Duopoly's Diversions Drive Water in California

The oppressive character of a one-party system is that it does not incorporate input from other parties. There is nothing "supposed" about that circumstance. Greens know full well how it comes down. We are subjected to numerous administrative and legislative efforts to deny us ballot access in California. The record speaks for itself. Recent changes have further marginalized Green engagement.

The character of the water war in California is about allocations. It is demonstrated by various advocacy groups who have aligned with propositions that promote one group of users at the expense of others [see Pacific Institute's assertion linked below]. Los Angeles has taken water from the North for decades. San Francisco pipes its water from the east. The condition on the ground in California is that the drought is over and reservoirs are filled. The proposition for secession that was brought up by a Republican state legislator is based on lack of influence in the decision-making entities under the status quo. Now there is a move to restore Hetch-Hetchy coming from rural water users to increase their own base of support in the state.

The situation of the groundwater overdraft and the satellite monitoring of the Central Valley Aquifer presents a conumdrum to those who are hitting the bottom of the well as it were. (That would be the users east of the Sierras) The conflict over the peripheral canal is the same as has been addressed by the massive diversions to Los Angeles in the California Aqueduct and other projects including the Owens Valley diversion. Make no mistake about it, this IS a resource war. Notice the Delta would be included in the new state. This makes up the northern tip of the Central Valley Aquifer.

The largest metropolitan areas in California are located next to the ocean and yet continue to rely on freshwater sources from other parts of the state and have been financed through bonds. Even El Paso figured out how to access new supplies through desal of deep water aquifers. Their cry of poverty is inconsistent with their ability to utilize other sources. The state of Israel is looking to implement desal for 65% of its water supply. It CAN be done.

Population has increased throughout the state of California, including in the Central Valley. http://www.city-data.com/states/California-Population.html See the chart in regards to population growth in California http://www.ers.usda.gov/Data/Population/PopList.asp?ST=CA&LongName=California . L.A.'s growth has been an exercise in failing to abide by even minimal restraints and it has long ago surpassed the carrying capacity of the bioregion. there is no question that these guys want all the gravy with none of the lumps.

California makes up about 17% of the U.S. population. Its crops also provide 17% of the U.S. produce. But there remains a belief, as Arnold himself put it that:"we CAN have it all". The Pacific Institute Report states: “The total volume of water withdrawn nationwide in 2005 was lower than it was in 1975, despite substantial economic and population growth. This is a significant achievement (my emphasis- MZ) that water demand can be successfully delinked from growth." (my emphasis) MUNICIPAL DELIVERIES OF COLORADO RIVER BASIN WATER, page 2-3 at http://www.pacinst.org/reports/co_river_municipal_deliveries . This sounds more like Arnold Schwarzenegger than John Muir.

The consequences of a state legislature that has a majority of urban users is the failure to establish and govern with the interests of others incorporated into it. 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).

The Department of the Interior under G.W. Bush that predicted regional hotspots and projected regions of conflict in the U.S. in the Water 2025. http://biodiversity.ca.gov/Meetings/archive/water03/water2025.pdf It remains to be seen if we are doomed to stay on the course that guarantees conflicts as growth proceeds unabated and resources continue to be depleted. No one can "have it all" when "it" is at the expense of others. It is long overdue for real prioritization of regional water planning to replace the continued expensive, massive aqueducts and diversions.

New directions in water policy, or just shirking responsibilities.

It is rare that I will use this blog to call attention to another blog, but today's post at On the Public Record illustrates the depth of the problem that Greens would have with a rational regional water management policy.

I’ve wondered about the State and Fed’s role diminishing, especially as the legislature and the agencies explicitly set their water management approach as ‘supporting integrated regional water management’. I worry about that some, since I believe that local governments generally don’t have the luxury to do anything more than work in their immediate self-interest and compete with their neighbors for “growth” and its accompanying new tax revenue, which will always require additional water sources. (emphasis mine)

However, regional, watershed based management the only way to ensure that Green Values will govern the development and use of this indispensable resource. My observation of the politics of water in California is that it will always be governed by urban growth. At time, urban needs are hidden in the demand to support CA's agribusinesses, but too often the subsidized agricultural water allocation is only resold to urban users at a bigger profit than can be made from using that water for growing food. If you care about water and politics in this semi-arid state, then On the Public Record is required reading. In this case, his concern is very real and probably even understated.

How Environmental Protection Really Works

Anyone who thinks that Environmental Protection agencies will really protect us as citizens should read Ken Ward Jr.'s most recent post on the Bee Tree public hearing: Does WVDEP listen to coalfield citizens about mountaintop removal mining?

Ward is an outstanding journalist and tell things like they are, not like you may want to hear them.

Dianne Bady with the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition was asking O’Brien about whether the pillars holding up the roof in underground mines beneath the impoundment basin were strong enough — or whether they might crumble and damage the basin.

“You need to get your facts right,” O’Brien told Bady, shaking his head at her.

I was kind of surprised by O’Brien’s response, so I asked him: Are the pillars strong enough? What’s been done to test them? How are they being monitored?

Turns out that O’Brien, who works in WVDEP’s Office of Explosives and Blasting, was the one who didn’t have his facts right. He didn’t know the answers to my questions, even though he’d just chastised a citizen and environmental activist for asking those same questions.

This is just one more example of how the agencies that are supposed to regulate industry end up regulating the public perception of the industry instead. It is not always easy because everyone want to make sure that they get heard and so tend to speak louder. Ward notes:

Public hearings are a challenge, especially on issues that appear as divisive as mountaintop removal and when both sides are often gearing up to use the hearing more to get their message out to a larger media audience and less to actually provide meaningful input on the permit decision at hand.

You might ask what this has to do with California? Just follow any of the meetings, hearing on CA Water and you get the same effects. In both cases, we need more citizen involvement, let's call it grassroots democracy, not less.

At times, neutrality is only a lack of courage.

If you have followed Martin's excellent series of posts on CA Water, you might wonder what others are trying to do. Surprisingly, the Metropolitan Water District, the largest urban wholesaler in CA has been neutral regarding H.R. 1837, the "San Joaquin Valley Water Reliability Act".

H.R. 1837 is an effort by the agricultural water districts on the West Side of the Sa Joaquin Valley to ensure that their water is protected, even though they increasingly have to fallow land for other reasons. I refer you to Spreck Rosencran's post at On the Waterfront today. He concludes:

If even a fraction of the provisions in H.R. 1837 pass, the promise of a sustainable ecosystem will be eliminated for all practical purposes. In other words, the BDCP (Bay Delta Conservatiuon Plan)will not be able to protect the Delta and its resources and it will garner little support in many parts of the state.

It’s a curious strategy for urban water agencies to stand by and allow San Joaquin Valley exporters to take a dangerous gamble with such an important segment of the state’s supply for future generations. It is time to stop H.R. 1837 and together develop a solution that works for everybody- farmers, fishermen and urban areas alike.

It does not take much imagination to believe that the Metropolitan is working on their own proposals, including participating in supposed-to-be secret negotiations regarding the financing of a new "conveyance" that would assure their own future supplies. By conveyance I mean either a new peripheral canal around the Delta or a tunnel under it.

The facts of CA water politics are that those most affected: rate payers,the public taxpayers, the residents and daily users of the Delta, are not given a seat at the table. Once the deal is defined, then it is sold to the public so that we are all willing to open out pocketbooks yet again.

Now is perhaps our last opportunity to affect the future of water planning / management in CA, but it won't happen without the exercise of political muscle on a state wide basis.

To Greens care enough to do that?

Managing our views of California's Water Wars

Rain all day today, strange weather for June around San Jose, gives me some more time to write longer posts. It is also appropriate that I focus on the Water Ware that threatens to overtop the facts that should guide our common sense perception as the melt of this winter's snow pack will threaten to overtop the Delta's levees.

One current battle is being fought in Washington, where Congressman Devin Nunes (R - CA 21) has introduced The San Joaquin Valley Water Reliability Act (HR 1837). This clearly positions the needs of the farmers on the West side of the San Joaquin Valley as paramount, contrasting them to environmental protections for a "little minnow." It is enough to have Representative John Garamendi (D - CA 10) warn of an all out water war.

This legislation threatens the Delta, jeopardizes drinking water for California cities, and puts the interests of a select well-connected few above the entire state."

"In 1997, we were one signature away from agreeing to an 'all California' water policy solution – until the Westlands Water District walked away at the signing ceremony. I said they would regret it, and today they admitted it, even as they continue to demand a one-sided water grab that is not in the interests of California.

It is every much in the interest of Nunes, and the Westlands Water District, if everyone thinks of this as farmers fighting for their livelihood, and the jobs of their workers, vs the "environmental craziness" that would think a little minnow is more important. But this is only their way to spin the facts. Dan Bacher provides another set of facts... that the nuSplittails and very close to 15,000 chinook salmon. They have been doing this for a long time. I have previously taken issue with this framing of the story, most clearly here in criticizing Leslie Stahl and 60 Minutes.

Now, we find the just plain good investigative work shows just how much Nenues has shaped this story. A recent article in the Central Valley Business Times cites Deirdre Des Jardins,a researcher with California Water Research Associates.

Mapping imagery points toward soil and groundwater salinity as the primary cause of land fallowing near Mendota. This evidence, along with record of previous legal settlements, indicates that high levels of unemployment in the Mendota area are more likely the result of land fallowing that occurred prior to the most recent drought than any type of protections set in place for Delta fisheries.

Green Party policies have always focused on community involvement in determining resource use policies, especially regarding Water. Yet, time and again, government listens to those with the most highly paid lawyers and lobbyists, shutting out the citizenry, depending on spinning the story to disinterested voters who seldom wake up to what is happening until it is too late. That is what is happening with ironically named Bay Delta Conservation Plan. Once again, Governor Brown has named a fox to guard the hen house and the results are predictable. Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla has an OpEd in the Stockton Record where she makes it clear just how well the deck has been stacked in this game.

Under the past governor, the BDCP process was run by a steering committee of export contractors. They failed to meet their deadline in the fall for producing a document for environmental review. Now the process is firmly under the control of Meral and the California Natural Resources Agency.

Local counties, water agencies, farmers and fishermen criticized the BDCP for denying them a meaningful role in planning for the Delta's future. Meral's response has been to create 13 working groups and to give non-exporters four days' formal notice to let him know which ones they want to join. The deadline for this formal notice was May

Meral expects some of the groups to complete their work by the end of June.

Those opposing a peripheral canal are already spread thin and facing tight budgets. For all intents and purposes, this fragmented process with its telescoped timing excludes them.

The GPCA helped start Restore the Delta, at least in co-sponsoring it's first public meeting. Still we should be doing more: educating friend, pointing out truths when we can, working to dislodge those like Nunes who distort the truth for their masters.

The real future of California is going to be determined by how we meet the ecological challenges of the coming decade. Climate, water, health care and the economy are so closely intertwined that only the Green approach can possibly find the right solution.