This sums it all up

[JasonB]

Bill,

Doing some searching, from Managing California's Water, 2011 (Hanak, Lund, et. al.) provides the following totals for an 8 year period (1998-2005):

Ag: 33MAF
Muni: 8.7MAF
Ecosystems: 41MAF

By the percentages that breaks down to 39% ag, 11% muni, and 50% for ecosystems for all CA surface water.

According to the document, if you purposely exclude all the water from what they deem to be "hydraulically isolated" watersheds from the equation, those percentages shift to ag 52%, 14% muni and 33% ecosystems. That doesn't add up to 100% but it's what it says.

"Hydraulically isolated" watersheds are defined as watersheds where there is no interconnections to delta diversions.

If you specifically look at watersheds tied to delta export the percentages shift to 62% ag, 16% muni and 22% ecosystems.

YC,
Thanks for digging that info up. I like to at least have a very rough idea where all the water goes in this state, and the more I learn the more convoluted and complex it starts getting. I'm very curious about one thing: when they mention "ecosystems", I'm envisioning things like minimum streamflows and such? If so I'd have a hard time including that in any water consumption percentages; allowing water to flow down streambeds and into the delta hardly seems like consumption to me. If you take that out, it puts the old numbers not so far off the mark after all.
Jb

[Darian]

This discussion is getting interesting. In doing some more searching, it's becoming obvious to me that my definition of ag activities has been too narrow. Maybe the definition of ag activities in reporting contributes to that confusion. Of course, you guys who are/were growers and grew up in ag areas of this state already know this stuff.

One report of ag activities in CA for 2010-2011/2011-2012 (US Dept of Food/Ag) shows all of the standard crops and, also, includes dairies, livestock (cows, calves. hogs, sheep, lambs and aquaculture), feed lots, poultry & eggs, production of honey plus a lot more in the form of farm services; all of which use some water. As you could expect, some crops and other activities use more water than others. So, it's easy to see that efficient irrigation practices work for specific row/tree crops but some activities are just not efficient. For example, composting, dairies, feed lots that set up sprinkler systems to water cows/cow crap 24 hours a day, flood irrigation practices for certain types of crops, etc., and Flushing of salts from soils to create a "....salt balance...." making mineralized land usable for farming.

[BillB]

Indeed! Jeez, I forgot about dairies. They use copious amounts of water, likely more than any commodity. In our area there is little flood irrigation anymore, outside of corn/silage. Growing corn to produce ethanol will, in my opinion, will be a negative offset. I am supposing the payoff of water v ethanol just won't get it. At least the way I see it, which could be in left field!

[ycflyfisher]

Jason,
If I understand what you’re saying, I think you’re correct that the ratios of how diversion breaks down (roughly a 4:1 ratio of ag: muni) hasn’t changed much over time. The real issue as I see it is the numbers are extremely dated and don’t paint an accurate picture because they paint it as an exclusively two way division when it isn’t. It wasn’t until ~15 years ago that the DWR and USBR started including environmental/ecosystem water into the breakdown. And when no one is acknowledging that there is water specifically allocated for the preservation of ecosystems it not only detracts from the discussion but actually changes the nature of the discussion. IMO, the focus here shouldn’t be Ag vs. muni, it should be water allocated for the preservation of ecosystems vs total diversion, and the fact that short of Fed court action, water allocated for ecosystems can’t be reduced. I think there’s also lots of grey area between ag and muni. For instance, a lot of the ag allocation is sold under beneficial use to municipalities but I don’t think the percentages account for that.

[Darian]

".... I think there’s also lots of grey area between ag and muni. For instance, a lot of the ag allocation is sold under beneficial use to municipalities but I don’t think the percentages account for that." ycflyfisher.

That's an interesting point. I'm not sure that sales for beneficial use are required to be reported beyond accounting for them internally by buyers/sellers (water contractors). But, one such sale by Westlands to MWD was reported in the news media a couple of years ago.

ps. does anyone know how agencies count ecosystem/environmental water??? Probably right under my nose but I haven't seen it yet. It would sure help in understanding the overall picture.