California Water News
A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
August 11, 2009
2. Supply –
Calif. Adds 'Delta Tunnel' to List of Possible Water Supply Solutions
Greenwire
Grover Beach declares stage 2 water shortage
Santa Maria Times
Uncertainty -- over water rules -- grows lush like a lawn
Riverside Press-Enterprise
A rivulet (actually, many of them) runs through it
L.A. Times
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Calif. Adds 'Delta Tunnel' to List of Possible Water Supply Solutions
Greenwire-8/7/09
By Colin Sullivan
California officials are studying whether a 35-mile tunnel under the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta might help solve some of the state's water supply problems.
Teresa Engstrom, chief of the delta engineering branch at the California Department of Water Resources, confirmed that the agency is conducting feasibility studies on an "all tunnel" option that would route water under the Bay Delta from rivers and reservoirs to the north of Sacramento to farms in the south.
The idea to build a tunnel sprang from a handful of public workshops the department held recently on how to approach California's long-running fight over water rights in the northern part of the state. A tunnel, she said, could theoretically offer a way out of the vexing maze of water supply, endangered species and farming issues facing the state.
"We had a lot of comments that said, 'Why don't you go under?'" Engstrom said. "So we thought we would take a look."
Engstrom stressed that the all-tunnel option has no more weight at this point than competing ideas to build a canal around the delta or new levees along the water's current route through the middle of the delta region. All are under consideration.
DWR engineers conducting environmental and geotechnical studies expect to have a draft environmental report completed by the end of the year on all three proposals, Engstrom said. A final public draft would then be ready next year.
The new wrinkle comes as lawmakers, farmers, commercial fishers and environmentalists continue to bicker over whether to build major new infrastructure to both protect endangered fish and improve water deliveries to farms in the Central Valley. Pumping through the region is currently restricted to protect endangered delta smelt and salmon, much to the ire of struggling farmers.
Earlier this week, a coalition of environmental groups savaged a bipartisan package of water bills unveiled in Sacramento, taking specific shots at a proposal that would create a special council, primarily run by the governor, that could expedite such projects.
While a new canal or tunnel would not be authorized by the legislation, the bills would give the council the power to start and finance new projects. Four of the council members would be picked by the governor, two by the Legislature and the last from the Delta Protection Commission.
Jonas Minton, water policy adviser for the Planning and Conservation League, called the tunnel proposal and the council bad ideas. He estimated that such a tunnel would likely stretch beyond 50 miles, making it "longer than the Chunnel connecting England with France."
"The Department of Water Resources says it has no idea how much the tunnel would cost," added Minton, guessing it would easily surpass the $13 billion spent 15 years ago to build the tunnel connecting France and England.
Minton also took issue with plans to build a peripheral canal around the delta, noting that Californians rejected a similar proposal in 1982. Environmentalists instead favor increased conservation and efficiency measures, in addition to groundwater and wastewater recycling.
Peter Gleick, a water resources expert at the Pacific Institute, said he was not in a position to assess the merits of a tunnel until he gets more information.
"How big? What will it cost? Who would pay for it? How would it be operated and by whom? How much water will it carry, under what climatic conditions?" Gleick said in an e-mail. "I'm always opposed to taking a position on things until we really know what we're being asked to support or oppose."#
Grover Beach declares stage 2 water shortage
Santa Maria Times-8/11/09
By Mike Hodgson
Grover Beach has declared a stage 2 water shortage, raising the level alert a notch from the previous stage 1 designation.
Although the city’s conservation measures remain voluntary, the stage 2 declaration is designed to increase residents’ understanding of the serious situation facing the city.
“Stage 2 provides an additional, heightened sense of awareness that we really need to conserve,” said City Manager Bob Perrault .
“The suggested prohibitions are really voluntary, but obviously, if the situation continues, all of
those things could become mandatory,” he added. “That’s the next step.”
The city receives its water from Lopez Lake and a number of groundwater wells.
City Council members annually review rainfall and other information, such as the Lopez Lake and groundwater levels, to determine which conservation efforts are necessary.
Currently, the Lopez Lake storage is 55.8 percent of normal, and the city is using an average of
92 percent of its groundwater allocation each year.
Perrault said whether a stage
3 shortage is declared will depend on how much rain the area receives in the coming rain season.
“We’re just into a new rain year, and if it’s comparable to last year, we’ll definitely be into phase 3,” he said. “The reason we issue a stage 2 (shortage) and heighten awareness is to get people to conserve more and help, to some extent, avoid that.”
Under the city’s water shortage contingency plan, residents and businesses are strongly encouraged not to:
— Serve water to patrons in restaurants unless they specifically request it.
— Use potable water for cleaning streets, sidewalks or roadways.
— Use potable water for washing cars, boats or other exterior services without a quick-acting shut-off nozzle on the hose.
— Operate ornamental fountains or car washes unless the water is recirculated.
— Refill private pools, except to maintain water levels.
— Use potable water for planting turf or other new landscaping unless it consists of low-water-use, drought-tolerate plants.
— Use potable water for construction purposes, such as compaction, unless no other source of water or method can be used.#
http://www.santamariatimes.com/articles/2009/08/11/news/centralcoast/news05.txt
Uncertainty -- over water rules -- grows lush like a lawn
Riverside Press-Enterprise-8/10/09
By Ben Goad
Sometimes, you've got to go brown to be green. At least that's the way Lynne Karman sees it.
The Temecula woman, like many others, has found herself stuck between homeowners association regulations requiring her to keep a green lawn and a set of new watering restrictions imposed to conserve water during a third consecutive year of drought across Southern California.
The competing rules have led to confusion and consternation among some homeowners.
Water and homeowners association officials say the new restrictions leave plenty of room for people to keep their lawns green. But one state lawmaker has proposed legislation that would protect residents from association fines for brown lawns.
Lynne Karman, 49, of Temecula, received a letter in June from her homeowners association for brown spots in her front lawn.
Karman and her husband, Greg, have lived for more than a decade in Redhawk, a 3,000-house planned community in the Temecula hills south of Highway 79. They've taken pride in their home, always careful to follow the rules set forth by the Redhawk Community Association.
According to the association's formal regulations, all vinyl fencing must be tan, "nomadic taupe" to be specific. Check. Only the American flag can fly on flagpoles. Check. All residents must "maintain landscape in a clean, safe and attractive condition."
This last stipulation has never been a problem, since the Karmans have a sprinkler system that can be set to water the couple's lawn daily.
But under new water restrictions imposed by the local water district, and agencies across much of the state, residents can water their yards only from 10 to 20 minutes every other day, depending on what type of sprinklers they have.
They are also asked to water only between 8 p.m. and 7 a.m.
The Karmans changed their watering habits in accordance with the new restrictions even before they took effect. Then came the brown spots. Then came the letter from the Redhawk Community Association, telling the Karmans they were in violation of the community's rules.
"I was actually shocked," said Karman, 49. "I thought it was very short-sighted. We were trying to be proactive."
Karman said she and her husband enjoy having a green yard but they also understand the importance of conservation.
"Maybe we should be more focused on our water supply than keeping our lawns lush and green in Southern California during July and August," she said.
Karman said she called the association to complain. She's not alone.
John Ellett, an official with Redhawk's property management company, said such complaints were common even before the new restrictions set in. Area water agencies throughout the region also reported hearing concerns from residents, some of whom would prefer a more California-friendly brand of landscaping, using plants that don't require as much water as lawns.
"We have been getting calls," said Peter Odencrans, a spokesman for the Eastern Municipal Water District based in Perris. "Some of them say they would like to get rid of their lawns and get something more appropriate, but they're not allowed."
Bill Stephens, a water resources planner at the Rancho California Water District, said the agency -- which covers Redhawk-- has gotten numerous calls from residents concerned that the restrictions make it impossible to keep their grass alive.
He said that's not the case. In many instances, the concerns come from people who overcorrect behavior and turn their sprinklers too low.
"They can have a healthy lawn with the water allocation they have," said Stephens, who said he routinely offers to give seminars on water-friendly landscaping.
Harry Garnett, vice president of the Redhawk Community Association's board and a resident of the development, said he has no problem keeping his lawn green under the current restrictions. He estimated that fewer than 5 percent of homes in Redhawk have brown spots or otherwise deteriorating lawns.
Garnett said the upkeep of homes is vital, especially during the current abysmal state of the region's housing market.
"It's the responsibility of the board to carry out the rules and regulations and see that they're enforced," Garnett said. "You're supposed to support the property values."
The Karman have not been fined, and Garnett said the association issues them only when the two sides can't reach an agreement over how to resolve an issue. Still, such brown-lawn violations can lead to monetary penalties.
Such punishment would be outlawed under a bill currently moving through the state Legislature.
"We realized this conflict was about to happen," said Assemblyman Ted Lieu, who introduced the legislation in February, as California entered its third year of drought.
The bill clarifies in state law that water conservation regulations take precedence over the bylaws of homeowners associations or any other common interest developments.
"There's some pretty restrictive rules about what people can do with their lawns," Lieu said. "We should allow people to go to more water-efficient lawns without being penalized by their HOA."
The bill has passed in the Assembly and needs approval in the Senate before Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger can sign it into law.
Garnett said he opposed the law, reasoning that people should not move to a neighborhood with a homeowners association if they don't like the accompanying rules.
Richard Monson, president of the California Association of Homeowners Associations, said he hasn't had any conversations with groups that have changed landscaping rules, or considered changing them, as a result of local water restrictions.
Monson said he hasn't seen clashes between rules and water consumption or any legal battles as a result, either.
But he said water is an issue for the associations.
"Everybody that owns property in California is aware of the water situation," Monson said. "It is amazing to me that that the number of houses that continue to be built when water is such a premium. ... As to the homeowners associations, water conservation is a primary concern."
Karman said she favors the bill, arguing that it would help residents keep their priorities straight at a time of dwindling water supplies.
"We want our house to look nice," she said. "But we want to be conscious of the environment."#
http://www.pe.com/localnews/politics/stories/PE_News_Local_S_waterwars11.405035d.html
A rivulet (actually, many of them) runs through it
L.A. Times-8/11/09
By Hector Tobar
Here in Los Angeles, we've paved over almost all of the coastal sagebrush, bulldozed hillsides, channeled our rivers and streams, and filled in our creek beds.
Mother Nature has taken a real beating. But she hasn't given up the fight.
In the middle of August, weeks after the last serious rain, she is sending pure, cool water flowing through the city of Los Angeles and environs. The fresh water runs in a handful of places as it has for centuries, in the perennial streams and riverbeds that soothed the thirst of Spanish explorers and settlers almost 300 years ago, and before them, the Tongva Indians.
Underneath the Westside traffic on Wilshire Boulevard, a small creek flows south. It's filled with groundwater that's percolated, very slowly, down from the Santa Monica Mountains. Near the corner of Wilshire and Barrington Avenue, the stream makes a right turn, then surges upward through an earthquake fault on the campus of University High School in Sawtelle.
Last week, I watched the water bubble up at a spring next to a school science building. At the bottom of a pond about 12 inches deep, I could see the water pushing up through sand, oozing like some Hollywood special effect.
"Seeing this is like a religious experience," said Jessica Hall, who writes for the “L.A. Creek Freak” blog.
Indeed, there was something miraculous about reaching down into a pool of water in the middle of L.A.'s urban sprawl, and then cupping my hand to take a drink. I felt transported in time to the unspoiled Los Angeles that was a little village surrounded by rivers that ran rocky and free.
I also got a taste, perhaps, of the Los Angeles of the future.
Before it was developed in the 20th century, the western half of Los Angeles was covered with streams, most of them tributaries of Ballona Creek. Hall, 41, is one of a small band of activists who are documenting that old watershed and trying to bring stretches of it back to life.
She can tell you where streams like the Flower Garden River used to flow. Or the Sacatela, which ran south from Los Feliz -- underneath the current location of the famous Shakespeare Bridge -- all the way to the Mid-Wilshire district.
Beneath the asphalt and concrete, Los Angeles is a city crisscrossed with dormant streams. Hall tracks their paths using old U.S. Geological Survey maps, aerial photographs and what she finds during long walks through the city.
"Los Angeles is a place that's been treated as if it were a blank slate, a place where you can build whatever you want," Hall said.
But the landscape still retains much of its original topography. It is still a creation of nature. And when the rains come, the water still pretty much follows the old paths.
"There's a beauty to accepting the place you live in and getting to know what makes it unique," Hall said.
Bits of these old streams still carry water in summer. Last week, I watched a creek cut through the Wilshire Country Club in Hancock Park. Through the fence at the golf course's southern boundary, near the intersection of 3rd Street and Hudson Avenue, the water empties into a concrete culvert, moving southward. This is the old Río del Jardin de las Flores, a stream that still flows through backyards in Brookside Estates.
When Hall first learned about the stream a decade ago, she was stunned. She had grown up in a South Bay suburb seemingly devoid of rivers, creeks and other wild things.
"I thought I knew L.A.," she remembered. "I thought: 'There's no streams in L.A.' " When she found the Río del Jardin de las Flores, it set her off on a quest in search of more rivers.
Eventually, her explorations led her to people like Angie Behrns, who can still remember what it was like to live in a city of untamed streams.
Behrns, 71, is from a family of Gabrielino Indians, another name for the Tongva people. The flowing water at the University High campus holds a special place in her memory. "This is part of my history," she told me when I visited the springs. "Four generations of my family have come here."
The Gabrielinos, she said, have always treasured the waters for their healing powers. She attended University High in the 1950s. And when she hurt her wrist playing volleyball there, her father told her: "Put your hand in those springs and you'll be cured."
The springs were once the site of a Gabrielino village. In August 1769, the Spanish explorers and missionaries led by Gaspar de Portola stopped there, finding "little houses roofed with grass," according to an expedition diary.
Today a huge Mexican cypress tree looms over the springs, which feed a pond and a small waterfall overlooking a softball field. About 22,000 gallons flow through the springs every day.
Spanish teacher Maria Lomeli says University High students often take sips from the waterfall after P.E. classes. The water then slips into a storm drain, working its way eventually into Ballona Creek and the Pacific.
But for the storm drain, the waters would flood the campus and many acres more in the surrounding neighborhood. That's why the little creek was channeled in the first place -- to drain the marshlands and create dry land for development.
Most of L.A.'s old, perennial streams were channeled into the concrete flood-control system in the last century. But their waters still make up at least part of that narrow trickle we see year-round in all the major rivers in the Los Angeles Basin, including Ballona Creek and the Los Angeles River.
These days a lot of people are hard at work restoring pieces of the Los Angeles River to their former natural glory. Hall showed me plans to "daylight" portions of Sacatela Creek, allowing it to run above ground through some of the most densely populated corners of the city.
"Daylighting" the Sacatela and a few streams more is an undeniably good idea. Let their waters flow and we will make Los Angeles a greener and more livable place. And we will be a step closer to the natural rhythms of that earthly paradise California once was, and might once again be.#
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-tobar11-2009aug11,0,692026.column
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