The California Water War has faced its Fort Sumter. The recent introduction of a secession bill in the California State Legislature has revealed the profound character of the division between water users in the state. Coming as it did after the battle of the peripheral canal being fought to a stalemate; it is overdue that we begin to focus on peace talks in Sacramento. We see in this battle all the indicators of a protracted war as were demonstrated after the first battle of Bull Run. But, let’s avoid too much literary license in the comparison with the Civil War.
The issue is water appropriation, or more precisely water diversions. It has been a long time policy for the state of California to seize control of the water resource through various measures including defining in stream flow as a beneficial use, invoking the Public Trust Doctrine, building massive projects to transfer huge amounts of water from one region to another and failing to utilize sources other than freshwater supplies to address regional resource needs. The question is “Where the balance is in this picture?” Or more precisely “Why is there no rational state water policy that establishes consistency in water planning?”
The only consistency to date has been in the willingness to try and placate movers and shakers at the expense of the marginalized. When Arnold Schwarzenegger claimed that “we can have it all” in California water, he clearly misrepresented the current state of affairs. Who is “we” when some of “us” just had our supplies taken from us and when does “all” include what had been “mine” and I still need? What is fair and just about that? How can we (and you) have it all (including what was taken from me and given to him)?
What is seen is that the scale, scope and impacts of the projected uses and allocations are far beyond the realm of accurate quantification. It becomes much too easy for “combat science” to take the place of accurate science in arguing the case for yet another diversion. What is also seen is that the issue of sustainability is twisted to the point that it is no longer recognized as a functioning tool in policy making. As a Green I am unequivocally committed to the integration of human habitation with the world around us. But, never have I seen or heard of the number and scale of diversions as have been proliferated in this state. Never have I seen a more conflated mishmash of water law that makes regional management so profoundly complicated. Never have I seen a state legislature so intimately involved in water administration.
Regional efforts have produced substantive proposals and established goals based on their regional circumstances such as the Santa Cruz report CONSERVATION BLUEPRINT: AN ASSESMENT AND RECOMMENDATIONS FROM THE LAND TRUST OF SANTA CRUZ. The report initially characterized the region’s challenges as follows: "Our water supplies are not sufficient to meet long-term residential and agricultural demand." "Water shortages and pollution, habitat loss and fragmentation, climate change, and threats to the viability of local agriculture, are among the many conservation challenges that we must continue to address in the 21st century." But, they are able to establish a proposed set of water objectives: “Water Resources: 1. Protect water supplies to ensure long-term drinking water availability and to meet the needs of local industry, agriculture, and the natural environment. 2. Protect and enhance water quality in natural, urban, and agricultural landscapes. 3. Maintain watershed integrity and ensure resilience to climate change. “pg. xiv.
The recent report from Stanford provides a plethora of examples of regional groundwater management in the state with various models for others. Likewise a recent publication, REGIONAL PLANNING IN AMERICA: PRACTICE AND PROSPECT of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policies provides other models of regional planning from across the nation. It is clear that things are happening at the regional levels in land and water planning. And it is clear that the incentives for regions to prioritize their own plans for land and water use have increased as population continues to grow. What is equally clear is that the presumptive diversions of water by the state of California and the State Legislature in water continue to preclude a sound and holistic approach by regional entities to land and water planning.
It is clear that the first step in Sacramento is to establish a consistent regional planning template that provides real sustainability in the planning process within watersheds and water basins. It is clear that the war between the regions is avoidable when regions are given the autonomy to be self-reliant. There is no question that this will mean a new meaning for sustainability. But, it is equally clear that only the seeds of conflict lie in maintaining the status quo. A scenario addressing regional long-term planning processes that are open and transparent provides a real alternative.
Showing posts with label regional water planning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label regional water planning. Show all posts
Monday, July 18, 2011
Sunday, June 19, 2011
California Water Politics: Balancing Growth with Renewable Supplies
Any study of water management report in the state of California that fails to analyze California water politics leaves a significant gap in grasping the decisions that have been made in the past and those that will be made in the future. In addressing California water politics we find profound disparities in power and influence. There are many advocacy groups that represent users and stakeholders throughout the state who are engaged in issues of water quality, water allocations and water diversions. There are lines drawn between coastal municipalities and inland users. There are lines drawn between North and South. There are environmentalists and agribusinesses that project their ritual oppositions in the media. Liberals in San Francisco raise the banner of the Delta smelt, while conservatives on talk shows mock the prioritization of a minnow-like fish ahead of the farm owners and farm workers of the Central Valley.
The irony is that with all the smoke inherent in these conflicts, how do we ever find the fire of the real interests of users in California? One thing is clear, no one lacks the appropriate science and policy advocates in the public arena to plead their case. Here in California its called "combat science". The real substantive political questions remain obscured by the white noise of the advocacy groups.
The essence of sustainability in water politics is working regionally to integrate the objective: balancing growth with renewable supplies. Defining the common needs and mechanisms to accomplish this is a common objective of our neighbors and friends and not a battlefield of the future. If we can make sacrifices in these decisions, our neighbors can do so as well. If we can establish priorities recognizing our neighbors and surrounding communities’ needs, they can as well. But we need to do with without taking from others. And we need to be cognizant of what it is we are expecting of others.
California has manipulated its water law so that it means all things to all people. Public Trust Doctrine has been used to promote private interests receiving takings from other users as a result of state actions. Beneficial uses are so inclusive as to lack any real meaning in regards to distinguishing consumptive use. In California water law doctrine is inclusive of pueblo rights, riparian, prior appropriation and a separate one for groundwater. Fourteen Federal agencies and 15 state agencies (table 2.10, page 129, PPIC Report) put their hands in the waters of California and local authorities exist in nine distinct jurisdictional governmental entities (ranging from municipalities to flood control, sanitation and water districts).
This is the face of California water management and administration but no where is there a body that presents the distinct voices of regional water users and stakeholders at the same table. No where do neighbors and community people plan their common destiny in regards to the common resource. No where are the particular interests of water users and stakeholders represented AS users and stakeholders within a shared political entity.
The decisions being made within the California State Legislature are NOT the product of the expressions of the concerns and needs of all those impacted by its decisions. The process within the California State Legislature obscures the incorporation of the science and the metrics needed for an accurate assessment of the existing regional uses and supplies of the water resource and/or the impact of the decisions being made on others. The funding mechanisms bear no relation between those benefiting from and those not impacted by the authorizations needed to implement recommendations. As a result, the politics in the State Legislature quickly degenerate into the “art of the deal”.
If we are not talking about talk show polemics or the partisan kabuki fights of FOX vs. MSNBC, what do we mean by water politics? Why are we trying to get out of the current arenas in order to come up with substantive solutions to the issues of water as they impact on our neighbors and our communities?
Other Western states do manage their state water supplies without the reliance on diversions that dominate the California aquascape or dependence on massive state bonds having to be approved. In NM, the Office of the State Engineer recently ruled against a 150 mile diversion Santa Fe from another region on the premise of a regions because it was "vague and overbroad." other states such as Texas and New Mexico manage to withstand the direct confrontations of regional users working together to define their water allocations and establish sound priorities for them.
Substantive issues such as population growth, decline of freshwater resources, and increasing public health concerns need to be addressed where they are taxing the very resources we need to survive on this planet. And they need to be in a scope and scale that they will change the direction that we are currently headed. “The relationship among water, growth and land use is a global problem that will be resolved most effectively at the local and regional level.”
The irony is that with all the smoke inherent in these conflicts, how do we ever find the fire of the real interests of users in California? One thing is clear, no one lacks the appropriate science and policy advocates in the public arena to plead their case. Here in California its called "combat science". The real substantive political questions remain obscured by the white noise of the advocacy groups.
The essence of sustainability in water politics is working regionally to integrate the objective: balancing growth with renewable supplies. Defining the common needs and mechanisms to accomplish this is a common objective of our neighbors and friends and not a battlefield of the future. If we can make sacrifices in these decisions, our neighbors can do so as well. If we can establish priorities recognizing our neighbors and surrounding communities’ needs, they can as well. But we need to do with without taking from others. And we need to be cognizant of what it is we are expecting of others.
California has manipulated its water law so that it means all things to all people. Public Trust Doctrine has been used to promote private interests receiving takings from other users as a result of state actions. Beneficial uses are so inclusive as to lack any real meaning in regards to distinguishing consumptive use. In California water law doctrine is inclusive of pueblo rights, riparian, prior appropriation and a separate one for groundwater. Fourteen Federal agencies and 15 state agencies (table 2.10, page 129, PPIC Report) put their hands in the waters of California and local authorities exist in nine distinct jurisdictional governmental entities (ranging from municipalities to flood control, sanitation and water districts).
This is the face of California water management and administration but no where is there a body that presents the distinct voices of regional water users and stakeholders at the same table. No where do neighbors and community people plan their common destiny in regards to the common resource. No where are the particular interests of water users and stakeholders represented AS users and stakeholders within a shared political entity.
The decisions being made within the California State Legislature are NOT the product of the expressions of the concerns and needs of all those impacted by its decisions. The process within the California State Legislature obscures the incorporation of the science and the metrics needed for an accurate assessment of the existing regional uses and supplies of the water resource and/or the impact of the decisions being made on others. The funding mechanisms bear no relation between those benefiting from and those not impacted by the authorizations needed to implement recommendations. As a result, the politics in the State Legislature quickly degenerate into the “art of the deal”.
If we are not talking about talk show polemics or the partisan kabuki fights of FOX vs. MSNBC, what do we mean by water politics? Why are we trying to get out of the current arenas in order to come up with substantive solutions to the issues of water as they impact on our neighbors and our communities?
Other Western states do manage their state water supplies without the reliance on diversions that dominate the California aquascape or dependence on massive state bonds having to be approved. In NM, the Office of the State Engineer recently ruled against a 150 mile diversion Santa Fe from another region on the premise of a regions because it was "vague and overbroad." other states such as Texas and New Mexico manage to withstand the direct confrontations of regional users working together to define their water allocations and establish sound priorities for them.
Substantive issues such as population growth, decline of freshwater resources, and increasing public health concerns need to be addressed where they are taxing the very resources we need to survive on this planet. And they need to be in a scope and scale that they will change the direction that we are currently headed. “The relationship among water, growth and land use is a global problem that will be resolved most effectively at the local and regional level.”
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
MANAGING CALIFORNIA'S WATER - Breaking from the Past
It is time for California to realize it is no longer on the cusp of change and that it is no longer the Best of the West. The issue of water management is just one example of California’s inability to forthrightly address significant issues with clarity and decisiveness. The theme of our discussion today seeks to ask the question of all Californians: What is the priority for water use in California: the economy or the environment? Two factors stand evident in the question: One is that regions do not agree on priorities, and two is that there are often situations where the environmental uses are consistent with economic development.
If we are to address the issues of water planning for the future, we need to empower the regions to make their own decisions for their own futures. But we need to stop enabling addictive water uses by diversion and transfers. Texas has regional planning processes that enable their state plan to project their state priorities given their drought. They have compiled statistics on water use in the state that even the PPIC indicates is NOT possible to do in California (see the note under Table 2.2 (page 86 in the MANAGING CALIFORNIA’S WATER PPIC Report). California needs to stop financing mega-projects through state bonds and begin to establish a Trust Fund for water dedicated projects as exists in Colorado. California needs regional planning processes and regional Public Welfare Statements that define their water budgets, establish priority uses and engage stakeholders and users, as was seen in the Middle Rio Grande of New Mexico.
It is not true that we can have it all. But neither is it true that public trust requires regions to divert their water resource to other regions of the state. When people who are not impacted by water allocation decisions get to make them in the State Legislature, you establish a disconnect between government and those being governed. Political partisanship has replaced administrative responsibility for wise use and efficiency. Both rural and urban users in California have increasingly demonstrated greater political leverage and less wisdom in regards to water supplies and uses. Why bother? There are no inputs from competing users. And there are no parameters for uses that bear a real relation to the carrying capacity of the regional water supply.
California has gone past the stage of turning rivers into pipelines and prefers to build aqueducts without ever bothering to recognize the inherent conflict with the concept of sustainability in so doing. As a coastal state this situation is an inherent contradiction. Sustainability is a valid criterion for water management. Sources of supply can be developed on a large scale without competing with the environment. The state of Texas has put on line a desal plant in El Paso in the middle of the Chihuahuan Desert and is converting it to solar. The state of Israel is looking to implement desal for 65% of its water supply. The PPIC admits that desal remains “a small proportion of statewide water supplies” (MANAGING CALIFORNIA’S WATER, p. 267). The point is NOT to promote desalination. The point is to propose there are greater sources of supply for regions than simply transfers and diversions. These sources can be defined by the regions themselves.
Precedents have been created that presume the entitlement of particular regions to benefit from the resources of other at great cost. But, one needs to only recall the water war from the Owens Lake diversion to recognize that it has not been done equitably and fairly. It is better to establish new precedents than to rely on the negative experiences of the past.
Economics or the environment? How can the residents of our city of San Francisco learn the impact of diverting Hetch-Hetchy when there is no real cost to them? Why are the commercial fishermen of the Delta required to sacrifice their living so that the farmers of the Central Valley are able to be provided to protect theirs? The real choices are for us to make ourselves. The shared sacrifices must be founded on the common good. Those who make the decisions need to be the ones who have to live with the consequences of them.
If we are to address the issues of water planning for the future, we need to empower the regions to make their own decisions for their own futures. But we need to stop enabling addictive water uses by diversion and transfers. Texas has regional planning processes that enable their state plan to project their state priorities given their drought. They have compiled statistics on water use in the state that even the PPIC indicates is NOT possible to do in California (see the note under Table 2.2 (page 86 in the MANAGING CALIFORNIA’S WATER PPIC Report). California needs to stop financing mega-projects through state bonds and begin to establish a Trust Fund for water dedicated projects as exists in Colorado. California needs regional planning processes and regional Public Welfare Statements that define their water budgets, establish priority uses and engage stakeholders and users, as was seen in the Middle Rio Grande of New Mexico.
It is not true that we can have it all. But neither is it true that public trust requires regions to divert their water resource to other regions of the state. When people who are not impacted by water allocation decisions get to make them in the State Legislature, you establish a disconnect between government and those being governed. Political partisanship has replaced administrative responsibility for wise use and efficiency. Both rural and urban users in California have increasingly demonstrated greater political leverage and less wisdom in regards to water supplies and uses. Why bother? There are no inputs from competing users. And there are no parameters for uses that bear a real relation to the carrying capacity of the regional water supply.
California has gone past the stage of turning rivers into pipelines and prefers to build aqueducts without ever bothering to recognize the inherent conflict with the concept of sustainability in so doing. As a coastal state this situation is an inherent contradiction. Sustainability is a valid criterion for water management. Sources of supply can be developed on a large scale without competing with the environment. The state of Texas has put on line a desal plant in El Paso in the middle of the Chihuahuan Desert and is converting it to solar. The state of Israel is looking to implement desal for 65% of its water supply. The PPIC admits that desal remains “a small proportion of statewide water supplies” (MANAGING CALIFORNIA’S WATER, p. 267). The point is NOT to promote desalination. The point is to propose there are greater sources of supply for regions than simply transfers and diversions. These sources can be defined by the regions themselves.
Precedents have been created that presume the entitlement of particular regions to benefit from the resources of other at great cost. But, one needs to only recall the water war from the Owens Lake diversion to recognize that it has not been done equitably and fairly. It is better to establish new precedents than to rely on the negative experiences of the past.
Economics or the environment? How can the residents of our city of San Francisco learn the impact of diverting Hetch-Hetchy when there is no real cost to them? Why are the commercial fishermen of the Delta required to sacrifice their living so that the farmers of the Central Valley are able to be provided to protect theirs? The real choices are for us to make ourselves. The shared sacrifices must be founded on the common good. Those who make the decisions need to be the ones who have to live with the consequences of them.
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