A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
April 17, 2009
2. Supply –
Feinstein: Action needed now on water crisis
The
Deeper wells weaken water table
The Capital Press
Less water, higher rates inevitable, SoCal manager says
The
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Feinstein: Action needed now on water crisis
The
• Calls for targeted strategy to address the problem
• ‘The lack of water threatens to decimate the Valley economy’
Saying much of the
“The lack of water threatens to decimate the Valley economy, and some cities are already struggling with unemployment rates between 25 and 45 percent. We must reverse this trend,” says Ms. Feinstein in a letter to Lester Snow, director of the California Department of Water Resources. The letter was released Thursday afternoon by the senator’s office.
Ms. Feinstein says a targeted strategy must be developed to address the severe water crisis for farms in
The letter follows a meeting convened last week by the senator to bring together the major stakeholders – farmers, ranchers, and state and federal water and wildlife officials – to discuss possible solutions for the drought, including the need to move water south of the Delta.
One answer being considered, according to the letter, is giving the Department of Water Resources authority from the State Water Resources Control Board to use the State Water Project Banks Pumping Plant to pump water for the users of the Central Valley Project.
“If the
Also revealed in the letter is a state effort to find volunteers from the
From the meeting, Mr. Snow agreed to ask the state officials tasked with managing the state’s fish and wildlife refuges that rely on water delivered by the Central Valley Water Project to pitch in.
“The refuges are now receiving a 100 percent allocation of Level 2 water supplies while south-of-Delta agricultural users are currently getting a 0 percent allocation. This discrepancy appears inconsistent with the Central Valley Improvement Act’s requirement that there be ‘a reasonable balance’ between refuge and agricultural water supplies,” the senator writes.
“Agreement by the state refuges to voluntarily transfer a portion of their water supply would go a long way to restoring jobs and maintaining permanent crops in the
“If we are going to make a difference for the San Joaquin Valley’s water supply this year, significant steps also need to be taken by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Westlands Water District, and the San Luis Delta Mendota Water Authority,” she says.
“This is a crisis that requires action and decisiveness,” the senator says.#
http://www.centralvalleybusinesstimes.com/stories/001/?ID=11699
Deeper wells weaken water table
The Capital Press – 4/17/09
By Wes Sander
Near Denair, where the foothills begin rising from the
The owners of Sperry Farms have recently deepened their well. Despite that, the orchards produced smaller almonds last year, a sign of a receding aquifer, says co-owner Brian Wahlbrink.
"We've been starting to see, in the past few years, the water table dropping earlier in the season," Wahlbrink said.
Before sprinkler technology came along in the 1950s, this area saw only limited dry farming. Then came the microjet sprinkler in the mid-'80s, and now it's a region strong in orchards and vineyards, where everything runs on well water. And over the years, the growers have deepened their wells.
While recent groundwater-storage projects have helped stabilize the declining
"What we've been seeing is there are pumps pumping harder, and not adding acreage out here," Wahlbrink said. "We're seeing guys dropping very deep wells. I think our concern lies four or five years in the future."
That concern grows from a greater reliance on groundwater throughout the
While regulators hash out policy in anticipation of a drier future, many are calling for the state to begin monitoring and regulating groundwater, which it has never done.
It's not a new idea. A governor's commission recommended it in the 1970s. And these days, academics and agencies continue urging the state to bring local management systems under its own oversight.
"
But farmers and water districts are known to strongly prefer the localized control they've always had. And they tend to focus on the shortcomings of the state's surface conveyance as the problem.
"What we're talking about as a group out here is that
State-level groundwater management is described as the most controversial recommendation in a report published in October by the Legislative Analyst's Office.
"We have recommended that the state establish a groundwater permitting system," said Catherine Freeman, an LAO analyst, at the Senate hearing. "The legislature has really focused on local management of groundwater. We think that combining that local management ... with some sort of permitting process would help those who are looking at groundwater."
Jim Crecelius handles almonds in the area east of
"We've gone from dryland farming to irrigated farming in the area," relying entirely on groundwater, Crecelius said. "Something's gotta give, I guess."
Joe Marcotte, a consultant with the Eastside Water District, said the shrinking aquifers seem to have regained some stability since the association began exploring underground storage in the mid-'90s. After a career in federal water management, Marcotte was contracted by Eastside to help halt the basin's decline.
"I was about to the point where I was thinking, maybe there is no solution," Marcotte said. "But then we hit on this, and we've been working it ever since."
The local projects follow the lead of more established efforts, prominent among them the Semitropic Water Storage District in
"I think these projects have been very useful," said Jay Lund, professor of environmental engineering at the University of California-Davis. "I don't know that they've been perfect. But they've provided opportunities for local water districts to cooperate well, to manage the resources well, and avoid something that's worse" - that is, state regulation.
Such projects address groundwater challenges on a local level, which is how most regulators agree groundwater should be managed, even if it's tied together with a state permitting system. But most locals will always bristle at the notion of state involvement.
"You'd have to look to other states to see how it works," Crecelius said. "The farmer's response is that any restrictions are onerous."#
http://www.capitalpress.info/main.asp?SectionID=67&SubSectionID=616&ArticleID=50533&TM=48523.31
Less water, higher rates inevitable, SoCal manager says
Describing the state’s water supply as “precarious” and predicting “the end of cheap water,” the general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California told
That means the 600,000 residents of Ventura County who get all or part of their water from the state — those in the eastern portion as well as Oxnard, Port Hueneme and Camarillo — will be paying higher water bills and asked to cut back on usage by as much as 15 percent, particularly on lawns and gardens. Those who don’t curb consumption will face even steeper utility bills, although the amount is still undetermined.
Most of the affected water districts will raise rates in the fall, and decreased-usage rules will likely start in July.
“We knew we had issues that were coming, but the speed of the collapse has taken everyone by surprise,” Jeffrey Kightlinger, general manager of Metropolitan, told members of the Association of Water Agencies of Ventura County at its Annual Water Symposium on Thursday. The
Many of the affected water districts and cities have already begun to prepare and are looking at creating steep rate tiers tied to water use, stricter policies for watering gardens, and “water cops” to make sure residents are complying. Nobody, however, is talking about mandatory water rationing.
Metropolitan is calling for a 10 percent reduction in water deliveries to parts of the county completely reliant on state water — such as Thousand Oaks and Simi Valley — but that figure could reach 15 percent, said Don Kendall, general manager of the Calleguas Municipal Water District, which sells Metropolitan water to agencies and cities.
While educating people to voluntarily use less water helps, he said, it ultimately takes hitting their wallets to make them conserve.
“There is going to be a big push for voluntary reductions, but quite honestly, the only thing that will get people to cut back is if you use more, you pay more,” Kendall said. “Water is still an undervalued commodity. As the price goes up, people are going to be more conscious of it.”
The biggest area people can cut back on is gardens and lawns, which suck up about 70 percent of
The state is facing declining water supplies from the
“Unfortunately, when they see their water bills increasing, they are going to see that water conservation makes sense to them,” said Wanda Moyer, an environmental compliance analyst for
In
Jay Spurgin, deputy public works director for
“We are going to change your behavior through fines,” he said.
Oxnard Water Resources Manager Anthony Emmert said the city is looking at changing its tiered water rate structure so people who use more water have to pay exponentially more than those who conserve. A rate increase is all but inevitable, he said.
“We cannot afford to absorb these costs,” he said.
Chris Brown, executive director of the California Urban Water Conservation Council, said that while the shock of cutting consumption by as much as 15 percent might be hard on some at first, it’s not that difficult.
“People are going to be surprised at how little this takes, because what happens when you cut back 10 percent is you cut back on waste,” he said after Thursday’s meeting. People need to simply learn how to better use water outside and cut excessive watering, he said.
Many districts are already ramping up public education programs and trying to get people to start conserving now. Still, the future of less water and higher costs requires a new attitude in ever-thirsty
“I think a new reality is forming here ... that water is scarce and we are going to have to change the way we use water,” said Frank Royer, general manager of the Camrosa Water District in
http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2009/apr/16/less-water-higher-rates-inevitable-socal-manager/
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