|
|---|
By Leslie Stewart
“Our California tradition on water issues is to lurch from crisis to crisis,” said state Senator Lois Wolk. “And then we fight!”
As keynote speaker for the League of Women Voters of the Bay Area’s annual Bay Area League Day symposium — this year entitled “Water: California’s New Gold” — Wolk addressed a capacity audience in Oakland’s MetroCenter Auditorium on January 31, 2009. She summarized California’s current crisis: a protracted drought and an increasingly fragile Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta at the heart of the state’s water delivery system.
“There is no magic bullet or easy fix,” she cautioned.
The Delta suffers the impact of massive water exports, invasive species, and runoff from both agriculture and growing urbanization. To manage this situation going forward, the Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force recently concluded that a healthy ecosystem and a reliable water supply should be equal goals. “This sounds simple but is radical,” commented Wolk.
She suggested that the Delta Protection Commission, in place since 1992, should develop a long-range plan and be given the authority to review all actions affecting the Delta for consistency with the plan. A second authority, such as a stewardship council or the state water commission, should be charged with making the final decisions. “It’s essential to have an independent body with secure funding and the ability to approve spending, planning, and water export levels,” Wolk said. She called for a balanced approach that takes into account the interests of many longstanding Delta communities as well as statewide needs, “but it has to be a mechanism that’s action, not gridlock.”
“All Californians have a vested interest in the heart and soul of our California water system,” she concluded.
The Science of the Delta
Despite the fact that the Delta is an essential link in the state water system, “many people who live in California have no idea where the Delta is or what it is,” said Christina Swanson, executive director of the Bay Institute.
Swanson described the Delta ecosystem as water plus the landscape, plants, and animals. Both the Delta and the larger watershed that feeds it have changed significantly since the 1800s, when the Delta was a huge tidal marsh and ships had difficulty finding channels to go upriver to Sacramento. Levees have been built, creating islands for farming and altering habitat. The islands are now much lower than the water level in the Delta, and often flood due to levee breaks.
There are dams on 9 of 10 major rivers feeding the Delta, and the rivers are managed for the purpose of sending water to the Delta for export to southern parts of the state. The dams release rainwater during the winter, but retain snowmelt during the spring for release in summer, making summer flows unnaturally high. Salmon habitat upstream of the dams is greatly decreased, putting additional stress on this species.
Meanwhile, other species have made massive invasions. Some of these species are a major problem, such as the Asian clam. “Calculations indicate that Asian clams in Suisun Bay can filter the entire volume of water in two days,” said Swanson, explaining this removes the food needed by native fish species.
New reservoirs indirectly impact the Delta. “They used to fill up San Luis Reservoir and then couldn’t export more because there was no place to put it,” said Swanson. But with more storage built, the exports increased to fill those reservoirs, and exports over 6 million acre-feet have a major impact on the ecosystem.
Swanson said that while the Delta has been permanently altered by levees and subsidence, it can still retain a healthy habitat through the restoration of marshy and open water areas; this restoration would change the amount and timing of water flows, and remove stressors such as pollution and invasive species.
Unfortunately, drought makes many of these habitat improvements harder. For example, Asian clams like dry conditions. Moreover, low freshwater flows during droughts bring the salty Bay water farther inland to the confluence of the rivers, limiting the area that is hospitable to freshwater species. This keeps these species closer upriver to where reverse flows will pull them into the export pumps and kill them.
Management of the Delta ecosystem and water supply are almost totally disconnected, according to Swanson, who furthered, “It would be good not to have entities in an adversarial relationship controlling both of those things.” She said managing the Delta to achieve the dual goals set by the Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force would probably mean subordinating water supply to the ecosystem. The Delta is five percent of the state’s water supply, and water is both limited and variable. “You cannot continue to take out this much water and find any way to meet the ecosystem goal,” she said.
Agricultural Questions
California agriculture has benefited from predictability of both climate and water supply, according to A.G. Kawamura, secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture. Water has been capable of being turned on or off as needed. As a result, California provides half the nation’s supply of specialty crops (such as nuts and fruits), and almost a quarter of the nation’s dairy products.
California farmers need improved water supply infrastructure to maintain predictability, because factors such as urbanization are changing agriculture. “When we build predictability into the systems that we have, that’s how you avoid collapse,” said Kawamura. According to the state Department of Water Resources, agriculture now uses only 41 percent of state water, down from 80 percent, with urban users at 11 percent and the environment using 48 percent. Limited water supplies are leading farmers to reassess their crop choices.
Heather Cooley, a senior research associate at the Pacific Institute, also focused on sustainability. The Pacific Institute recently released a report with four scenarios that could lead to less water use by agriculture:
1. Shifting a fraction of the crops now irrigated by flood irrigation to sprinkler and drip systems;
2. Using weather stations to advise farmers how and when to apply water;
3. Employing a technique called “regulated deficit” to apply water at strategic intervals to crops that can tolerate more extended dry periods (such as vines, almonds, citrus, and pistachios); and
4. Shifting a small percentage of lower-value, water-intensive crops (such as cotton, alfalfa, rice, and wheat) to higher-value, water-efficient crops (such as fruits and nuts).
Cooley cautioned that not all of these practices can be used at once, or in all situations.
Answering audience questions, Kawamura stressed that over-irrigation is inefficient and costly. Farmers will therefore conserve because they are extremely sensitive to the bottom line, and have very sophisticated tools available to help them determine the costs of water and fertilizer. Cooley noted that reduced water use also results in less energy use for pumping, as well as the environmental and water quality benefit of minimizing fertilizer runoff.
Faced with impending drought, farmers will probably choose to fallow acreage in the short term, Cooley predicted. However, she and Kawamura agreed that in the long term farmers would look at changes in overall operations. Both Cooley and Kawamura also supported diversifying approaches to agricultural water use. Kawamura noted that sustainability requires education and innovation (with new technology like desalination, or perhaps considering salt-tolerant plants). “We can’t afford in agriculture globally to make mistakes from this point out,” he said. “When we get into a survival state, the choices disappear.”
Levee Security
The fragile Delta ecosystem is accompanied by a fragile man-made infrastructure. “Levee security becomes an issue forced on us by our history and our development,” warned Raymond Seed, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at UC Berkeley. Failure of New Orleans levees in Hurricane Katrina is the most vivid example, but California has miles of vulnerable levees along rivers and throughout the Delta. More people are moving to the Central Valley, many into new developments in areas that will be hard-hit by flooding if levees fail.
“Levees in the Delta fail a lot,” said Seed. More extreme climate conditions and sea-level rise will add to the risk, as will the increasing threat of a major earthquake. In a 1995 earthquake in Kobe, Japan, 11 miles of well-built levees failed because underlying sand liquefied and spread. The Delta has 1,100 miles of levees, two thirds of which are subject to liquefaction. Liquefaction can be prevented, but at a high price. About 70 percent of Delta levees are privately owned. While bond measures for levee improvements may be feasible for urban and populated regions, it may be necessary to protect the channels across the Delta and let the other levees go.
Failure of levees throughout the Delta would rapidly create a salty inland sea, drawing Bay water upstream to fill the many islands below water level. According to Seed, there is a one percent chance each year of an earthquake that would topple so many levees that the Delta would need at least a year to recover, with water deliveries from the Delta interrupted for two to five years. Damage estimates have been set at $50-100 billion, but Seed cautioned these estimates are usually low. He also noted that attempts to fix the damage faster than the two to five year time frame could risk losing the total ecosystem.
The state can rely less on the Delta as a water source, or the water source can be protected and stabilized. Meanwhile, Seed warned, “We are at great risk and more risk than ever in the history of California.”
Conveyance Issues
Regional conveyance of water is not new in California, said Katherine Kelly, Bay-Delta chief of the Department of Water Resources, citing aqueducts such as Hetch Hetchy. Unlike an aqueduct, however, realistically planning a conveyance facility for water through or around the Delta isn’t as simple as drawing a straight line.
One consideration is who owns the water. Under California law, water belongs to the people of the state. Water rights, for use of the water, are subject to the public trust doctrine and the reasonableness doctrine.
State and regional water boards have created plans that protect the beneficial uses of water, including a Bay-Delta plan. The State Water Resources Control Board must operate under the terms of the Central Valley Project and the State Water Project, as well as the decisions it has made regarding the Bay-Delta. Decision 1641 is the most current one and governs water quality standards that are measured daily by stations in the Delta. There are also agricultural water quality requirements that affect areas north and south of the Delta, as well as flow requirements and toxicity requirements. Court opinions on biological needs such as fish protection can require additional measures that modify water rights.
Currently the plans for a conveyance facility have several possible alignments, either east or west of the Delta, or through the Delta by reinforcing existing channels. Water could be exported from the south part of the Delta and also moved around the Delta in a dual conveyance plan. At the same time, planners are proposing “a great deal of habitat restoration,” according to Kelly, possibly changing the Yolo Bypass near Sacramento to rear salmon, or developing tidal marsh habitat in the Suisun Marsh. “Something will probably be built but it may not be an isolated conveyance — also the habitat restoration will be built,” she said.
A key issue is how the system will be operated if it is built. The State Water Resources Control Board will have a great deal of influence. The schedule calls for a public scoping meeting to be held this spring and a draft EIR/EIS to be in place by the end of 2009. The final EIR/EIS would be certified in 2010 and construction would begin in 2012.
The Regional View
Kathleen Van Velsor, a senior planner with the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG), said that ABAG has developed a Bay-Delta-centric view to guide regional decisions. Many of the Delta’s roles — as a close-in agricultural center, an economic engine, a vital watershed, and a biological resource — need to be preserved and enhanced. Van Velsor noted that “water source” is not first on the list. ABAG’s challenge is to match these Bay/Delta values to values developed by other groups and to government investment plans based on differing sets of values. One task is to coordinate with the many working groups implementing the Bay Delta Conservation Plan.
“Our Delta has been exhausted and is now reviving,” said Van Velsor, despite the many stresses it faces. Many of these — such as salt intrusion and an altered flood regime — have happened because of a priority shift from controlling salinity to moving a large amount of water south. Southern California is still growing and it is a “demanding neighbor.” Solving the water crisis will mean that the planning context will need to shift to fully engage regional and local government, according to Van Velsor. “The table needs to widen and lengthen to find balance and reduce conflict,” she said, contending that councils of government such as ABAG have a role to play in the process.
Visit http://lwvbayarea.org/documents.html#BALD to view the January 31, 2009 presentations of Christina Swanson, Heather Cooley, Katherine Kelly, and Kathleen Van Velsor, as well as an event report by LWV Southwest Santa Clara Valley.