[Water_news] 2. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: Supply - 11/21/2008

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

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

 

November 21, 2008

 

2. Supply –

 

Water-conservation measures not enough to meet 2020 target, officials say

Riverside’s Press Enterprise

 

Drought could become local problem

Oroville Mercury Register

 

Editorial: Finally, progress on the San Joaquin

The Capital Ag Press

 

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Water-conservation measures not enough to meet 2020 target, officials say

Riverside’s Press Enterprise – 11/20/2008

By Jim Miller

 

SACRAMENTO - More drastic steps are needed for the state to achieve Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's goal of cutting urban water consumption by one-fifth by 2020, officials said Thursday.

 

"The bottom line is it's hard to see how the basic measures will help the regions get to the target. Other measures will have to be considered," Anil Bamezai, a consultant for Schwarzenegger's water-conservation team, told water agency officials and others.

 

California's population is projected to grow from about 38 million to 44 million people by 2020. The state, though, is on pace to reduce its water consumption by enough to serve only about 1 million additional families, and even that estimate might be too optimistic.

 

In the Inland area, existing water-efficiency measures such as low-flow showerheads would meet about three-quarters of a 2020 conservation goal for the region that includes western Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

 

Those same measures, though, would achieve only a fraction of the proposed conservation goal for the region that includes Banning, Yucca Valley and the Coachella Valley.

 

The governor's panel is scheduled to issue its recommendations at the end of January. Some of them could require changes to state law.

 

FEW STRIDES

California lawmakers have made little progress in recent years to increase the state's water supply. Republicans have pushed for new dams and canals, while the Legislature's majority Democrats want more water conservation.

 

Schwarzenegger announced his 2020 goal in February after Democratic legislative leaders complained that the administration seemed too focused on building a peripheral canal. The canal would carry water around the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta on its way to the Central Valley and Southern California.

 

California already has rules on the books requiring low-flow showerheads. A law passed last year requires that all toilets and urinals sold in the state must meet water-conservation goals by 2014.

 

In addition, some water agencies have agreed to voluntary efforts to reduce water use. Those include residential water audits and public-information campaigns.

But even if all those efforts achieved maximum water savings, the state's 2005 per-capita urban water consumption would drop by just 9 or 10 percent in 12 years, Bamezai and others said.

 

Thursday's proposal set 2020 conservation goals for the state's 10 hydrologic regions. Only the San Francisco Bay Area and the Central Coast would meet the targets without additional measures.

 

In the South Coast hydrologic region, which includes the western halves of Riverside and San Bernardino counties, water agencies and customers would need to find ways to reduce water consumption by another 6 percent to reach a 20 percent goal.

 

To the east, water suppliers and customers would face generating another 28 percent in savings to reach a 44 percent conservation goal in the Colorado River hydrologic region.

 

'DEAL WITH IT NOW'

Additional water-saving options could include artificial lawns and making water more expensive to encourage conservation. Another is to require developers to offset a project's water use by conserving water elsewhere.

 

Homes could be required to have water-efficient appliances before they could be sold. And lawmakers could advance the 2025 deadline for installing meters in Sacramento and some other Central Valley communities where customers currently pay only a flat fee for water.

 

There are significant hurdles to any plan.

 

A bill that would have enacted a 2020 conservation goal similar to the governor's stalled in the Legislature this year. In addition, the state's multibillion-dollar budget problems limits the state's ability to regulate new water-saving programs.

 

Representatives of various water districts worried that Thursday's draft plan would saddle them and their customers with much higher costs during an economic downturn.

 

A member of the governor's action team said the state has to face up to the risk of lacking enough water to meet residents' needs.

 

"It's not like we can go out and get more water," said Lorraine White of the California Energy Commission. "We're trying to deal with it now so we don't have a crisis later."#

 

Drought could become local problem

Oroville Mercury Register – 11/20/2008

By Heather Hacking – Staff Writer

DURHAM -- Drought. That's the reality for California.

 

With more groundwater monitoring over the past decade in Butte County, the readings for wells are showing that water levels in some areas have dropped near levels that occurred in the early 1990s.

 

While measurements vary, the average is about 3 feet lower in the county, with shallow wells suffering less and deep irrigation wells dropping more.

If dry conditions continue, there could be record lows for groundwater levels, said Paul Gosselin, director of Butte County Department of Water and Resource Conservation, especially in areas that are heavily dependent upon groundwater.

 

Gosselin and other county water leaders met in Durham Wednesday night with about 25 residents to spell out recent water monitoring results and talk about county water management.

 

"Durham is one of the areas that we have seen groundwater levels drop," Gosselin said. "There is a lot of concern there ... We also see issues in the (well-dependent) ridge area and around Chico -- anywhere there is a heavy reliance on groundwater."

 

For several years, the county has been monitoring groundwater as part of the basin management objective known as BMO. The county is divided into areas, with each area represented by local land owners.

 

The program is in place so that if groundwater use in one area affects nearby landowners, there is a system to address the situation.

 

For example, if the drought continues, there could be programs for coordinating the timing of pumping, or other cooperation.

 

In addition to watching local wells, there are state issues developing that could lessen local water supply.

 

The state recently completed the Delta Vision report that deals with problems in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Valley Delta for both water reliability and the environment, particularly for fish.

 

"Regionally, we need to defend our area-of-origin rights," Gosselin said Wednesday. The Delta Vision report talks about the public trust doctrine, which views resources as a shared public resource.

 

Water that flows through the delta comes from Northern California and Gosselin said the recent state report ignored comments from Northern California about needing to meet local water needs first.

 

That makes it important that Northern California water leaders continue to study underground water resources, groundwater recharge, effects on streams, etc., Gosselin said.

 

"We need data to diffuse things that might cause problems," he said.

 

One study, funded by Proposition 50, would provide $2.4 million for study of groundwater. That funding hit a snag recently through a suit by the Butte Environmental Council. That suit challenges whether the project meets California Environmental Quality Act environmental review requirements.

 

BEC has criticized the study for installing wells that it believes could lead to further exportation of local water.

 

Also in the works is a drought water bank, which would have water users, including those locally, selling water to other users in the state, said Vickie Newlin, of the county's water department.

 

Additionally, some local surface water users will see cuts to their water supply in the Sacramento Valley depending on the type of water contracts and rights they hold, she said.

 

Meanwhile, the county is requesting people report problems with well levels through a form available at: http://www.buttecounty.net/waterandresource/drought_info.htm. Hydrological data is also available on the Web site. A representative from Pacific Gas and Electric also attended the meeting. She said there are a number of rebate programs worth looking into for ag and residential well-users. Pulling water from the ground takes energy, and costs money. So the programs could save well owners who could benefit. Pump tests are available to see what options would save the most money. #

 

Editorial: Finally, progress on the San Joaquin

The Capital Ag Press – 11/20/2008

The on-again-off-again San Joaquin restoration settlement is on its way to congressional approval early next year, tucked away in one of those omnibus funding bills Congress loves. It will be another section of the 2009 Omnibus Natural Resources bill.

It's a quiet end to controversy that began shortly after Friant Dam east of Fresno and a network of delivery canals went into operation in the early 1950s. Friant Division is a star in the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Central Valley Project.

Salmon, closed out of migrating up the water-short San Joaquin for decades, are supposed to be returned to that watershed by 2012 if all goes down as parties agreed after a near all-nighter in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 10.

Central Valley farmers and the Natural Resource Defense Council that took the CVP to court in 1988 have Sen. Dianne Feinstein and three congressmen to thank for bringing the stalled San Joaquin settlement to a conclusion. They had a pact in 2006 that went nowhere because of concerns over the federal cost to make it happen. This deal shrinks direct federal cost to $88 million, although NRDC once estimated it might run as high as $800 million.

This time, California pledged $200 million, and water users agreed to pay another $100 million over 10 years from the Friant Division share of continuing CVP operations. Another $100 million is authorized, but not appropriated, for improvements to conveyance facilities that could go a long way toward efficiencies replacing water promised for fish flows. Friant water released by the deal would return to that 60 mile stretch of the San Joaquin that's been dry off and on for decades.

The deal puts a cap on the amount of CVP water going to instream flows at 15 to 19 percent of CVP contract obligations.

The alternative is letting federal Judge Oliver Wanger in effect control the valve for about 1 million acres of farmland, the life source for hundreds of farming communities dependent on irrigated agriculture.

As Marvin Hughes, chairman of the Friant Water Users Authority, put it last week in a Fresno Bee opinion piece, "It should be plain to everyone in the Valley by now that the courts are the worst place to make decisions about San Joaquin Valley water supplies. Without the settlement the litigation would resume and we would have to return to court and put control of our water into the hands of a federal judge whose previous rulings strongly indicate that he will send water down the river to re-establish a salmon fishery regardless of the cost to the Valley."

The deal Feinstein announced means CVP "exchange contractors" won't see any decrease in their CVP contract deliveries, and they retain rights to divert from the San Joaquin if the canals dried up.

Some farmers, and rightly so, don't like that. Judge Wanger, acting on behalf of threatened Delta smelt, has limited CVP and SWP pumping from the Delta for six months out of each year. Add to that the CVP practice of shorting Westside water deliveries during drought years, and you can understand the unease.

It took courage for Feinstein to take the lead on this settlement. She's come a long way from being mayor of San Francisco. Central Valley farmers can thank her for caring. Also due thanks as the settlement bill moves forward are a bipartisan trio of congressmen: George Radanovich, a Republican, and Democrats Jim Costa and Dennis Cardoza.#

 

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