WATER

By Dan McCrory

Solutions for our ongoing water problems will come from a variety of sources.

In 2000, California alone accounted for almost 11 percent of all fresh water used in the United States. California accounts for 22% of all the water used for irrigation (some 10 million acres). Florida, another large agricultural area, has more summer rainfall than we do. According to the US government fresh water use was broken down this way:

Irrigation: 40 percent
Thermoelectric power: 39 percent
Public Supply: 13 percent
Industry: 5 percent
Livestock, aquaculture: less than 1 percent
Domestic (self-supplied): 1 percent
Mining: 1 percent

On January 29th, 2008, Lester Snow, the Director of the California Department of Water Resources, addressed the House Subcommittee on Water and Power in Washington, D.C., and explained a number of factors that were endangering the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, which he called "the lifeblood of California's water supply." Those factors included climate change with an increase in peak river flows, rising sea levels, and a reduction in Sierra snowpack. Governor Schwarzenegger's Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force formulated a variety of recommendations called the "Delta Plan." The Delta Plan recommendations will be funded by revenues from the sale of $11.9 billion in general obligation bonds and will address such measures as water conservation promotion ($3.1 billion), and $1.1 billion for "water quality improvement, which will fund local wastewater treatment projects also referred to, I believe, as "toilet to tap," and includes grants to storm water reclamation projects, a laudable effort to capture more of our storm water runoff that ends up in our oceans. Another $1.1 billion is earmarked for water resources stewardship, including funding for Klamath River restoration, Salton Sea restoration, restoration actions on the San Joaquin River, and money to supplement successful restoration projects on the Sacramento River and its tributaries, as well as in the Delta.

How will this impact our water supplies and help us parcel out water equitably for a variety of needs? Statewide, approximately 80 percent of developed water in California is used by irrigated agriculture. Over the next 30 years, as cities, suburbs and rural communities continue to grow, a slight reduction in the agricultural proportion is expected. Some of this reduction is attributable to the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which will be taking a greater share of State Water Project (SWP) supplies, leaving less available for the SWP's agricultural contractors. In addition, agricultural districts are finding that they can improve water-use efficiency using, for instance, drip irrigation or switching to crops that use less water. Some of them have profited from this strategy by selling or leasing un-needed water for urban use or to provide environmental benefits. In fact, there's war brewing between organizations that represent farmers and the farmers themselves over whose right it is to sell this water and for how much.

Since the late 1970s, surprisingly, urban water use has increased only moderately as urban agencies throughout the state have found new ways to provide safe, clean and reliable water supplies for their constituents. Increasingly, these agencies are turning from remote dams and reservoirs to a host of other alternatives that are more cost-effective, more reliable, and usually more environmentally friendly. They include building local reservoirs to store water, promoting conservation, desalination, wastewater reclamation, and, in partnership with agricultural districts, using transfers and exchanges to meet demand.

The state's California Water Plan is published every five years, (the last in 2005), and, as we know, a lot can happen in five years. In the meantime there are a variety of think tanks and other organizations who are analyzing water issues and offering solutions. Pacific Institute is one of them. Their report, "California Water 2030: An Efficient Future," posits through a series of formulas that it's possible to save 20% of California's water by 2030 without, they state, "new inventions or serious hardships." They suggest implementing new water-efficiency standards on appliances, rebates for buying those appliances, and an expansion of more efficient irrigation methods in agriculture, to name a few. The report is available without charge from the Pacific Institute's website, (http://www.pacinst.org/reports/california_water_2030) and can also be ordered in hard-copy by contacting publications@pacinst.org. The website contains other reports of interest on this topic, indicating a breadth of extensive research. Once elected, I plan to introduce legislation to implement a number of their suggestions.

I'm also interested in innovations presented by the TreePeople organization. From their website: In cities across the U.S. there is often an abundance of hard pavement accompanied by a lack of trees. Together, these conditions create an environment that cannot capture storm water. Instead, storm water runoff flows across hard surfaces and into rivers, lakes and oceans, picking up trash, pet waste, pesticides and other pollutants along the way.

Through demonstration sites that use best management practices (BMPs) to collect and treat storm water onsite, TreePeople is advocating for a citywide system of cisterns and infiltrators to help capture storm water runoff and recharge the natural, underground aquifer -- just like a mature oak tree. This innovation also reduces the amount of pollution that reaches our waterways. Their BMPs could also:

• Decrease our dependence on imported water by 50% and still keep the city green;
• Reduce the threat of flooding and the quantity of toxic runoff to beaches and the ocean;
• Cut the flow of solid waste to landfills by 30%
• Improve air and water quality;
• Decrease our energy dependence; and
• Beautify neighborhoods in ways that would create up to 50,000 new jobs.