Department of Water Resources
California Water News
A daily compilation for DWR personnel of significant news articles and comment
September 1, 2009
1. Top Items–
Water negotiations moving ahead in Capitol
Capitol Weekly
State's water issues to take center stage
Ventura County Star
Debt delusions
Riverside Press-Enterprise
Begin repairing Delta with or without approval of new dams
Oakland Tribune
Sometimes, oil, water don’t mix
Santa Maria Times
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Water negotiations moving ahead in Capitol
Capitol Weekly-8/31/09
By John Howard
Negotiations over a massive overhaul of California's water system picked up steam Monday in the Capitol amid an array of meetings that included a closed-door briefing for lawmakers by the Schwarzenegger administration's top water officials.
The final proposal, an historic attempt to achieve a compromise in the state's seemingly endless water wars, is intended to be completed by the end of this week, with floor votes next week, said sources in both houses and participants in the discussions.
They face a ticking clock: The Legislature adjourns for the year on Sept. 11.
Ultimately, the plan is envisioned as providing environmental protections to the delta east of San Francisco, a canal through or around the delta to move more Northern California water to the south, new storage structures, perhaps even reservoirs, and major conservation programs.
Environmentalists are opposed to the reservoirs, but the Schwarzenegger administration and the construction industry view them favorably. Fishing interests and delta partisans oppose any plan that does not contain ironclad environmental protections for the delta, and environmentalists support conservation programs.
Southern California water interests, Central Valley farmers and hundreds of public water agencies tend to favor construction of the capital projects. There has been limited environmental support for the canal, but strong support for conservation.
The Legislature's Latino Caucus favors a water system overhaul that includes a canal and new construction - adding a new political dimension to the negotiations. The active participation of the Latino Caucus is a departure from earlier years.
Agreement on financing for the programs remains elusive.
There may be a multibillion-dollar bond package requiring voter approval, a mechanism called "continuous appropriation" in which money automatically is directed to the water system year-by-year and a system in which big customers - the water and irrigation districts - are charged fees on a sliding scale.
The dollars involved are huge: Estimates vary wildly, but a canal alone could cost $5 billion to $10 billion, or more, and reservoirs carry similar price tags. Last year, California voters rejected nearly $10 billion in water bonds.
A poll released by EMC Research showed nearly half of those surveyed opposed bonds for new reservoirs, and perhaps a third voice opposition to the construction of a canal. The survey was conducted by telephone Aug. 23-27 of 800 people. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.45 percent. The poll was commissioned by Restore the Delta, an environmental group.
A sticking point in the water discussions is the creation of a two-house conference committee to write the legislation. Sources in both houses said the committee likely will be composed of 10 or 12 members, instead of the usual six members, three from each house.
The names of the committee members have not been announced, although they are expected to include Assembly members Jean Fuller, R-Bakersfield; Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael; and Anna Caballero, D-Salinas. On the Senate side, the members may include Democratic Sens. Gil Cedillo or Alex Padilla of Los Angeles, and Fran Pavley of Agoura Hills.#
http://www.capitolweekly.net/article.php?xid=y8ja4a4mwzxpln#
State's water issues to take center stage
Ventura County Star-9/1/09
By Audra Strickland
Opinion
Those of us in Southern California know that any time is the right time to conserve water. However, state lawmakers’ recent focus on the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta reinforces the need for water conservation.
Global experts at Goldman Sach’s “Top Five Risks” Conference stated a catastrophic water shortage could be a bigger threat to mankind this century than soaring food prices and the exhaustion of energy resources. In light of the ongoing drought in California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and lawmakers have stated their intent to make water issues a top priority for the coming months.
For many years now, state legislators have glazed over the reality that our traditional water sources are in peril and ignored the urgent need to address the immediate water crisis. Today, California is experiencing the effects of several years of below-average rainfall, low snowmelt runoff and severe cutbacks in water deliveries due to recent court decisions and regulatory actions related to the Endangered Species Act.
California has faced droughts before, but not under such extreme conditions. According to the governor, last spring was the driest ever in our recorded history. The persistent hydrologic drought, coupled with the imposed “regulatory drought” (pumping restrictions in the Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta), dictates that now, more than ever, we work together to do all within our power to conserve water.
However, conserving water doesn’t just mean turning off the tap when you are brushing your teeth and running full loads of laundry. It also means using our ingenuity to preserve and protect this vital resource, improving our state’s infrastructure and improving the quality of our water, and making much-needed recycled water available to us.
Since we haven’t discovered a way to make it rain, we need to take steps to protect the water we have. That is why it is imperative for the state Legislature to pass Assembly Bill 1366 (authored by Assembly Members Mike Feuer, Anna Caballero and Audra Strickland). This measure would improve the quality of recycled water and remove some of the barriers to its use.
AB1366 provides local communities the ability to reduce the salinity in the water supply, but only upon approval by the city council to implement such action. The increasing concentration of salts in our watersheds, due to municipal and agricultural activities, degrades our local water resources. Salts are as much a concern for water suppliers worldwide than any contaminant, if not more so.
Broad support of AB1366 by area water providers, including the Calleguas Municipal Water District — Ventura County’s primary urban water supplier — is a testament to this reality.
AB1366 will allow local communities to decide whether to target certain types of inefficient water softeners that leech salt into our rivers, streams and groundwater basins, which degrades water quality for both urban and agricultural water users.
Such action is particularly essential in Ventura County where groundwater supplies play a critical role in meeting regional water demands. Significant public investments in water storage programs, including Calleguas Municipal Water District’s Las Posas Basin Aquifer Storage and Recovery Project in Moorpark, underscore the need for us to do more to protect and preserve these vital resources.
Everyone feels the impacts of a drought. Our farmers need water to grow their crops and that competes with our business and residential household needs. As water resources become scarce, the price of produce goes up and affects everything else down the line.
But the importance of water does not end with farmers. Dry seasons make our state especially prone to fire disasters, as we are witnessing. Because of this reality, we need to have an abundant source of water so that firefighters can do their job effectively. We here in Ventura County know how prone we are to very dry seasons, so the shortage of water is very much also a public-safety issue.
Water conservation will continue to be an issue as California’s population continues to grow at a very rapid rate, especially in the drier inland areas. Our communities are growing and using water faster than it can be replenished.
If there ever was a time to genuinely change our collective behavior and conserve water, it is now. It is also time for the Legislature to make fundamental changes to state policy as to both how we conserve our precious water resources and stabilize the integrity of the state’s water storage and delivery system, beginning with the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
The water crisis didn’t just materialize. It has been decades in the making and it is essential that we now take bold action to restore water-supply reliability. The time is now. And this cliché has never been more apropos.#
Audra Strickland, R-Moorpark, represents the 37th Assembly District, and Donald R. Kendall, Ph.D., P.E., is general manager of Calleguas Municipal Water District.
http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2009/sep/01/states-water-issues-to-take-center-stage/
Debt delusions
Riverside Press-Enterprise-8/31/09
Editorial
A flood of red ink is the wrong solution to California's water woes, particularly in the middle of a financial crisis. The state should not pursue borrowing more money for water needs when it faces huge budget shortfalls and has yet to settle basic water policy questions.
Make no mistake: The state's water system badly needs official attention. The environmental decline of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta has endangered a water supply that reaches two-thirds of the state's population and irrigates millions of acres of agriculture. And long-term climate forecasts say California will need to collect more winter rains instead of relying on mountain snowpacks to store the water until the hot summer months.
But rushing to borrow more money now is the wrong approach to those issues. Assemblywoman Anna Caballero, D-Salinas, last week announced plans for an $11.7 billion water bond for the 2010 ballot. The details are still vague, but the bond would apparently provide money for a variety of projects, including water storage, cleanup, recycling and conservation.
The timing is simply wrong, however. The Legislature wrestled with a $40 billion budget shortfall in February, and a $25 billion gap in July. Even then, legislators left the state with a deficit for the next fiscal year of at least $7 billion to $8 billion, and probably exceeding $10 billion. And the state's legislative analyst projects that large shortfalls will persist for years.
Adding another $11.7 billion in debt would add hundreds of millions of dollars in yearly interest payments, which the state would repay out of its deficit-ridden general fund. The state paid about $4.4 billion from the general fund in 2007-08 for debt service on infrastructure bonds.
But the legislative analyst says that once the state markets all the bonds that remain unsold, annual debt payments would hit $9.2 billion in 2017-18 -- a figure representing about 10 percent of current-year general fund spending.
Additional borrowing is also premature when the state has not even spent all the money from previous water bonds. Including what the state proposes to spend this year, California has nearly $4 billion in existing water-related bond money available. So why the haste to borrow more?
Nor is there any reason to hurry when the Legislature has not even resolved the stickiest issues of state water policy. The state needs to find ways to protect the delta ecology without stopping water exports to the rest of the state.
But there is precious little consensus on what the state should do. Any water discussions have been hamstrung for years by a legislative standoff over proposals for new dams.
Ensuring a reliable, sufficient water supply for the state's future will take public investment, certainly. But success in public investment requires a sound strategy, not a rush to fund some unspecified projects with borrowing the state cannot afford.#
Begin repairing Delta with or without approval of new dams
Oakland Tribune-8/31/09
Editorial
California has procrastinated far too long on a comprehensive effort to repair a degraded Delta ecosystem, rebuild decaying levees and assure thirsty farmers and urban residents of an adequate and reliable supply of water.
Fortunately, there has not been a severe drought in recent years. Even so, the Delta has suffered sharp declines in several species of fish, water deliveries have been cut back and levees continue to weaken.
A drought like the one in the late 1970s could raise salinity levels in the Delta to unacceptable levels and result in even more reductions of fresh water supplies. A major winter storm could undermine and destroy levees, causing significant flooding and possible disruption of water deliveries.
Fixing the Delta's major problems is a difficult and expensive task that could cost up to $54 billion, according to consulting economist Steven Kasower.
With the state's continuing budget crisis, a steep recession and endless political squabbling, progress on salvaging the Delta and serving the 24 million Californians who depend on it is a daunting challenge. But the state's future depends on finding a solution, or at least, beginning work on one soon.
There are three critical elements toward fixing the Delta: Enough fresh water must flow through the estuary to maintain an environment in which fish and other wildlife can recover and thrive.
No matter what is decided upon how water will be delivered — through current pumping, a canal or a tunnel — adequate flows of fresh water must be devoted to ecological balance of the Delta.
Levees must be repaired. There are hundreds of miles of earthen levees that have deteriorated over the years. Continued subsidence of land has weakened the base of levees. The most vulnerable need to be strengthened now before there is a disaster.
Deliveries of fresh water for agricultural and urban use must be reliable even in dry years. It may be that there will be less water available and that greater conservation efforts, particularly on farms, will be needed. But all users should be able to count on consistent deliveries of water, even if it means paying a higher price.
Meeting these three needs will require extensive levee work and a means to deliver a reliable supply of water in a way that does not harm fish and is not vulnerable to an earthquake or flooding.
Fixing the levees will be costly, but there is little political disagreement that they must be improved and maintained.
How to deliver water is far more problematical. Those who opposed the Peripheral Canal back in 1982 understandably are wary of building an aqueduct around the Delta or a tunnel under it.
We believe a tunnel, at an estimated cost of $33 billion, is far too expensive and should be dismissed as an option. But a modest aqueduct that would not dramatically increase water delivery to south of the Delta deserves consideration as long as there are guarantees of a minimum year-round flow of water into the Delta to maintain its ecology.
The key to success in solving all of the Delta's problems is water storage in new or enlarged reservoirs not just in underground aquifers. That is why Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is so adamant about building new dams and has threatened to veto any water plan that does not include them.
Greater water storage is essential to make enough water available — primarily for the Delta environment — and for agriculture and urban use in dry periods.
We agree with the governor about the need for more aboveground storage. But he should not allow a veto to kill other aspects of fixing the Delta.
Levee projects should not be delayed by an impasse over reservoirs, nor should a veto undermine monitoring aquifers and increasing conservation. It is crucial to at least get started on work to fix the Delta, with or without quick approval of dams.
We trust that as time goes on the need for new or larger reservoirs will become more evident. That is especially true if global warming raises sea levels and reduces the Sierra snow pack.#
http://www.insidebayarea.com/opinion/ci_13238967
Sometimes, oil, water don’t mix
Santa Maria Times-9/1/09
Editorial
Santa Barbara County has a bit of a split personality when it comes to offshore oil development.
On the one hand, the Board of Supervisors today is expected to sign off on a letter to the U.S. Interior Department opposing a federal scheme to open large areas of the Pacific Ocean to more oil and gas development — possibly a lot more development.
On the other hand, these same local officials enthusiastically endorsed a recent proposal for a slant-drilling operation within sight of the coast.
A casual observer might conclude that supervisors are suffering from a bad case of hypocrisy, backing one oil development plan, but opposing others.
There are, however, significant differences in the competing plans — differences that could affect local residents far into the future.
The slant-drilling deal was shot down by the state Legislature as part of the highly politicized budget agreement process.
In doing so, lawmakers deprived California and Santa Barbara County of a significant source of revenue and other perks, in exchange for a single project that would not change, even a little, the ocean vistas from shore, and that would have had minimal effects on the local environment, in large part because most of the industrial infrastructure is already in place.
Here’s how good the slant-drilling plan really was — it was endorsed by a wide range of local groups and organizations, including the Environmental Defense Center, Get Oil Out, and the Citizens Planning Association.
Even mentioning the names of those groups with any effort to increase offshore oil development is almost unbelievable, and speaks to the efficacy of the proposal.
The bottom line is that these ardently anti-oil folks understood the benefits of the slant-drilling offer, both in terms of dollars and cents, and in common sense — as in, approving the proposal would not have done any harm to the local ecology, while bringing hundreds of millions in revenues to a county that desperately needs the money.
Instead, mostly because of the politics involved, Central Coast residents now face the prospect of large-scale oil and gas development in federal waters, if the plan endorsed and made possible last year by the Bush administration is carried out.
What is now a Santa Barbara Channel dotted with a handful of oil rigs, could become a massive fossil-fuel-extracting energy farm.
And where that slant-drilling notion would have been supported by existing off and onshore infrastructure, if the feds carry out a plan to sell those remaining lease plots, up to 130 million acres of California’s coastline could be vulnerable to construction needed to support the oil and gas extraction effort.
Think Chevron’s huge Point Arguello processing facility on the Gaviota Coast, vastly multiplied.
The Central Coast needed the revenue from that single development proposal — it doesn’t need what could turn out to be runaway growth of the oil business in California. We’ve been through that in the past. It was not pleasant, and the industry left lasting scars on the environment.
It should be clear to everyone by now — at least to those who have actually enjoyed the coast and its many wonders — that our beaches and rocky coastline are among this state’s most important assets, a treasured franchise to be protected, not exploited for profit.
The Board of Supervisors doesn’t need to waste a lot of its time today talking about whether to send that letter to the Interior Department.
Take a quick vote to send that letter of protest to the feds. We recommend sending it Express Mail.#
http://www.santamariatimes.com/articles/2009/09/01/opinion/090109a.txt
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