California Water Overhaul Caps Use

[stjr]

Coming to all fifty states sooner or later...

New York Times
November 5, 2009
California Water Overhaul Caps Use

By JENNIFER STEINHAUER
LOS ANGELES â€" California lawmakers on Wednesday approved a series of bills that would vastly overhaul the state’s troubled water system. The water package is the most comprehensive to emerge from the state since the 1960s, when California last upgraded its system for what was a far smaller population of users.

Prompted by a protracted drought â€" which has reduced water supply, harmed the fishing industry and contributed to crop loss â€" environmentalists and agricultural interests have agreed to broad concessions.

The plan calls for a comprehensive ecosystem restoration in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta â€" a collection of channels, natural habitats and islands at the confluence of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers that is a major source of the state’s drinking water.

It also calls for new dams, aggressive water conservation goals and the monitoring of groundwater use, which other Western states already do. And it paves the way for a new canal â€" once the third rail of California’s byzantine water politics â€" that would move water from the north of the state to the south.

The series of bills, which Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has said he will sign, include an $11.1 billion bond issue, which voters will be asked to approve next November. The rest of the roughly $40 billion project would be paid for by localities, largely through new user fees.

The pressing sense among lawmakers that they needed to do something other than oversee the nation’s largest budget crisis provided Mr. Schwarzenegger with one of his largest â€" and most likely final â€" policy victories as governor.

“This is the most comprehensive water resources action that California has taken since the state water project in the ’60s,” said Richard Little, the director of the Keston Institute for Public Finance and Infrastructure Policyat the University of Southern California. “First of all, there is so much in it,” Mr. Little said. “And for the first time, they are tying ecosystem enhancement and environmental restoration directly to the infrastructure.

“Before, we always planned the projects and then mitigated the impacts,” he said. “Now it is all on coequal footing.”

Many environmentalists still believe that the bill’s penalties for misusing the water supply do not go far enough. But they won oversight of the ailing estuary, checks and balances on future dams and some mild penalties for failures to conserve water. Local agencies will also monitor groundwater.

Republicans in the state’s Central Valley, who object to water restrictions and always push for more conveyance from the north to the south, also had to back down. “This is a huge step forward for California,” said Laura Harnish, the regional director for the Environmental Defense Fund. “It marks big progress toward managing our water supply and ecosystem in a 21st-century manner.”

Oversight of the Delta canal “has been resisted for a number of years for political reasons,” she said. “We think today, that if there is a canal that is going to come, it is going to be of a size and operated in a manner that” environmental groups could tolerate.

Water usage has been at the center of a statewide battle for decades, particularly concerning the delta, which is near collapse because of overpumping. Further, a three-year drought and a federal order last year forcing water authorities to curtail the use of large pumps in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to help preserve dying smelt has reduced water flows to agriculture and resulted in dust-bowl-like conditions for many farms.

In 2008, more than 100,000 acres of the 4.7 million in the Central Valley were left unplanted. Additionally, environmental problems in the Sacramento River have resulted in a collapse of the Chinook salmon population, closing salmon season off the coast of California and much of Oregon for two years in a row.

At the same time, the state has not built any new water infrastructure in years, even as the state’s population has increased, making it harder to move water north to south â€" the goal of proponents of a new canal â€" and to capture excess water in wet years to use in dry years.

Collecting data on groundwater levels â€" which many rural constituents have resisted because they fear such monitoring will lead to new restrictions and penalties â€" is likely to help the state better manage both water supply and the problems that can be caused by overuse of that groundwater.

However, the state will not be doing the monitoring, as environmentalists and the Schwarzenegger administration sought; it will be done by the local water authorities, and refusal to go along could result in the loss of local bond money.

Environmentalists also sought hard penalties on what they call “illegal diversions” of water, but that move proved too controversial among Democratic and Republican lawmakers, who threatened to bring down the whole package over its inclusion.

The administration now has to sell large bond offerings to the California public, which may be wary of taking on new debt at a time of great fiscal crisis. But such a move may presage other efforts to fix areas of the state’s infrastructure beyond its ailing water system.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/us/05water.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

[fsu813]

water restrictions or a progressive water unit rate/tax should be in place everywhere.

[mtraininjax]

From Littlepage in the TU, 11/5:

Drill, baby, drill may not be the only chant heard in Tallahassee next spring.

A cry of slurp, baby, slurp may be echoing through the halls of the capitol as well.

You may remember that six years ago the top movers and shakers in Florida’s business world pushed a plan that would have taken water from what’s usually described as “sleepy” North Florida and piped it to the overdeveloped areas of South and Central Florida.

That idea and the Council of 100, which promoted it, got pummeled in the ensuing debate and the proposal was dropped.

But, according to a report in the St. Petersburg Times last week, it could very well be back.

The Times said that a staff report from the state Senate Environment Preservation Committee says it’s time to “establish a central regulatory commission that oversees Florida’s water resources and supply development.”

The Times also reported that the Council of 100, those movers and shakers who have advised the state’s governors on what’s best for business in Florida since 1961, has a new draft report saying, “People are asking whether it’s time to consider the creation of a state-level water supply entity.”

That could mean the establishment of a non-elected commission with statewide authority or even a water czar who would decide who gets the state’s water.

The likely result: The have-nots of South and Central Florida would take from the haves, North Florida, to continue fueling growth there.

The conspiracy minded might point out that the Legislature already has taken a step in this direction when it gutted the power of the state’s water management district boards and put the decision making on water use permits solely in the hands of the districts’ executive directors.

They might also point to a push by the St. Johns River Water Management District to build 500 miles of pipeline to move water, including taking water from the Ocklawaha River and sending it to Orlando.

North Florida had better gird for battle once again if it wants to protect its water resources that are just as important to economic development here.

Why can’t the Council of 100 and legislators enamored with this idea get it through their heads that there is a better way to meet the state’s water needs without spending billions of dollars to move water from one part of the state to another.

It’s called conservation.

It’s been shown that population growth doesn’t have to mean more water is needed.

Conservation measures such as not pouring potable water on landscaping and using water more efficiently can reduce water usage even as population grows.

Smart business leaders and legislators should put their efforts there. It’s less costly and not likely to start a water war.

Of course, the state could be really forward thinking and take steps to control growth in areas where the natural resources aren’t available to support it.

OK. Quit chuckling. I know that’s not going to happen, but water conservation can.

[Captain Zissou]

Conservation measures such as not pouring potable water on landscaping and using water more efficiently can reduce water usage even as population grows.

Smart business leaders and legislators should put their efforts there. It’s less costly and not likely to start a water war.

This is the most obvious solution that never catches on.  Stop pouring drinking water on our lawns!! Use gray water and save the drinking water for use indoors.

[Ocklawaha]

PICTURES, To make this easy to "read" for our leaders in Tallahassee.


Owens River, eastern CA, circa 1900


The River meets Owens Lake, circa 1900


Owens Lake, circa 1900


Los Angeles DWP, plan to move the Owens water south for city growth


Building the Owens River - Los Angeles Aquaduct


The Aquaduct today


Owens Lake, May 15, 2003

ANY QUESTIONS TALLAHASSEE? IDIOTS!

OCKLAWAHA