A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
June 25 2008
2. Supply –
How bad is the water situation? Reports differ
The Bakersfield
Auditor keeps eye on water use by Sacramento-area homeowners
The
L.A.
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How bad is the water situation? Reports differ
The Bakersfield
The Kern County Board of Supervisors heard another downbeat report Tuesday on how two years of drought are affecting agriculture, but this week’s update from the Kern County Department of Agriculture/Measurement Standards wasn’t as gloomy as a similar report presented last week by the Kern County Water Agency.
Drip irrigation is one of the techniques Shafter farmer Fred Starrh uses to conserve water on his farm.
Agriculture Commissioner/Sealer Ruben Arroyo told the board that insufficient water had cost the local agriculture industry $69,493,726.
The water agency last week said about 45,000 acres out of 850,000 normally irrigated will be idle this year at a cost of $46 million. In addition, 100,000 acres will be “underirrigated,” causing a $59 million loss, for a total blow of $104 million.
Arroyo explained the discrepancy by noting that his report assumed an average 35 percent water allocation, whereas the water agency had based its estimates on a more conservative 25 percent allocation. The Kern County Water Agency, later on Tuesday, confirmed it did use those figures.
The federal and state governments dole out water to farmers each year based on availability and water rights established in contracts. The allocation refers to what percentage growers will actually receive of water they are entitled to under their contracts.
Of the bleaker 25 percent assumption, Arroyo said, “I doubt we’ll get there this year,” but it was something to keep an eye on. The federal government recently reduced its deliveries to 40 percent and the state is delivering 35 percent. Acres not planted due to water issues this season included 12,000 that would have been cotton, 59,900 that would have been vegetables and 1,600 that would have been barley, Arroyo said.
About 1,821,000 acres in rangeland have been damaged at a loss of $9,815,190, he said.
Last week the board passed a largely symbolic resolution urging the state to come up with a long-term solution to chronic water problems in the region. After the vote, board members agreed to study a moratorium on any new agreements to provide water for users outside Kern.
http://www.bakersfield.com/1385/story/480467.html
Auditor keeps eye on water use by Sacramento-area homeowners
The
By Jim Downing
Linda Taylor's water problem was typical: busted sprinkler at the corner of the driveway, set to gush a fountain of water at 6 a.m. three mornings a week.
Mike Connor, the region's only full-time private water auditor, had seen such things hundreds of times before.
"People don't notice this stuff," he said as the leak splattered his pickup on a recent morning in Elk Grove.
Connor, a methodical, gray-bearded man, spends his days spotting leaks and reining in overwatering on behalf of the region's water utilities, nearly all of which provide water conservation house calls at no charge to their customers.
This year, with the state in its first official drought since 1991 and Sacramento-area water utilities under scrutiny for missing conservation targets, Connor is busy.
But he's not swamped. Calls to the Roseville-based business Connor runs with his wife, Phyllis, have dropped about 15 percent this year. They tie the dip to a slowdown in meter-installation programs in some areas that have in the past generated a lot of work, as well as to the fact that more utilities are sending their own staff out to do audits.
Connor's company, Irrigation Consultation and Evaluation, handles about a quarter of the water audits in the region.
But demand for the audits doesn't appear to be sharply higher this year. Reports from seven of the region's largest water utilities show the number of calls fluctuating over the last five years, with no strong trend. Regionwide, the most calls came in 2005 – an unusually wet year.
Local water managers said the demand for audits tends to rise and fall depending on how heavily utilities promote the service.
Connor said he's found that pocketbook issues, not broader water concerns, tend to drive homeowners to start looking for ways to save water.
"It's the fear of the water meter," he said.
Water meters tend to encourage conservation. In the Citrus Heights Water District, for instance, where metered billing went into effect Jan. 1, water consumption has dropped 8.5 percent through May compared with the five-year average, according to district officials.
The Sacramento area is one of the few regions in the state where a large fraction of households still pay a flat rate for water, regardless of how much they use. But government mandates are putting an end to that.
All water connections in
The shock of a big water bill – amid rising expenses for gas, food and other basics – prompted Taylor, a retired counselor for the Department of Corrections, to phone her water supplier, the Sacramento County Water Agency, which referred her to Connor.
During the visit, Connor checked for leaks at faucets under sinks and in toilets. He looked for water-guzzling toilets or washing machines that might be replaced through one of the rebate programs most of the region's utilities offer.
Except for one toilet with a small leak,
But outside, as Connor triggered the sprinklers in each section of her yard, problems burbled up. In back, a bad sprinkler head puddled water on a small lawn. Then there was the geyser beside the driveway in front – a spot where, Connor said, sprinkler heads often fall victim to a car tire.
In addition to pointing out the leaks, Connor suggested some changes to
The big leak likely wasn't there for long, Connor figured, because
"If everybody was like this, I'd be out of a job," he said.
Before Mike Connor became a water auditor in 1997, he managed a fleet of pay telephones for 17 years, until visions of a wireless future prompted him to look for new work.
Now, he bills utilities between $35 and $350 for a house call, depending on travel distance and property size.
In the capital area, the long-term market for his services looks strong. The area has the highest per capita rate of water consumption of any major region in the state – 287 gallons a day.
Thousands of households annually will be getting meters for years to come, and projections generally show water getting scarcer and more expensive in the future.
"The more people become aware that they're going to have to pay more for water, the more calls we get," Connor said.#
http://www.sacbee.com/378/story/1037432.html
L.A.
Los Angeles magazine- July 2008 issue
By Kevin Roderick
“Isn’t this beautiful?” Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa asks through his biggest smile, a walking Eddie Bauer ad in blue jeans, a wool scarf, and hiking boots untouched by trail dust. His helicopter has just dropped him in the
H. David Nahai is the one Angeleno the locals trust—so far. At the podium he quotes Jackson Browne lyrics about repairing history’s excesses and vows to “preserve this
Nahai got the job last year despite his lack of the usual credentials. He’s a real estate lawyer, not an engineer or a city hall insider, and managing a firm with a dozen attorneys is not like running a department with 8,500 employees. Nahai is something of a policy wonk about water and the perils of global warming, but that doesn’t necessarily qualify him to lead a $4.2 billion monolith whose storied history begins with aqueduct builder William Mulholland. Lately the DWP’s image has taken some hits. Too many summer blackouts. Threats of water rationing. An unruly union and a scandal over public relations contracts that helped bring down Mayor Jim Hahn.
Villaraigosa tapped Nahai anyway, charging him with transforming the DWP into a clean, green, trouble-free operation. Just keeping the water running and preventing blackouts will help hugely when the mayor runs for reelection next year. For Nahai, turning the agency into one of the environmental good guys is the fun part.
In his first seven months the department has broken ground on the nation’s largest city-owned wind farm, taken steps to reduce the amount of coal burned at power plants in
“We’re making history,” he says. “We’re changing the direction of the city.”
Nahai is enjoying his new life as a public figure. At a recent book party that he and his wife, the novelist Gina Nahai, attended at Gore Vidal’s house, he and the host got into a debate about solar power. “Everyone has an opinion about DWP,” says Nahai. He’s become a regular on TV and radio, willing to play the part of the city’s environmental conscience. All this makes him, at 55, the most watchable new player on
They met when Villaraigosa was an assemblyman and Nahai was a member of the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board, an appointee of Governor Pete Wilson. Nahai had been a Republican, as were many Iranian Jewish immigrants who blamed Democrat Jimmy Carter for the shah’s fall and the rise of
Nahai was born into a
The water board provided an outlet for Nahai's environmentalism as well as a place for him to get a taste of
“David is a brilliant thinker and someone who I think can show great leadership,” says David Beckman, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
“He brought a level of professionalism and thoughtfulness that was rare at the regional water board.”
Along the way Nahai evolved into a Democrat and finds that party’s policies toward
Villaraigosa rewarded Nahai with a seat on the Board of Water and Power Commissioners, the DWP’s unpaid policy-making panel. He quickly became its president and resident green advocate.
His interest in the environment began when he studied the existentialists in boarding school, Nahai starts to explain during an interview in his office atop DWP headquarters on
His education isn’t the only thing that sets him apart in
For a volunteer commissioner, Nahai was uncommonly engaged in the details of the Department of Water and Power. His appointment to the top job also solved a problem for the mayor. Villaraigosa had inherited a DWP chief who was independent and not especially devoted to the green agenda. Ron Deaton was a city hall legend, a power broker who also was the city’s highest-paid employee after 42 years of service.
The mayor’s advisers were quietly looking for a way to encourage Deaton to retire. Then, in July 2007, he suffered a cardiac arrhythmia and collapsed while on vacation in
As president of the commission, Nahai had taken to calling press conferences to give updates on power outages. After Deaton fell ill, he asserted himself more in day-to-day management. An item in Rick Orlov’s politics column in the Daily News floated the idea that Nahai had put out feelers to see how his appointment might be received.
It was sticky. Deaton had been around too long to be bumped aside. When he made noises about returning to work, negotiations picked up. In October Deaton announced his retirement and went out with a bundle of cash and a catered party that filled city council chambers with former colleagues and elected officials.
“Doesn’t it remind you of the wedding scene from The Godfather?” joked Councilman Herb Wesson.
Villaraigosa named Nahai to the $310,000-a-year post and said he was proud to have an environmentalist at the helm of the DWP. “I didn’t need to do a national search for the right candidate,” the mayor said. “I had him right here. In a few months he has turned the ship around.”
Since he took office December 1, Nahai has replaced many of Deaton’s senior staffers. He has met with thousands of employees, hoping to improve morale and repair relations with the union. When Nahai arrived, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 18 sent out 30,000 DVDs that portrayed the agency as being in crisis.
One of his early victories was winning approval for a rate hike that was needed to pay for upgrading the power system. He cited the death of firefighter Brent Lovrien in a March explosion in
He deftly handled an unexpected media storm when the department was attacked for hiring lactation experts to advise employees who were breast-feeding. The money involved was small, but the controversy became instant talk-show fodder. He stared down the critics, calling the program a boost to job productivity.
More of Nahai’s time has been spent on the bigger agenda.
Not all environmental organizations share his enthusiasm because they fear such projects could mar the wilderness. “Does LADWP expect us to sit by until bulldozers arrive?” asks the California Desert Coalition, one of the groups fighting Nahai’s proposal to build a transmission line across the Mojave.
Water is the sexier, and potentially more troublesome, part of Nahai’s portfolio. Judges have decreed cuts in exports from the
It’s about time, says Mark Gold of Heal the Bay. “I strongly commend the DWP for this plan…the city has responded.”
For Nahai, the recently announced plan is part of a conversation he wants to have with us about water: how much we use, what we waste, why we should recycle. He says we need to get over our resistance to reclaiming sewage water—not just for outside use but to bathe in and drink. We’ve avoided the conversation far too long, he says. Let’s talk.
Europeans drink recycled water, he says.
The last time the reuse of sewage was seriously suggested, in the late 1990s, Daily News headlines screaming “toilet to tap” helped kill the project. The phrase, used again in every news story about his current proposals, haunts Nahai. “That awful moniker…did a great disservice to the city,” he says. “It should really be assigned to the garbage heap of history.”
This time Nahai plans to be the spokesman for recycled effluent. Safety will be the first concern. After treatment, the discharge would percolate into aquifers and blend with groundwater before being extracted, treated again, and piped to consumers.
“I’m confident we have an enlightened and progressive population here in
Betting on enlightenment, however, is seldom rewarded. Just in case, Nahai has set aside $1.5 million for a public relations campaign and plans to make the rounds of neighborhood councils, which are always skeptical of anything the DWP does. He opposes putting the recycling question to a public vote, preferring to let elected officials—many of whom are allies of the mayor—decide. He may be a purist, but he’s no fool.#
http://www.lamag.com/article.aspx?id=7900&page=1
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