in 120 countries around the world. Now the time has come for California to catch up.

 

California has several small-scale desalination plants in operation today with a handful of larger-scale plants in the permitting phase, including plans for a plant along the coast in the city of Carlsbad that will be one of the largest desalination plants in the Western Hemisphere. Our public water agencies have entered into long-term water purchase agreements with the Carlsbad desalination plant. While we each have unique reasons for securing water from the Carlsbad plant, we share the common goal of improving water supply reliability in the San Diego region through reduced dependence on imported water. We are moving aggressively to augment our long-standing commitment to water conservation, water recycling and brackish water demineralization with a new, locally controlled, drought-proof supply of potable water.

Proponents of diversifying California's water supply are benefiting from renewed efforts to advance desalination at the state and regional levels. The California Department of Water Resources' Water Plan Update has identified the need for 500,000 acre-feet of desalinated water by 2030.

The push in California toward seawater desalination is being fueled in part by technological advances in reverse osmosis technology that have resulted in a decrease in the cost of producing desalinated water, while at the same time the cost of water from the State Water Project continues to rise.

The reality is that the cost, both financial and environmental, to extract drinking water from the State Water Project will only continue to escalate ---- as is evident by the Delta court ruling ---- and that desalinated water will be an increasingly affordable, reliable and environmentally responsible source of water. And while we can differ over individual solutions, we all must agree there is no one single answer to California's water needs. Facing the perfect drought, California cannot wait any longer to realize what the rest of the world already knows ---- desalination is the future, and the future is now.

Claude A. "Bud" Lewis is mayor of Carlsbad. R. Michel Beauchamp is board chairman of the Sweetwater Authority, a South Bay water agency. This Op-Ed was submitted by a spokesman for Poseidon Resources, the developer of the Carlsbad desalination plant. #

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/05/13/perspective/16_17_395_12_07.txt

 

 

CENTRAL COAST WATER ISSUES:

Guest Column: Coastal Water Project drought-proof, sound

Monterey Herald – 5/13/07

By Frank Emerson, president of the Carmel River Steelhead Association

 

Some of us remember the droughts of the 1970s and '80s. With mandatory rationing, landscaping died and our tourism-based economy suffered. The Carmel River did not run to the ocean for four years.

 

We are in that situation again. It was only a matter of time before another drought hit us.

 

This year's water runoff from rainfall is less than our annual use. This alone should unite us behind a drought-proof water supply by desalinating seawater.

 

I understand that not everyone shares our concerns for Carmel River wildlife and steelhead. But let's not trivialize our need for a reliable, safe and legal water supply. And let's not mock the importance of wildlife protection and a quality environment.

 

Some claim the Coastal Water Project and the San Clemente Dam Project are just about saving steelhead trout. Not so. The Coastal Water Project is much, much more. We are 100 percent dependent on the whims of the weather. This year there is not enough water for people and the economy, much less fish and wildlife.

 

Desal is a safe and environmentally sound alternative to de-watering our river to meet our water needs. Desal does not produce "toxic discharge" as fear mongers claim.

 

The state Division of Safety of Dams says San Clemente Dam is at risk of failure during an earthquake. The state is requiring the structure to be retrofitted or removed. No responsible agency suggests that San Clemente is worth restoring for water storage. In short, the dam has outlived its usefulness. It is now a public hazard that does not provide water storage or flood control.

 

Will the projects be expensive? For about the cost of a cup of coffee a day we get:

 

1. Water supplies no longer dependent on fickle rainfall.

 

2. Freedom from government fines for damaging the Carmel River.

 

3. Significant restoration of a natural and valuable resource.

 

Let's stop trivializing our need for a reliable, drought-proof water supply. Let's stop distracting the public from progress on the best prospect we have ever had to solving our water problem. We must support the Coastal Water Project as the only real option on the table. #

http://www.montereyherald.com/search/ci_5887088

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