Intractable Problems? Are We Running Out of Water?

To put this series in perspective, I started with my observations from my time in the Legislature, which, by the way, are now 16 to 29 years old. My speeches would usually start with the observation that, in California, our freeways are overcrowded, our schools are failing our children, our housing costs too much, and we are running out of gasoline, water, and electricity. You would think that, if those who are in charge in Sacramento were serious about solving these problems, they could at least fix one of them in 29 years. Yet…here we are…29 years later, with the exact same problems, the exact same complaints, and the exact same excuses for why the Democrat majority in the Legislature haven’t solved the problems.

And Californians keep electing them, despite their excuses. We do get the government we deserve, and things won’t change until we get rid of the majority, and replace them with those who have a better idea.

So, let’s talk water. California has one rainy season, usually November through March, and then seven months of almost perfect weather (if you live in San Diego, it is absolutely perfect). We just came off of a time when we had record rain in December, then record dry two months in January and February, usually our rainiest months. The challenge in California is to catch the rain when it falls, and then store it until the months when it doesn’t rain, and then transport that water from where it falls (mostly north of the delta) to where the farms and people are (mostly south of the delta). We have known about this challenge since early in the 1900’s. According to legend, Mark Twain once observed that in California “whiskey is for drinking, water is fighting over.” And we have been fighting over water for what seems like forever.

Let’s get one issue off the table. Our droughts are not caused by global warming or “climate change,” California’s water issues haven’t changed that much since 1870 (as Mark Twain’s observation demonstrates), and the weather, the rainy season, has been pretty much fixed for that entire time. I remember droughts in the mid-70’s, from 1988-92, the mid-2000’s, and the late 2010’s. It’s predictable, about every ten years or so, we are going to experience two to four years of water shortages.

Since we know that, what has the Democrat majority (a majority that has been there for all of the last 50 years, except for 2 years in 1970-72 and one year in 1996) in the Legislature done about it? Absolutely nothing.

The solutions are simple, build more storage and build a canal from just south of Sacramento to just south of Stockton, in short, more dams and the Peripheral Canal. These solutions won’t solve all the problems, we will still have droughts from time to time, but they will lessen the impact of those droughts by catching the water in times of plenty, storing it until we need it, then transporting it to the places that need it.

So why haven’t we done that? In short, really stupid environmental regulations and the environut organizations that are vested in the status quo. The Democrats in the Legislature are beholden to these groups, to the point that they have had, over the years, serious discussions about tearing down dams, instead of building them. They have consistently opposed any effort to transport water north of the delta, where the water is, to south of the delta, where most of the farms and people are. As a result, the state careens from drought to drought, and praying for enough rain to get through each year. The Democrats who control the Legislature would rather make the people of the State of California suffer with government enforced water controls and high priced water than stand up to these environut organizations.

I once carried a bill for a golf course located about one quarter mile from a sewage treatment plant. The golf course wanted to use the water from the sewage treatment plant to water their grass. Good conservation effort, right? Except that golf course was by far the largest water user in the water district in which it was located, constituting one half of the district’s income. In California, if you can find cheaper water from a nearby source that is outside the district in which you live, you have to get the water district’s consent to buy that water. In this case, the sewage treatment plant was not controlled by the water district, so the district agreed to allow the purchase, but only if the golf course reimbursed the district for its lost revenue. All of the sudden, a good idea that would have saved millions of gallons of potable water became so expensive that it didn’t make sense any more. Just another way that California discourages conservation, if the water district loses money from conservation efforts, they just use their monopoly power to increase their revenue, either through increased rates or required reimbursements.

Only one new dam in the last 50 years, laws that reward monopolistic water regulations, no efforts to get the water where it needs to go, and California citizens suffer.

It wouldn’t take much to relieve the suffering of California families from these policies that increase the price of their water, just like it wouldn’t take much to relieve the suffering that our Arrogant Lazy Authoritarian in Chief, Gavin Newsom and his minions in the Legislature inflict on California families through government laws and regulations that increase the cost of gasoline and housing, but, just like those who benefit from the regulations enforcing expensive gasoline and housing, those who benefit from the current system would lose their cushy “do-nothing” high paying jobs.

We elected those who continue to relentlessly inflict this pain and suffering on us. We deserve it as long as we put up with it.

This article first appeared in its entirety on the Flash Report

With No Respite From Drought, Officials Call Upon Californians To Conserve Water

The start of this year has been the driest in California’s history. With the severe drought now in a third year, the state faces depleted reservoirs, a meager snowpack in the Sierra Nevada and a worsening water shortage on the Colorado River.

Under sunny blue skies in Sacramento, where it hasn’t rained in two months, officials stood Thursday in front of a mulch-covered garden and appealed for Californians to save water.

“We’re asking all Californians to step up,” said Wade Crowfoot, secretary of the California Natural Resources Agency. That means reducing water usage immediately and also taking steps that will help conserve in the long run, he said, such as replacing grass with drought-tolerant plants, or switching to water-saving appliances.

“Our drought conditions are becoming more threatening with climate change,” Crowfoot said. Warmer winters are reducing the snowpack that accumulates in the Sierra Nevada, he said, and hotter temperatures in the spring and summer “mean that more of that snow absorbs into very dry soils or evaporates into the air.”

In July, Gov. Gavin Newsom called for Californians to voluntarily reduce water use by 15%. Most areas of the state have fallen far short of that target.

The latest conservation figures for cities and towns across the state through December showed cumulative water savings of 7.5% compared with a year ago, and that’s “not going to be enough” in many communities, said Joaquin Esquivel, chair of the State Water Resources Control Board.

The levels of many major reservoirs in California, from Lake Oroville to the San Luis Reservoir, remain far below average. The snowpack in the Sierra Nevada, which feeds the state’s reservoirs, now stands at just 60% of average for this time of year.

Large water suppliers throughout the state have responded with drought measures including advertising campaigns that encourage conservation.

The state’s Save Our Water campaign, together with the State Water Contractors, released an animated video to spread the message. With the handwritten slogan “Doing your part” on a whiteboard, the video shares water-saving tips, such as installing drip irrigation systems, using a smart irrigation controller and taking five-minute showers.

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California has announced it is spending an additional $10.5 million to expand its advertising campaign calling for the public to conserve.

“Our reservoirs continue to decline, and so we are really in a critical time to move on our efforts to fortify our water supply,” Adel Hagekhalil, MWD’s general manager, told the district’s board this week.

In announcing the expanded advertising campaign, Hagekhalil said the less water Southern California uses now, “the longer we can stretch these stored supplies into the summer and fall, and next year, if needed.”

Click here to read the full article at the LA Times

Seems Like Nothing Changes In Documenting Water Availability

Re “Here is the first step to a sustainable water policy”;

Good commentary and on the mark. But it’s discouraging to say that documenting the actual amount of water available is the first step to a sustainable water policy. This is the same step people have been saying for the 10 or more years that I’ve been tracking these issues.

Based on our legal counsel’s briefs, we blogged on our Save the California Delta Alliance website about “Paper Water” in 2013, reporting that the state had oversold water by five times the amount it actually had. The UC Davis study the writer refers to was in 2014.

Yes. The answers are appropriate water rights, addressing groundwater overdrafting, addressing Delta environmental issues via Delta flows, conservation, wastewater recycling and the retirement of impaired agricultural lands.

It includes doing what the Legislature dictated in the 2009 Delta Reform Act, namely moving toward regional self-reliance more than 10 years ago. Yet nothing changes.

Click here to read the full article at RecordNet.com

California Water Districts Will Get More Supply Than Planned

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Last month’s wet winter storms led California officials on Thursday to announce they’ll release more water than initially planned from state storage to local agencies that provide water for 27 million people and vast swaths of farmland.

The Department of Water Resources now plans to give water districts 15% of what they’ve requested for 2022. That’s up from last month, when the state said it would supply 0% of requested water beyond what was needed for necessities such as drinking and bathing. It was the first time ever the state issued an initial water allocation of nothing.

State officials stressed California’s drought is far from over and urged people to keep conserving water. But December storms that dumped heavy snow in the mountains and partially refilled parched reservoirs have provided some relief from what had been an exceptionally dry year.

Still, the state hasn’t seen a major storm yet this month, and most state reservoirs remain below their historic averages. The U.S. Drought Monitor shows much of California remains in severe drought.

“Dry conditions have already returned in January. Californians must continue to conserve as the state plans for a third dry year,” Department of Water Resources Director Karla Nemeth said in a statement.

California stores and conveys water across the state through a vast network of reservoirs, dams and canals known as the State Water Project. It works alongside the federally run Central Valley Project to move water primarily from the state’s wetter northern region to the drier south.

Click here to read the full article at AP

Merced Irrigation District Sues California over ‘Water Grab’ for Fish, Downstate Users

The Merced Irrigation District, a regional water authority in the San Joaquin Valley, is suing the State of California over a plan to divert water from the Merced River watershed to the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta for fish and downstate use.

As Breitbart News reported in 2018, the state’s Bay-Delta Plan aims to increase the amount of fresh water in the delta, also known simply as the “California Delta,” which has suffered from increasing salinity in recent years.

The Merced Irrigation District (MID) alleges that the plan is simply a “water grab” that will take water from local users and send it to the delta, to satisfy environmental interest groups — many of which have no connection to the state — and Southern California users.

The MID has conducted its own scientific studies to suggest that declining salmon populations in other parts of the state are not due to water diversion, but rather to the arrival of alien predators and other development activities, such as mining. The MID has also negotiated with the state in the past to provide its own salmon habitat restoration — while keeping the water.

But the state has decided to go ahead with its plan, though it has not yet said how much water it plans to divert from the Merced River, which is a tributary of the San Joaquin River that flows from the Sierra Nevada, including Yosemite National Park, through the rich Central Valley farmland before joining the main watercourse northward to the Delta.

MID officials have set up a “Save Merced’s Water” website to gather signatures from residents to stop the diversions from moving forward.

“Our perspective is we didn’t create [California’s] water quality problems,” [MID spokesperson Mike] Jensen said. “It shouldn’t be our responsibility to bear the brunt of fixing them.”

Click here to read the full article at Breitbart Local

California Considers $500 Fines for Water Wasters as Drought Worsens, Conservation Lags

As California descends deeper into drought, officials are growing increasingly troubled by dwindling water supplies and the public’s lackluster response to calls for conservation, with residents in recent months falling short of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s request for a voluntary 15% reduction in usage.

Now, as the West tips toward crisis, state water regulators are considering adopting emergency regulations that will prohibit certain actions in an attempt to curtail water waste and help conserve supplies.

If approved, the proposal could usher in a wave of water regulations that hearken back to previous droughts while underscoring the seriousness of the current one.

On Tuesday, Lake Mead — the nation’s largest reservoir and a lifeline for water in Los Angeles and the West — was at 1,065 feet, or about 34% of its capacity, a near-historic low. Much of California on the U.S. Drought Monitor map was painted in worrisome shades of red.

“These regulations are kind of no-brainers at this point,” said Doug Parker, director of the California Institute for Water Resources at UC Davis. “They probably should have been done a little while ago.”

Among the activities that may be prohibited are washing vehicles with hoses that do not have shut-off nozzles; hosing down sidewalks, driveways or patios “except in cases where health and safety are at risk”; watering landscapes in a manner that causes excessive runoff; and watering lawns within 48 hours after measurable rainfall.

For many, the measures feel like déjà vu as California again faces the prospect of dwindling water supplies.

Click here to read the full article at the LA Times

Who keeps buying California’s scarce water? Saudi Arabia

DroughtFour hours east of Los Angeles, in a drought-stricken area of a drought-afflicted state, is a small town called Blythe where alfalfa is king. More than half of the town’s 94,000 acres are bushy blue-green fields growing the crop.

Massive industrial storehouses line the southern end of town, packed with thousands upon thousands of stacks of alfalfa bales ready to be fed to dairy cows – but not cows in California’s Central Valley or Montana’s rangelands.

Instead, the alfalfa will be fed to cows in Saudi Arabia.

The storehouses belong to Fondomonte Farms, a subsidiary of the Saudi Arabia-based company Almarai – one of the largest food production companies in the world. The company sells milk, powdered milk and packaged items such as croissants, strudels and cupcakes in supermarkets and corner stores throughout the Middle East and North Africa, and in specialty grocers throughout the US.

Each month, Fondomonte Farms loads the alfalfa on to hulking metal shipping containers destined to arrive 24 days later at a massive port stationed on the Red Sea, just outside King Abdullah City in Saudi Arabia. …

Click here to read the full article from The Guardian

Are Water Rights Sufficient to Protect Water Users?

Drought water crops“The judiciary is the safeguard of our liberty and of our property under the Constitution,” said U.S. Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes in Elimra, New York in 1907.

That quote exemplifies the reason that five irrigation districts on tributaries to the San Joaquin River as well as the city of San Francisco filed lawsuits recently against the State Water Resources Control Board. They are defending their water rights. 

In December, ahead of the Water Board hearing, Governor Brown and Governor-elect Newsom both asked the Water Board to hold off and let the districts, the State, and the federal government finalize the voluntary agreements. But that didn’t happen and the problem is now in Governor Newsom’s lap as his Water Board will likely have to turn its attention to defending its decision in court.

“We file suit not because we prefer conflict over collaboration. On the contrary, we continue to encourage and participate in settlement discussions on our rivers, and support science on the Stanislaus. But we also have an indisputable responsibility to reserve our legal rights and protect our ag and urban customers,” said Peter Rietkerk, General Manager of the South San Joaquin Irrigation District (SSJID).

Unfortunately, sometimes, the courts are your only recourse.

The State Water Board’s decision on December 12, 2018 doubles the amount of water the State will take away from farms growing food, the parks and sporting fields where our children play, and even the water we drink from our taps at home and bubbling out of drinking fountains at schools. And if flow requirements can be imposed on the San Joaquin River they can be imposed anywhere.

The sad thing is there was an alternative available, but the Board has so far rejected it. Farmers in the San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys, irrigation districts, the Department of Water Resources, Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Bureau of Reclamation, worked collaboratively at the behest of both Governors Brown and Newsom, to propose a voluntary plan designed to quickly accomplish more for fish and the environment without the drastic harm water users expect from the water cuts.

Under these proposals farms and cities would still give up billions of gallons of water to the river during times that science tells us that it’s needed, as well as implement projects that improve habitat for fish, reduce predators and enhance ecosystems far beyond what the Board’s water-only plan could achieve. The voluntary proposals, expected to produce more salmon than the plan adopted by the State Water Board with less harm to the economy, would have been a win for all – farms, fish and folks.

“Our voluntary agreement will ensure water security and reliability, includes environmental improvements, enhances fish populations far beyond what is projected in the state’s current plan and most importantly, guarantees timely implementation,” said Modesto Irrigation District Board Vice President John Mensinger. “Their (the Board’s) plan threatens not only Central Valley ag and urban water users, but also the water supply of more than two million people living in the Bay Area.”

There is still an opportunity for the Water Board to adopt a voluntary path toward ecosystem restoration and faster solutions to restore dwindling salmon populations. The question is, will they do it or will former Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes words be put to the test again?

Executive Director, California Farm Water Coalition.

This article was originally published by Fox and Hounds Daily

Gov. Newsom Pushing For New Taxes on Water and Phones

Water Drought SprinklerGov. Gavin Newsom’s has called for a first-ever water tax and an added fee on phone bills at a time when the state is enjoying what recently departed state Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor called “extraordinary” budget health. Newsom said last week that experts now forecast a $21.5 billion budget windfall in 2019-20. Until recent years, the optics of asking the public to pay more with an overflowing budget would have seemed impossible to overcome.

Specific details have not yet emerged on Newsom’s plan, but it’s expected to be similar to a rejected 2018 proposal from state Sen. Bill Monning, D-Carmel, to tax residential customers 95 cents a month to help fund water improvements in rural farming communities in the Central Valley and throughout the state.

It would raise about $110 million to get clean water to what the McClatchy News Service estimated last year to be 360,000 people without such access. Others looking at the problem see it as much worse. Newsom said 1 million residents face health risks from their own water supplies.

Newsom emphasized what a priority the water tax would be for him on Friday by taking his cabinet on a “surprise” tour of affected Central Valley communities.

The dairy industry would also face $30 million in new fees. The $140 million annually that Newsom hopes to get from his plan is dwarfed by money already available from a $7.5 billion 2014 state water bond. While the largest chunk of the bond – $2.7 billion – was reserved for water storage projects, one of its listed priorities for the remaining $4.8 billion was providing access to clean water.

Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association President Jon Coupal saw Newsom’s water tax plan as part of a historical continuum. He told the Sacramento Bee it was only the latest example “of California’s knee-jerk reaction to default to a new tax whenever there’s a new problem.”

But Newsom depicted his 2019-20 budget as reflecting discipline, touting its emphasis on continuing to add to the state’s rainy day fund and because of commitments to prepay some of CalPERS’ and CalSTRS’ unfunded long-term liabilities. Finance officials say every $1 billion prepaid now saves more than $2 billion in the long haul.

Governor cites urgent need to upgrade 911 system

Newsom also confirmed that he wants to add a 20- to 80-cent fee on monthly cellphone and landline bills to upgrade the 911 emergency notification system. That would take a two-thirds vote of the Legislature.

A similar proposal died late in the legislative session amid fears that it was a regressive tax that could cause headaches for incumbents on the November ballot.

But Newsom depicts the fee as a vital part of upgrading a 911 system that has outdated technology and is not up to the challenge of keeping safe a state facing devastating wildfires on a yearly basis.

The 911 fee was part of a larger wildfire-response program Newsom announced last week in the aftermath of last fall’s Camp fire in Butte County that killed at least 86 people and destroyed about 14,000 homes and the Woolsey Fire in Ventura and Los Angeles Counties that caused three deaths and torched 1,500 homes.

The governor wants to add $105 million to the $200 million already earmarked for improved wildfire response efforts in fiscal 2019-20. The extra money would be used to boost forest clearing efforts, to expand emergency fire rescue crews and more.

This article was originally published by CalWatchdog.com

California State Board Votes to Restrict Water to Farmers

Drought water cropsCalifornia’s State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) voted Wednesday to approve the Bay-Delta plan, which will re-allocate water from farms and cities to the environment in an effort to restore dwindling fish numbers.

The plan will require tributary rivers within the San Joaquin watershed to maintain an average water level of 40% of “unimpeded flow” — that is, the flow that would exist without human activity — during the spring season.

The result is that less water — “billions of gallons,” according to the Fresno Bee — will be available to the farming communities of the Central Valley, as well as to San Francisco and its suburbs, which rely on water from the area.

Last month, outgoing Gov. Jerry Brown and incoming Gov. Gavin Newsom asked the SWRCB to delay its vote by a month to allow time for local water authorities to reach voluntary settlement agreements (VSAs) as an alternative to the new plan. In the interim, several local irrigation districts did, in fact, commit to investing in conservation and environmental projects that would theoretically help restore fish populations without giving up quite so much water.

But as the Bee reports, the SWRCB — all of whose members were appointed by Brown, and who are thought to be partial to environmental groups — passed the plan anyway “to put pressure on a group of holdout water agencies.”

The Trump administration has promised to take legal action to block the plan, which may be moot as a result. Some environmental groups have criticized the Bay-Delta plan for not going far enough.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

This article was originally published by Breitbart.com/California