Story on CA Water Conservation (Aub Jnl)

[Tracy Chimenti]

Sticking Inland California Residents with the Water Bill

It is vital that state lawmakers craft, in an open and deliberative way, legislation that will help ensure a more reliable water supply for residents, farmers, fishermen, and job-creating business owners. However, the California Legislature has, too often in the past, enacted simplistic, top-down laws that caused more harm than good.

During the contentious and complex water debate that has taken place over the last month, not enough attention has been paid to the inequitable and impractical 20% water conservation mandate that first appeared in AB 49 (Feuer) and is now included in draft amendments to SB 68 (Steinberg), as circulated by his staff. There is no debate about the need for properly aligning incentives to ensure that residents, business owners and farmers use water efficiently. In my first job out of college, I worked as a water conservation coordinator for the City of Ontario in Southern California. I visited homeowners and helped them save water in smart and practical ways.

But SB 68 is incredibly unfair to those who live in the hotter and drier inland areas of the state. The bill would ultimately force most water agencies in Northern and Inland California to raise water rates and/or ration water to their homeowner and small business customers while those who live in coastal communities would make little or no sacrifice. It is as if those who live in the inland areas are being blamed for the problems in the Delta.

How would this occur? The bill contains a loophole large enough for the Delta King to steam through. While SB 68 mandates that most water agencies in the state set water use targets that reduce per capita use by 10% by the end of 2015 and 20% by the end of 2020, Section 10608.22 of the bill provides a huge loophole for communities on the coast. According to an analysis by the Placer County Water Agency (PCWA) of the draft language that will be included in SB 68, San Franciscans would likely be exempt from the 20% water conservation mandate altogether since Section 10608.22 provides a exemption for any agency with a residential per capital use of 100 gallons per day or less. According PCWA also, estimates based on draft water conservation targets developed by the Department of Water Resources (DWR), that residents in the large cities of Los Angeles and Long Beach would be required to cut their water use by only 5% by 2020. In contrast, cities in much hotter and drier climates, like Sacramento and Fresno would have to comply with the stringent 20% standard. Placer County, where I live, would be in the same boat. Is there power politics at work? This is outrageously unfair. With huge exemptions for some of our state’s largest cities, how would the state as a whole achieve the 20% water conservation goal by 2020? Wouldn’t a greater burden eventually fall on the inland cities and counties to make the 2020 deadline?

To meet stringent 20% water conservation standard, many water agencies will have to either massively lower demand by raising customer waters rate by 20%, 30%, or 40% or more or by rationing. This is unfair to water agencies that already have strong, built-in incentives to improve water efficiency. Take the case of Placer County. The five elected members and professional staff of the Placer County Water Agency (PCWA) have poured tens of millions of dollars into enhancing the local water supply and increasing water efficiency. If the elected directors don’t do a good job in conserving water, they get thrown out of office. PCWA has a number of programs and rebates to encourage the installation of water efficient washing machines, toilets and irrigation systems.

The top-down 20% conservation mandate may be impractical. Article XIIIB of the California Constitution (Proposition 21 prohibits a water agency from imposing water rates that are greater than the costs of providing the water service. Does the author of SB 68 expect water agencies to achieve the 20% conservation mandate through permanent rationing? The next thing you know, we will have the Water Police patrolling our neighborhoods. There has got to be a better way.

On October 5, Senator Steinberg briefed a number of city council members and county supervisors who serve on the Sacramento Area Council of Governments (SACOG) on the provisions of SB 68. I appreciated his willingness to take the time to brief us and to take our questions. Several SACOG members raised important questions about how SB 68 would effect Sacramento and the Delta counties. I joined my colleague Lincoln City Council member Cosgrove in raising questions about the fairness and practicality of the 20% conservation mandate. I believe that a better approach is for each water agency to implement Best Management Practices or BMPs to ensure that all of us use this precious resource wisely. Instead of more top-down mandates from the state, let’s hold our locally elected water agency officials accountable for ensuring a reliable water supply and investments to increase water efficiency every year.

Kevin Hanley serves on the Auburn City Council and on the Sacramento Area Council of Governments.

[Bob Loblaw]

I don't buy the "hotter drier part of the state" as an excuse for using 288 gallons of water per capita per day. You don't drink 230 gallons of water more than a San Franciscan, you should take the same number of showers, wash your car the same number of times, do laundry the same...so what is the reason for the extra 230 or so gallons per day used by Sacramento area residents compared to San Francisco area residents?

Its simple, in the Sacramento Area (and a lot of other parts of the state...I'm targetting Sacramento becasue DWR says they are the heaviest users) people take our most precious natural resource, fresh clean water from our lakes streams and rivers, and they spray it all over stuff called grass because it looks nice in front of their house. Complete Lunacy.

Thats the big difference between urban water users and rural/suburban users and coastal/inland. Everyone in suburban California seems to want a nice green English country garden and screw the consequences. In the summer where I live in the East Bay, we get plenty of 90 plus and 100 degree plus days and people have their sprinklers on blasting fresh water that had been in the delta the day before all over their driveway and sidewalk...and some of it on their lawn too. Its criminal and should be either punished by way of pricing mandates or outlawed altogether.

If we are to get serious about water conservation we need to set a per capita baseline allowance for domestic users and when you go over that allowance you are penalized. We could even institute a cap and trade system where frugal conservationists could trade their water savings to the stupid grass growers at a premium.

I don't think local control of a state resource is a practical solution. Our water supply system is multi jurisdictional and needs state control. If we let places like Sacramento, that until recently didn't even see the need for water meters, dictate water conservation policy we will go nowhere.

This is from PCWA's website.

Water Use: How Do We Compare?

Personal water use in the average urban home supplied by PCWA is about 239 gallons per
capita per day (gpcd). This is according to a recent water efficiency report to the agency based on
data compiled by the Sacramento Water Forum.
This local usage compares to 273 gallons per capita in the City of Roseville and the average
287 gpcd in the greater Sacramento metropolitan region.
The per capita California average is 164 gallons, with San Francisco at 97 gallons and Los
Angeles at 138 gallons.
Average per capita usage in the U.S. is 147 gallons. This compares to 196 gpcd in Canada,
127 gpcd in Australia, 98 gpcd in Japan, 41 gpcd in Germany and 31 gpcd in the United Kingdom.


If the Germans and British can survive on 41 and 31 gallons per day per person, why the heck does anyone in Placerville need 239 gallons????? what the heck are they doing with it all???? People need to get serious about conservation and in California we are a long way from serious.

[Tracy Chimenti]

I with you on the meters. Sad but necessary. Metered water is the rule in Placer County for treated water. Same with Roseville and Rocklin.

Sacramento has until 2025 and I'm sure there will be a huge cut in water use by then.
Tracy

[Darian]

Bob,.... Making the comparisons between areas that you point out is comparing apples to oranges. I would point out some of the differences but I'm not sure you're really hearing any of it. You appear to be listening but only for the opportunity to jump in with your predetermined idea of constructing the PC at any cost. Unfortunately, much of that is supported by cloudy, emotional statements and scare tactics. For example, whether you're aware of it or not, meters have been or are being installed in the area I live in (mid-town Sacto) for a couple of years, now.

Something that makes me curious is why you make no mention of conservation by agri-business in the southern San Joaquin. If I recall correctly, they receive fully 85% of all water withdrawn from the Delta. So, how does that stack up against the gallons of water used per day by San Francisco users It makes about as much sense the other comparisons you've made....

At any rate, I'm done with this discussion....

[Bob Loblaw]

Darian, Sorry you feel the conversation is getting testy, I was feeling it was just starting to get interesting, thats the problem with internet debates sometimes.

Anyway, I don't think we have an apples to oranges situation here. The climate where I live in the East Bay is not that different from Sacramento yet we use a fraction of the water, same of Los Angeles...which has a higher annual mean temperature and is just as dry....yet they use far less water.

But for the sake of argument lets try and find a Sacramento like apple. Zaragoza, Spain, is of similar size to Sacramento, an almost identical Mediterranean climate, its on a flood plain with a big river surrounded by agricultural land...an apple to Sacramento's apple if ever there was one. The people of Zaragoza Spain use 90 liters of water a day thats 23 gallons.. Thats less than one tenth the water that people in Sacramento use (288gallons per day) yet they are both apples. You can't look at those numbers and say that a measly 20% reduction from 288 gallons to 230 gallons...still wayyyy above the state average and still 10 times as much as the people of hot dry Zaragoza, Spain, is too much to ask. Council Member Hanley is playing to the home crowd and should know better.

Until we as individual water users take responsibility for our own profligate use and waste of water its not going to be easy for us to make similar demands of farmers....on that note I do one to correct one error in your last post. If you check the record I think you'll se that I have more than once called for the banning of flood irrigation by farmers, the banning of water hungry crops like cotton and rice and the production of things like industrial hemp which will grow in California with very little water and it makes better jeans than cotton....so I don't think I can be called a shill for the farmers.

As for cloudy emotional statements, I have to disagree. We know an earthquake is coming, thats not cloudy or emotional, we know the levees are very vulnerable, not cloudy or emotional either, and we know that if they collapse salt water will rush into the aqueduct intakes and pollute the state's water supply...nothing cloudy or emotional about that either.

The main thrust of my argument about wasteful domestic users is that until we address that problem its very hard to point fingers at farmers. I agree with you 110% that if you focus solely on domestic users you are playing in the margins. IN terms of net water use, households use a less than 10% of the state supply and farms about 80%. The really big meaningful savings can only come from the reform of how we farm and how farms get their water, however, when we stop growing blue fescue on the lawns of suburbia we can then ask the farmers to stop growning cotton in Kern. When we start paying a fair price for water it will give us just cause to ask farmers to do the same.

when you give something away for free or greatly undervalue it with subsididies, people treat it as worthless. Thats how Californians treat water. Its cheap, or its free and I don't care how much I use or what I use it for. When you start making people pay for every gallon, when you attach value to water, watch demand plummet. Same for farmers. As soon as they have to pay fair market value for water they'll stop flood irrigation and rice production and then, and only then, will you see a meaningful drop in demand for delta water.

[Tracy Chimenti]

If a levee did fail-- which they will always exist down there... couldn't they just shut the system and use water from lakes like Castiac, Pryamid, etc-- lakes that remained full of CWP water during the last drought? I know alot of farms would fail that season. Also, we would be able to obtain emergency water from the Colorado, while Halliburton, et.a fixes the mess!

Bob-- What about all of these new nut groves going in... how much water will it take as they mature?

I wish they would just tell us "We don't really care about your fish. Food, development, and people are more important." This instead of telling us everything's going to be just fine because this facitly is going to be different!

[Bob Loblaw]

All of the studies I've seen relating to levee failure in the delta point to a cataclysmic event. When one levee failes the pressure exerted on neighboring levees will be too great for them to withstand and you get a domino effect. Even is a levee does hold for a period of time, it will now be surrounded by other failed levees and open water like Frank's Tract. That open water will lead to increased wind and wave pounding of surrounding levees until they eventually fail too.

If there's an event in the Delta its highly likely that we'll see systemic levee failure and a complete collapse of the system with salt water rushing into the system as far as Stockton, Courtland and perhaps beyond. This will completely overwhelm the fresh water conveyance system and forve the shutting down of the aqueducts and pumps.

This is a question for the water math geeks and I'm not qualified to answer it, but I'd doubt that Southern California has enough off stream storage to survive long enough to reconstruct a water conveyance system around the ruins of the delta. That would take several years and Pyramid and Castaic and Hughes just aren't that big. Of course they get water from the Owens and the Colorado too, but not nearly enough to survive without delta water.

I'm not sure where you're going with the nut tree thing. I've laready stated I'm no fan of big ag's water use practices.

Of course they don't care about fish. Nobody in their right mind would put Striped bass or Salmon ahead of their own water security. Would you?

People are always going to come before fish. You can argue the ethics of that all day and night, but its a fact all the arguing in the world will never change. What we need is to construct a solution that provides sufficient fresh water to people and implement policies that forces them to change their water waste habits. we need a solution that allows for agriculture in the valley, but not the sort of agriculture that allows for rice growing in what is effectively a desert. Farmers can do just fine growing less water needy crops and we should force them to do so by law if necessary.

I have little time for farmers whose attitude is "to hell with fish, I have a crop to raise" but I have even less time for fishermen or environmentalists wo say "to hell with people and their needs, I don't want my Striper count to go down." Everyone is going to have to give something if we are to fix this mess. Fishermen are going to have to cede that a peripheral conveyance is necessary for water security, farmers are going to have to stop growing rice and cotton and flooding fields, and domestic consumers are going to have to stop spraying drinking water on their lawns.

If we do these things together we can have water security, good fishing, and viable agriculture all coexisting together peacefully. If we do these things together. Believe it or not there's plenty of water for all three, we just piss most of it away.

[Tracy Chimenti]

We've had numerous levee fail since the 50's due to flooding or simple physiolocigal failure and there was no catostrophic dominoe effect on other levees.

Don't forget Diamond Valley-- 1-million a/ft.

My point is that with the almonds, pisacios, etc. Large corporate farms are putting in many huge new plantings. Most of this is for export. They're kicking ass with sales. If you drive down Hwy 5 you will already see tiny plantlings that go to the horizon. They will need 4- to 5-times the water eventually-- not to mention the ones being planted this spring. If you're such a proponent of this facility, get with your constiuents and fix these problems... then we can talk about new conveyance.

I spent 32-years in the fire service and believe me, I know people are #1, property is #2, environment is dead last. I can buy that.

We are however embarking on a campaign that so far has ignored the environment when it doesn't have to. We've identified so many areas where water use could be cut, but the big users are in complete control of this project and really only want to double their export at the expense of the environment... and blame stripers! Jeeze.

In regards to stripers, no one up here is saying "to hell with the people". We're kind of like Sitting Bull. We don't want to give up our way of life so rich farmers like the billionaire Resnicks can make even more money. But somehow, they figure ridding the south sloughs of stripers will bring the salmon numbers up enough so the pumps to stay on. This whole thing reminds me of the Klamath debacle, everyone screaming about farmers being put out of business, but entire fishing and coastal communities being devastated. In this case, the money is going to determine the winners. Sorry, can't swallow it.

Use the same system, beef-up the levees, keep exports at 2000 levels, and make the exporters conserve more water. I guess I'm a radical... and I can live with that. It'll save us about 50-billion and get the water whores off the crack pipe.

[Bob Loblaw]

Tracy I think we are about 95% in agreement. The only place we appear to differ to any degree is on the viability of the delta as a safe and secure water conveyance system.


I strongly believe we have more than enough water in California to support 38 million people, a vibrant agricultural sector and maintain and protect our environment, but it will take give and take by all concerned. Sitting with your legs crossed singing "we chall overcome" might feel good, and you might be on the side of the angels, but the Resnicks of the world will roll right over you. There's a smarter way.

You are right, we do need to get farmers off the cheap water crack pipe and the best way to do it is to control what they are allowed to grow. The legislature can restrict rice and cotton production, make it uneconomical, and force farmers to grow much less water intensive crops. That single act is both possible and would be a complete game changer.

We also need to get individual Californians off the cheap water crack pipe. You can't tell farmers they can't grow rice while allowing people to grow lawns.

If I had any money to spend on water politics, I'd charter a jet and take a bunch of State kegislators to Spain and show them how people there live just fine in a very similar cimate, but on a fraction of the water. I'd show them what 21st century agriculture looks like where crops can be grown on very little water.

Necessity is the mother of invention. When you force farmers to do with less water they find very clever ways to make do and still make money. When you guarantee an unlimited supply of cheap water they get fat happy and lazy and flood their fields with it.

We are all guilty in CA, to one degree or another of water waste which is why I had to point out the double standard of the article posted about Placer County and the proposed water conservation plan. You can't claim to be a steward of the delta, or fish, or the environment, and defend a persons right to use 288 gallons of fresh water a day.

[Tracy Chimenti]

Kind of like re-distirbution of wealth.

I really think Mike hit it on the head with private water-- farming corporations, who when the true costs of paying for full conveyance and mitigation, find margins too thin for growing and selling, morph into private water districts, flipping subsidized water to municipalities at a a shocking retail mark-up. It's already started with the Kern Water Bank.