Social Droughts and Water Wars: The Never-Ending Californian Saga.

[Arkain2K]

Water wars head upstream as state considers cutbacks for senior Central Valley irrigation districts
By Bettina Boxall | Jul 23, 2018

Steve Ritchie, an assistant general manager at the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, walks on a bridge over Moccasin Reservoir on the Tuolumne River in 2014. ​

More than two decades after Los Angeles was forced to cut water diversions to protect California’s natural resources, the state is poised to impose similar restrictions on San Francisco and some of the Central Valley’s oldest irrigation districts.

The proposal represents a dramatic new front in one of California’s most enduring water fights: the battle over the pastoral delta that is part of the West Coast’s largest estuary and also an important source of water for much of the state.

Regulators have long focused on the harmful environmental effects of the Sacramento-San Joaquin delta’s giant pumping operations, which send water south and have helped push native fish to the brink of extinction. As fish populations collapsed, environmental limits on water exports to San Joaquin Valley farms and Southern California cities have tightened.

Now, the State Water Resources Control Board is looking upstream to agricultural districts and cities that have long escaped responsibility for the delta’s woes — even though they suck massive quantities of water out of the river systems that feed the delta.

“It’s an important milestone,” board chairwoman Felicia Marcus said. “We’ve laid out a framework … for taking the next step in reconciling ourselves with the natural world in a way that has been on the plate for decades.”

In what environmentalists say is a long overdue move, the board for the first time is asking major upstream diverters to take less from three heavily tapped tributaries of the San Joaquin River, which merges with the Sacramento River to form the delta, a maze of farm islands and meandering water channels.

More water in the Stanislaus, Tuolumne and Merced rivers will improve conditions for migrating salmon, the board says, increase flows in the much abused lower San Joaquin River and ultimately boost inflow to the delta.

But more water for the delta and salmon means less for San Francisco and the agricultural districts that staked their claims to river flows a century or more ago.

“What gives is going to be a cutback in farming,” said Scott Furgerson, general manager of the 131-year-old Modesto Irrigation District, which has historic rights to the Tuolumne. “We’re going down a slippery slope.”

The Modesto, Oakdale, South San Joaquin, Turlock and other districts take so much water out of the three salmon rivers that average flows on the tributaries range from 21% to 40% of what they would be without dams and diversions. At times the riverbeds hold as little as 10% of their natural flow.

Dams, diversions, pollution and shrinking habitat have driven California’s fabled salmon runs onto the endangered species list, triggering environmental lawsuits and efforts to restore some of the water lost to croplands and cities.

The state board proposal would require maintenance of 40% of the natural flow, within a range of 30% to 50%, in the Stanislaus, Tuolumne and Merced during the February-though-June period, which is critical for salmon survival.

That would collectively cost water users 300,000 acre-feet of supply — or about 15% of their total diversions on all three rivers. (An acre-foot is enough to supply two average households for a year.)

But that could change. The board says less flow might be required if districts agree to measures to improve conditions for salmon, which swim up the tributaries to spawn.

“We’re extending an olive branch to say if you come up with a better idea, we’ll reward it,” Marcus said.

The board has spent years developing the flow standards. It released a draft of the proposal in 2016, when Gov. Jerry Brown called for voluntary agreements between the state and water districts to avoid a contentious rule-making process.

The state hired former U.S. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt to help with the negotiations. But the off-and-on talks have yet to yield a settlement.

State officials hope this month’s release of the final board plan will kickstart discussions.

“We’re really hoping that we can keep the water users at the table as a result of these documents coming out and see if we can come to closure on agreement that we can present to the water board,” said Karla Nemeth, director of the state Department of Water Resources. “Everybody’s going to need to give a little.”

In place of water cutbacks, San Francisco and the other major diverters have proposed restoration efforts such as rebuilding gravel beds for spawning, control of salmon predators and creation of floodplain habitat.

“We think the state board uses a very simplistic approach,” said Steve Ritchie, an assistant general manager at the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, which gets which gets most of its supply from Hetch Hetchy Reservoir on the upper Tuolumne.

He warned that the flow requirements would leave San Francisco and the Bay Area communities it serves with less water reserves to ride out droughts. “We just wouldn’t be able to replenish our storage over time,” Ritchie said.

On the Stanislaus, the 40% flow standard “is surely not anything we will accept,” said Steve Knell, general manager of the Oakdale Irrigation District, which has made roughly $40 million in the past decade selling some of its river supplies to less water-rich agricultural districts.

Environmental advocates also don’t like the proposed requirements, which they deem too low in the overtaxed San Joaquin system.

“The science is pretty strong,” said Gary Bobker, program director for the Bay Institute, an estuary protection group. “If you want to have anywhere from stabilizing fish populations to actually recovering them and rebuilding the stock to a healthy level, you’ve got to have somewhere between 50 and 60% of the [natural] runoff.”

He added that “you can’t separate flow” from all the other factors — such as invasive species and poor water quality — that contributed to the steep decline of California’s salmon stocks, which were once so abundant that farmers scooped the fish out of rivers and fed them to hogs.

Bobker nonetheless credited the board for extending the pain of water cuts to the most senior agricultural diverters — something the panel of gubernatorial appointees has historically been reluctant to do.

“We’re moving to a mentality where we’re all in this together as Californians,” he said.

Indeed, the board is not stopping in the San Joaquin Valley. It is also developing flow requirements for the Sacramento River basin that would cut diversions in that watershed and send more water to the delta.

And the board wants to increase flows through the delta and out to sea to restore some of the estuary’s natural hydrological rhythm. That could mean less water is pumped south.

“It may take a while. We might have to litigate a while but … I’m very confident we’ll succeed,” Marcus said.

She citied the Mono Lake case, when the board in 1994 ordered Los Angeles to reduce diversions from the Eastern Sierra to protect the region’s fish and wildlife. To compensate, the city has stepped up development of local supplies, purchased more imported water from the Colorado River and Northern California and promoted conservation. Despite adding 1 million residents, L.A. is using less water than it did two decades ago.

No matter how senior, water-use rights do not confer ownership, Marcus notes.

“Water belongs to all the people of the state of California,” she said. “And fish and wildlife are one of those commonly held assets that we as a water board are supposed to be protecting.”

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-river-flows-20180723-story.html

 

[MicroBrew]

California is rich; so why not build a bunch of desalination plants? Yes I know it is expensive, but they need the water.

 

[xcvbn]

Water wars head upstream as state considers cutbacks for senior Central Valley irrigation districts
By Bettina Boxall | Jul 23, 2018

Steve Ritchie, an assistant general manager at the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, walks on a bridge over Moccasin Reservoir on the Tuolumne River in 2014. ​

More than two decades after Los Angeles was forced to cut water diversions to protect California’s natural resources, the state is poised to impose similar restrictions on San Francisco and some of the Central Valley’s oldest irrigation districts.

The proposal represents a dramatic new front in one of California’s most enduring water fights: the battle over the pastoral delta that is part of the West Coast’s largest estuary and also an important source of water for much of the state.

Regulators have long focused on the harmful environmental effects of the Sacramento-San Joaquin delta’s giant pumping operations, which send water south and have helped push native fish to the brink of extinction. As fish populations collapsed, environmental limits on water exports to San Joaquin Valley farms and Southern California cities have tightened.

Now, the State Water Resources Control Board is looking upstream to agricultural districts and cities that have long escaped responsibility for the delta’s woes — even though they suck massive quantities of water out of the river systems that feed the delta.

“It’s an important milestone,” board chairwoman Felicia Marcus said. “We’ve laid out a framework … for taking the next step in reconciling ourselves with the natural world in a way that has been on the plate for decades.”

In what environmentalists say is a long overdue move, the board for the first time is asking major upstream diverters to take less from three heavily tapped tributaries of the San Joaquin River, which merges with the Sacramento River to form the delta, a maze of farm islands and meandering water channels.

More water in the Stanislaus, Tuolumne and Merced rivers will improve conditions for migrating salmon, the board says, increase flows in the much abused lower San Joaquin River and ultimately boost inflow to the delta.

But more water for the delta and salmon means less for San Francisco and the agricultural districts that staked their claims to river flows a century or more ago.

“What gives is going to be a cutback in farming,” said Scott Furgerson, general manager of the 131-year-old Modesto Irrigation District, which has historic rights to the Tuolumne. “We’re going down a slippery slope.”

The Modesto, Oakdale, South San Joaquin, Turlock and other districts take so much water out of the three salmon rivers that average flows on the tributaries range from 21% to 40% of what they would be without dams and diversions. At times the riverbeds hold as little as 10% of their natural flow.

Dams, diversions, pollution and shrinking habitat have driven California’s fabled salmon runs onto the endangered species list, triggering environmental lawsuits and efforts to restore some of the water lost to croplands and cities.

The state board proposal would require maintenance of 40% of the natural flow, within a range of 30% to 50%, in the Stanislaus, Tuolumne and Merced during the February-though-June period, which is critical for salmon survival.

That would collectively cost water users 300,000 acre-feet of supply — or about 15% of their total diversions on all three rivers. (An acre-foot is enough to supply two average households for a year.)

But that could change. The board says less flow might be required if districts agree to measures to improve conditions for salmon, which swim up the tributaries to spawn.

“We’re extending an olive branch to say if you come up with a better idea, we’ll reward it,” Marcus said.

The board has spent years developing the flow standards. It released a draft of the proposal in 2016, when Gov. Jerry Brown called for voluntary agreements between the state and water districts to avoid a contentious rule-making process.

The state hired former U.S. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt to help with the negotiations. But the off-and-on talks have yet to yield a settlement.

State officials hope this month’s release of the final board plan will kickstart discussions.

“We’re really hoping that we can keep the water users at the table as a result of these documents coming out and see if we can come to closure on agreement that we can present to the water board,” said Karla Nemeth, director of the state Department of Water Resources. “Everybody’s going to need to give a little.”

In place of water cutbacks, San Francisco and the other major diverters have proposed restoration efforts such as rebuilding gravel beds for spawning, control of salmon predators and creation of floodplain habitat.

“We think the state board uses a very simplistic approach,” said Steve Ritchie, an assistant general manager at the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, which gets which gets most of its supply from Hetch Hetchy Reservoir on the upper Tuolumne.

He warned that the flow requirements would leave San Francisco and the Bay Area communities it serves with less water reserves to ride out droughts. “We just wouldn’t be able to replenish our storage over time,” Ritchie said.

On the Stanislaus, the 40% flow standard “is surely not anything we will accept,” said Steve Knell, general manager of the Oakdale Irrigation District, which has made roughly $40 million in the past decade selling some of its river supplies to less water-rich agricultural districts.

Environmental advocates also don’t like the proposed requirements, which they deem too low in the overtaxed San Joaquin system.

“The science is pretty strong,” said Gary Bobker, program director for the Bay Institute, an estuary protection group. “If you want to have anywhere from stabilizing fish populations to actually recovering them and rebuilding the stock to a healthy level, you’ve got to have somewhere between 50 and 60% of the [natural] runoff.”

He added that “you can’t separate flow” from all the other factors — such as invasive species and poor water quality — that contributed to the steep decline of California’s salmon stocks, which were once so abundant that farmers scooped the fish out of rivers and fed them to hogs.

Bobker nonetheless credited the board for extending the pain of water cuts to the most senior agricultural diverters — something the panel of gubernatorial appointees has historically been reluctant to do.

“We’re moving to a mentality where we’re all in this together as Californians,” he said.

Indeed, the board is not stopping in the San Joaquin Valley. It is also developing flow requirements for the Sacramento River basin that would cut diversions in that watershed and send more water to the delta.

And the board wants to increase flows through the delta and out to sea to restore some of the estuary’s natural hydrological rhythm. That could mean less water is pumped south.

“It may take a while. We might have to litigate a while but … I’m very confident we’ll succeed,” Marcus said.

She citied the Mono Lake case, when the board in 1994 ordered Los Angeles to reduce diversions from the Eastern Sierra to protect the region’s fish and wildlife. To compensate, the city has stepped up development of local supplies, purchased more imported water from the Colorado River and Northern California and promoted conservation. Despite adding 1 million residents, L.A. is using less water than it did two decades ago.

No matter how senior, water-use rights do not confer ownership, Marcus notes.

“Water belongs to all the people of the state of California,” she said. “And fish and wildlife are one of those commonly held assets that we as a water board are supposed to be protecting.”

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-river-flows-20180723-story.html

Lol

An LA Times article that puts the fish first? Yeah, because they want to butter up the northern farmers by drastically reducing their water allocations in the name of protecting salmon, only to offer them a "sweet deal" when LA county sells them water as part of the Sac River Waterfix tunnels.

The northern farmers are key in all of this. They just need to see through the bullshit and know which battle to fight and who to align with. Now would be a good time to fight back because whoever controls the water has the leverage to negotiate or sue.

Very nuanced approach though as the Merced, San Joaquin, Stanislaus and Tuolumne rivers increasing outflows is key to the WaterFix plan. It's just funny they say it's only to protect our salmon.

 

[xcvbn]

California is rich; so why not build a bunch of desalination plants? Yes I know it is expensive, but they need the water.

It's cheapest to suck all the water from the mountains temporarily than to build a sustainable water source for the 10s of millions of people who live hundreds of miles from the Sierra Nevadas.

The travesty is that every single solution that relies on northern and eastern rain/snow melt will never result in a sustainable solution. At a certain point the choice will have to be made- human quality of life and the existence of fish and wildlife near these rivers and the Delta, or destroy an entire ecosystem for the sake of lazy cheapskates with no regard for life other than their own.

But yes, desalination is the solution. And a statewide moratorium on new residential construction until an actual sustainable fresh water solution is implemented.

 

[Arkain2K]

California is rich; so why not build a bunch of desalination plants? Yes I know it is expensive, but they need the water.

But yes, desalination is the solution. And a statewide moratorium on new residential construction until an actual sustainable fresh water solution is implemented.

Before I get into this again, I just want to make sure that you guys have already read what I wrote in regards to Desalination vs. Reclamation in the first 3 pages of this thread first.

 

[xcvbn]

Before I get into this again, I just want to make sure that you guys have already read what I wrote in regards to Desalination vs. Reclamation in the first 3 pages of this thread first.

Just reread them again. It is what it is. I don't blame SoCal wanting cheap water but we need to understand that it's not about cost up north- it's about survival of several species of fish and quality of life for millions of humans.

Nuclear plants+desalination. Make it happen. In return, Kern county can keep growing pistachios in the desert.

I'll admit that the 40' wide water pipes is probably the easiest, cheapest, and quickest solution. But there are other high costs to that and it's ultimately not a permanent solution. At some point SoCal will need to turn saltwater into freshwater- unless their plan really is to extend the pipe into Canada.

 

[Arkain2K]

Just reread them again. It is what it is. I don't blame SoCal wanting cheap water but we need to understand that it's not about cost up north- it's about survival of several species of fish and quality of life for millions of humans.

Nuclear plants+desalination. Make it happen. In return, Kern county can keep growing pistachios in the desert.

I'll admit that the 40' wide water pipes is probably the easiest, cheapest, and quickest solution. But there are other high costs to that and it's ultimately not a permanent solution. At some point SoCal will need to turn saltwater into freshwater- unless their plan really is to extend the pipe into Canada.

This is the portion that I want to emphasize, by the way:

Personally, I believe the answer to the water shortage problem in California is not Desalination from the ocean, but Reclamation/Recycling the current supply.

Here's the real-world direct comparison between the Groundwater Replenishment System water-recycling plant in Orange County and the The Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant in San Diego County, both are in Southern California (about 50 miles apart) and are subjected to approximately the same labor/supplies/energy costs:

- The Desalination plant (owned by Poseidon Water, with a 30-year water contract signed with San Diego) costs them $1 Billion to built, and is producing 50 million gallons of drinking water a day. The annual electricity bill for its operation alone is estimated to be about $50 to $60 million each year, plus supplies and labor.
- The water-recycling plant costs $623 Million to build, and is producing 100 million gallons of drinking water a day. The TOTAL operation cost is $38 million a year ($15M for electricity, $6M for chemicals, $7M for R/O membranes and ultraviolet lamps, $10M for staffing).
- The price for 100% pure desalinated water sold to San Diego residents this year comes out to be $2300 per acre-foot.
- The price for 100% pure recycled water sold to Orange County residents this year comes out to be $525 per acre-foot.

Numbers like that makes me wonder why every time the issue of water scarcity comes up, people would instantly think of water desalination as the first solution, when it's almost always the most expensive and least economically-viable option of all.

Orange County has embraced Water Reclamation completely, but we gonna need other counties in SoCal to get on board, especially L.A.

Billions of gallons of water could be recycled and reused every single day for cheap (especially in a place known for half-hour long showers even during droughts), instead of being dumped into the ocean, if people can get over the irrational ick factor with 100% pure water.

 

[ocfightfan]

This is the portion that I want to emphasize, by the way:



Orange County has embraced Water Reclamation completely, but we gonna need other counties in SoCal to get on board, especially L.A.

Billions of gallons could be reused every single day for cheap (especially in a place known for half-hour long showers even during droughts) if people can get over the irrational ick factor with 100% pure recycled water.

I saw a documentary on this when I took a geology class over at the local community college. I was really blown away that the efforts OC has put into reclamation and success they have had. I certainly agree that strides in reclamation, recycling, and management are the future for the entire state.

 

[MicroBrew]

Before I get into this again, I just want to make sure that you guys have already read what I wrote in regards to Desalination vs. Reclamation in the first 3 pages of this thread first.

Yes it's about money, it's always been about money where desalination is concerned. Reclamation is obviously not enough. They could augment with reverse osmosis but ultimately the population density and growth means they will need desalination.

 

[Arkain2K]

I saw a documentary on this when I took a geology class over at the local community college. I was really blown away that the efforts OC has put into reclamation and success they have had. I certainly agree that strides in reclamation, recycling, and management are the future for the entire state.

The plan to expand the capacity of our water recycling plant from 100 million gallons a day to 130 million gallons a day is well on its way.

Meanwhile, the three massive water treatment plants in Los Angeles are dumping every last drop of their treated waste water into the ocean, even when the State is in a drought, when all that could easily be recycled to 100% purity for cheap and pump back into their pipes.

The Hyperion plant in Vista Del Mar alone is currently wasting their 350 Million gallons of treated water every single day. That's a hell lot of water flowing back into the ocean each year, with more being imported from elsewhere to replace them.

 

[xcvbn]

This is the portion that I want to emphasize, by the way:



Orange County has embraced Water Reclamation completely, but we gonna need other counties in SoCal to get on board, especially L.A.

Billions of gallons of water could be recycled and reused every single day for cheap (especially in a place known for half-hour long showers even during droughts), instead of being dumped into the ocean, if people can get over the irrational ick factor with 100% pure water.

What's the cost of that?

 

[Arkain2K]

What's the cost of that?

The post you quoted already included all the construction costs, operational costs, and most importantly, unit costs for Desalinated vs. Recycled water in Southern California.

 

[WTF2008]

I thought all the glaciers were melting, so we'll have more water than we can handle soon.

 

[Protectandserve]

But will the state look into storing rain water in reservoirs? Nope.

Instead we spend billions on a damn bullet train to no where.

 

[Arkain2K]

But will the state look into storing rain water in reservoirs? Nope.

Instead we spend billions on a damn bullet train to no where.

Well, at least the proposed reservoirs finally got a small fraction of the funding they requested. May be some of those projects will actually breaks grounds a few years from now if they can find the rest of the money:

California funds new dams to protect against future drought
Kurtis Alexander | July 24, 2018

For the first time since California’s dam-building boom ended nearly a half century ago, state officials on Tuesday approved a windfall of cash for new water storage projects, setting the stage for at least a mini-resurgence of reservoir construction.

The historic $2.7 billion of voter-approved bond money will go to elevating two Bay Area dams, at Los Vaqueros Reservoir near Livermore and Pacheco Reservoir east of Gilroy, as well as to the development of two much larger dams in the Central Valley. Funds also will go to four less traditional endeavors that store water underground.

Collectively, the projects would add about 4.3 million acre feet of water storage across the state, the equivalent of about a dozen of San Francisco’s Hetch Hetchy reservoirs. The new supply is intended to help California weather drought as longer, deeper dry spells are expected to take hold with climate change.

Although the larger dams, at the proposed 13-mile-long Sites Reservoir along the Sacramento River and 18-mile-long Temperance Flat Reservoir on the San Joaquin River, are still well short of the money they need to get off the ground, the Bay Area projects are now close to moving forward.

“Getting the money is a greater step toward water reliability for the Bay Area region,” said Oliver Symonds, a spokesman for the Contra Costa Water District, which was allocated $459 million for the proposed $980 million expansion of Los Vaqueros Reservoir.

The state money comes four years after voters approved Proposition 1 in the throes of the recent drought. The $7.5 billion bond measure committed funding for upgrading water infrastructure, restoring watersheds and developing new water storage, with more than a third of the money earmarked for reservoirs and underground water banks.

Tuesday’s decision on storage projects was made by the California Water Commission, an independent advisory board appointed by the governor, following a years-long technical review in which about a dozen proposals were considered.

To make sure the projects wouldn’t serve special interests, each was scored by how much public benefit it would provide — for example, whether it offered boat recreation, improvements to fish habitat or wastewater treatment.

Among the winners were two efforts to recycle wastewater by treating it and storing it underground. The projects were submitted by the Sacramento Regional County Sanitation District and the Inland Empire Utilities Agency.

Two other funding recipients, in Kern County and Southern California’s Antelope Valley, plan to recharge stressed groundwater basins with surplus surface water.

But the bulk of the money, close to $2 billion, is headed to reservoirs.

With its allocation, the Contra Costa Water District hopes to break ground in two years on raising the dam at Los Vaqueros Reservoir in the East Bay hills by 55 feet. The reservoir, which holds water piped in from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, would grow by 70 percent, increasing its capacity to 275,000 acre-feet of water, enough to supply more than a half million households for a year.

The district intends to share its additional supplies with other Bay Area providers, including the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission and the East Bay Municipal Utility District. Those agencies are expected to help foot the balance of the project’s cost.

With $485 million of Prop. 1 money, the Santa Clara Valley Water District plans to construct a new $969 million dam on Pacheco Creek in eastern Santa Clara County, in the footprint of a smaller dam. The project will increase water storage from the creek, which gets much of its water through releases from nearby San Luis Reservoir, from 5,500 to 140,000 acre feet of water.

An acre foot is 326,000 gallons and can meet the needs of about two households for a year.

The outstanding balance for the expanded Pacheco Reservoir is expected to come from other water agencies that will benefit, including the San Benito County Water District and Pacheco Pass Water District, as well as customers served by the project.

Richard Santos, chairman of the Santa Clara Valley Water District Board of Directors, said he hopes construction will start in the next few years.

“It’s a reliable source of water that will provide for all of Santa Clara County’s residents,” he said.

The biggest recipient of the Prop. 1 funding was the proposed Sites Reservoir, a $5.2 billion venture slated for the west side of the Sacramento Valley in rural Colusa County. The project would store 500,000 acre feet of water piped in from the nearby Sacramento River.

However, the $816 million allocated for the reservoir is much less than the project’s backers wanted, leaving the future of the effort uncertain. The reservoir’s anticipated public benefit did not score as high as what supporters had hoped.

“My concern is that this (money) is more of a down payment on what we need and not an end solution,” said Jim Watson, general manager of the Sites Project Authority. “But it’s a step in the right direction.”

Watson said he is pursuing funding from other sources, including the many water agencies that would benefit from Sites, largely districts that provide water for farms.

Proponents of the proposed Temperance Flat Reservoir, near Fresno, said they, too, are having to look elsewhere for cash.

The $3 billion project, which would add 1.3 million acre feet of water storage from the San Joaquin River, was awarded $171 million. The public benefit of the project was also deemed low.

Mario Santoyo, the project’s executive director, said he’s hoping President Trump, who has committed to increasing agricultural water supplies, will pick up with where the state left off.

“There’s no guarantees, but we have a new administration that wants to build,” Santoyo said.

The Prop. 1 funding for water storage is the most the state has allocated since construction of the State Water Project, which consists of 21 dams and hundreds of miles of canals, built largely in the 1960s.

California’s last major reservoir, New Melones Lake near Sonora (Tuolumne County), was constructed by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in the 1970s.

Jay Lund, director of the Center for Watershed Studies at UC Davis, said Prop. 1 was largely an aberration since the state and federal governments have retreated from the dam-building business.

The reasons are numerous, he and other water experts say. For one, the best spots for reservoirs are taken. Also, the harm that dams do to fish and rivers has become increasingly clear. And finally, there’s just not much money for the pricey endeavors.

“This is pretty unprecedented that the state is providing general fund revenues for water storage. It’s rarely done on this large of scale,” Lund said. “But I’m not sure there’s anymore economically promising surface storage to be built no matter how much money you have. This may well be the last hurrah for water storage.”

https://www.sfchronicle.com/science...unds-new-dams-to-protect-against-13101961.php

 

[Arkain2K]

State approves $2.7 billion for water storage projects
By Bettina Boxall | Jul 24, 2018

The proposed Sites Reservoir near Maxwell in the Sacramento Valley would inundate ranch land.
​

A state commission on Tuesday approved $2.7 billion in funding for a variety of water storage projects across California, but the money doesn’t guarantee that any of them will be built.

The California Water Commission action was part of a complicated new process designed to depoliticize awards of state water bond funding by judging projects according to stringent guidelines that some of the biggest projects had trouble meeting.

High-profile projects such as the Temperance Flat dam proposal on the upper San Joaquin River lost out, winning a fraction of what backers wanted and throwing the project’s future into doubt.

Proponents of another big dam project, the Sites Reservoir in Northern California, walked away with less than a fifth of what they will need to construct an off-stream reservoir that would store water piped from the Sacramento River.

“We do not have the money lined up to do this project,” Jim Watson, general manager of the Sites Project Authority, told commissioners.

Two smaller Bay Area dam projects fared better. The Santa Clara Valley Water District was awarded half of what it needs to expand a small reservoir on Pacheco Creek.

The Contra Costa Water District also won half of the cost of raising a dam and expanding Los Vaqueros Reservoir in Contra Costa County.

The commission spread storage money beyond traditional reservoir projects.

In Southern California, the Inland Empire Utilities Agency was awarded $207 million to expand the Chino Basin water recycling program and reduce the region’s use of imported supplies from Northern California.

Two groundwater storage projects in Kern County — the Kern Fan Groundwater Storage Project and the Willow Springs Water Bank — also won funding.

In the Sacramento region, bond money was earmarked for the South County Agricultural Program to help pay for a project to use recycled wastewater to irrigate cropland.

Still, under conditions of the Proposition 1 bond, the eight funded projects can’t actually collect most of their state money until they have obtained environmental permits and contracts for additional funding.

If they fail to meet those requirements by 2022, they will lose their award.

The funding process was a departure from the traditional distribution of storage money, which has tended to reward recipients with the most political muscle.

Proposition 1 mandates that the state in most cases can pay for no more than half of a storage project’s total cost.

And the state money can be used to underwrite only a project’s public benefits, such as recreation, flood control and ecosystem improvements.

Moreover, half of the state share has to pay for ecosystem improvements in the watershed of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the environmentally troubled center of California’s water delivery system.

Although many of the commissioners wanted to give more money to the Sites and Temperance Flat proposals, they couldn’t after the state Fish and Wildlife Department found the projects would not improve conditions for imperiled salmon runs on the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-water-storage-20180724-story.html

 

[Arkain2K]

California’s largest reservoir project in decades gets an $800 million boost. But is it feasible?
By Dale Kasler And Ryan Sabalow | July 24, 2018​

The spot where Sites Reservoir would be built, along the Glenn-Colusa county line. ​

California officials Tuesday awarded $816 million in voter-approved bond money to build Sites Reservoir, an hour north of Sacramento, providing a financial boost for what would become the largest water storage project built in the state since the 1970s.

Approved by the State Water Commission, the funds were the most given to any of the eight projects across California under consideration for a part of the $2.7 billion Proposition 1 water bond. Voters passed the bond in 2014 during the state’s historic drought.

Despite the nine-figure award, Sites’ project managers weren’t pleased with the amount of funding for their $5.2 billion project. The decision by the Water Commission represents about half of what Sites’ backers originally had sought.

Jim Watson, general manager of the Sites project authority, said the unfunded sum represents “an opportunity lost” for California. Additional funding from the state would have enabled Sites to make more water available for fish and other environmental needs, he said.

Sites has been under discussion for decades. The project would flood a 14-mile long valley west of Williams along the Glenn-Colusa county line with water piped 14 miles from the Sacramento River. The artificial lake would have nearly twice the storage capacity of Folsom Lake, making it the state’s seventh largest reservoir. A water project of its size has not been undertaken since Jerry Brown’s first stint as governor, when New Melones Dam was completed on the Stanislaus River in 1979.

In addition to state money, Sites will be funded by individual water agencies. Sacramento Valley agricultural districts are the reservoir’s primary supporters, but farm and urban water agencies from Fresno to Los Angeles also have pledged tentatively to invest.

With the state funding coming in lower than requested, Watson said the participating water agencies will have to reassess their plans for financing their share of the project.

Nonetheless, he said he believes Sites will go forward in some form. “Worst case, we could build a smaller reservoir,” he told The Sacramento Bee.

Each water agency that commits funding to build Sites would store water in the lake proportional to the amount of the money spent for construction.

The state’s funding ensures that about 50,000 acre-feet of water each year will be under regulators’ control to help Delta smelt and wildlife refuges. If the state had delivered as much Proposition 1 money as Sites wanted, the reservoir could have provided up to 200,000 acre-feet a year, Watson said.

While environmentalists usually oppose big water projects, some say they could live with Sites if it’s managed properly to help the environment.

But other environmental groups are condemning Sites, saying the last thing the Sacramento River’s struggling native fish species need is more water pumped out of their habitat.

Others questioned whether the project is even feasible, given that state water regulators recently signaled that in order to protect fish, they were planning to keep billions of gallons of water in the Sacramento River, instead of allowing it to be pumped to farms and cities.

“It’s hard to see how there could be enough extra water to make a major new diversion project work for fish and work for the people who want to build it,” said John McManus, the executive director of the Golden Gate Salmon Association, in an interview Tuesday.

Other critics say Sites is really a silent partner to Brown’s hugely controversial water tunnels project planned for under the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Formally known as California Waterfix, the Delta tunnels would facilitate the delivery of the Sacramento Valley’s water to the parched regions of the south state. The tunnels are fiercely opposed by environmentalists and Sacramento-area officials. Sites’ backers insist their reservoir isn’t tied to the tunnels. Water stored in Sites could be pumped through the tunnels to south-state water agencies.

The commission on Tuesday also issued $280.5 million in bond funds for a small groundwater storage “banking” project proposed by the Sacramento Regional County Sanitation District. The project will use recycled urban waste water to irrigate up to 16,000 acres of agricultural land, reducing farmers’ pumping of groundwater and keeping more water in the Cosumnes River in south Sacramento County.

The commission also awarded $171 million to Temperance Flat, a controversial dam proposed for the San Joaquin River, representing barely 6 percent of the project’s $2.7 billion cost. Dam supporters have said Temperance Flat probably will be scrapped without a higher level of state funding.

Another $1 billion went to two Bay Area reservoir expansion projects, Pacheco Pass in southeastern Santa Clara County and Los Vaqueros in Contra Costa County.

While voters authorized $2.7 billion in bond funds for water storage projects, the pot shrinks to just under $2.6 billion because of bond-finance costs and other expenses.

https://www.sacbee.com/latest-news/article215421995.html

 

[Arkain2K]

Farmers Protest California Water Plan Aimed To Save Salmon
By Kathleen Ronayne | Aug 21, 2018

Hundreds of California farmers rallied at the Capitol on Monday to protest state water officials' proposal to increase water flows in a major California river, a move state and federal politicians called an overreach of power that would mean less water for farms in the Central Valley.

"If they vote to take our water, this does not end there," said Republican state Sen. Anthony Cannella. "We will be in court for 100 years."

Environmentalists and fishermen offered a different take on the other side of the Capitol to a much smaller audience.

"For the 50 years corporate agriculture has been getting fat," said Noah Oppenheim of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations. "Salmon fisheries have been tightening belts."

The charged rhetoric came a day before the California State Water Resources Control Board was set to discuss its proposal to change water flows in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, which supplies water for the majority of California's people and massive swaths of farmland.

The plan would double the amount of water that must flow freely through the Low San Joaquin River and three of its tributaries from February to June, meaning less water can be diverted for farming or other needs. It's an effort to protect the state's declining salmon population; the state estimates just 10,000 fall-run salmon returned to the San Joaquin Basin in 2017, compared to 70,000 in 1985. The change is an attempt to mimic natural water flows that help the salmon thrive.

State water officials have called the Delta an "ecosystem in crisis."

How California manages and uses its water has long been a topic of hot political debate, falling more along regional lines than partisan ones and pitting agricultural interests against environmental ones. Beyond farming interests, politicians in the Central Valley say the plan would limit their access to drinking water.

"When was it a crime to grow food to put on our tables," said Democratic Assemblyman Rudy Salas of Bakersfield. "When was it a crime to demand that we have safe drinking water?"

The water board has postponed its final vote on the plan to an unspecified date.

The Trump administration has also weighed in. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke called it a "water grab" that would "cripple the Central Valley's economy, farms and community," after visiting the region with Republican U.S. Rep. Jeff Denham in July. He urged the state water board to delay its vote.

Increasing flows would harm the federally-managed Central Valley Project's ability to move and store water through its network of dams and reservoirs, Zinke has argued. On Friday he tasked his staff with developing a plan to help maximize water deliveries, construct new water storage and reassess legal interpretations around California's water management.

Several farmers at the Capitol rally said the water board's move would hurt their businesses.

"They want to control every drop of water in the state of California," said Harry Holland, a rancher in Browns Valley, an unincorporated community north of Sacramento.

Supporters of the plan, though, had a different take.

"The salmon are on the brink of extinction in the Central Valley," said Peter Drekmeier, policy director of the Tuolumne River Trust. "It's not just for the environment — it's for the fishers and all the people who enjoy salmon."

https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/...ifornia-Water-Plan-Save-Salmon-491355481.html

 

[Arkain2K]

Southern California water agency approves $5 million for stormwater pilot
The money will go toward constructing, retrofitting and monitoring various stormwater capture systems
By David Rosenfeld | September 10, 2019

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California on Tuesday, Sept. 10, approved $5 million for a stormwater pilot project to determine the best and most efficient way to capture the tens of billions of gallons of rainwater that flow off roofs and pavement each year.

“A lot of hope has been placed in the potential of stormwater as a local water supply for Southern California,” said Metropolitan Chairwoman Gloria Gray. “We want to better understand that potential, and its cost, as part of our commitment to developing local resources.”

The regional water agency is a wholesaler that provides water for 26 member public agencies to deliver — either directly or through their sub-agencies — to nearly 19 million people in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego and Ventura counties.

The agency is responsible for reselling imported water from the Colorado River and Northern California; imported water comprises roughly 60% of Southern California’s water supply. With the cost of that imported water expected to rise continually, because of scarcity and energy costs, stormwater will become increasingly valuable as well, Metropolitan officials continually say.

And a lot of water is lost to runoff.

In L.A. city alone, for example, an estimated 163 billion gallons of stormwater rush off the concrete streets and sidewalks each year, flowing into storm drains and emptying out into the ocean, according to the California Coastkeeper Alliance. Not only is that a waste of water, conservation experts say, but stormwater also carries with it harmful chemicals and bacteria that can foul beaches.

Experts, though, say the vast amount of stormwater cannot be captured by a single project. Rather, many smaller projects are needed.

To that end, Los Angeles city in 2016 spent $29 million to expand an existing stormwater capture system, doubling its capacity to 5 billion gallons of stormwater per year.

In 2014, California voters also approved Proposition 1, guaranteeing $7.12 billion for water infrastructure projects, including $200 million for stormwater management programs. Then, in 2018, Los Angeles voters passed Measure W to fund infrastructure projects and programs to capture, treat and recycle rainwater.

L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti this year set a goal for the city to source 70% of its water locally by 2035, which includes 100% recycling of wastewater by that time.

These projects, though, are not always easy — even when there’s money available.

Hermosa Beach, for example, recently scrapped a stormwater capture project proposed for part of a recreational trail near the city’s southern boundary, costing it a $3.2 million grant from the State Water Resources Control Board in the process.

And despite all the money various agencies have spent so far, Metro officials said, they still don’t know the best way to capture stormwater.

The pilot project, though, is expected to provide data on various methods — measuring capture volumes, costs and performance. The program will focus on projects that capture stormwater for irrigation purposes only, and not drinking water, using such methods as cisterns and permeable pavement with underground collection systems.

While the Metropolitan Water District has for decades sought to diversify its water supply portfolio — it has provided more than $500 million in incentives to more than 100 groundwater recovery and recycled water projects through its Local Resources Program — none of the projects have involved locally captured stormwater. That’s largely due to a lack of data, according to officials.

“Stormwater capture projects have a lot of benefits — improving water quality, flood control, habitat creation, and water supply,” Metropolitan General Manager Jeffrey Kightlinger said. “But they are typically expensive to build. So as we explore opportunities to invest in these projects, in partnership with parties interested in their other benefits, we need to understand their water supply value.”

https://www.dailybreeze.com/2019/09...ency-approves-5-million-for-stormwater-pilot/

 

[Arkain2K]

Los Angeles, state officials discuss increasing local water supplies
By City News Service | August 17, 2019

Los Angeles city and county representatives hosted a discussion with state officials to address ways to increase local water supplies and to support a proposed statewide water system.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti was joined Friday by the California Secretary of Natural Resources, Wade Crowfoot, and Secretary of Environmental Protection, Jared Blumenfeld, to discuss the city’s maintenance of its water sources.

“We are proud to work hand-in-hand with our state leaders to advance an agenda that protects ratepayers, preserves our environment, diversifies our water portfolio and protects our natural resources in the face of intense droughts and the rising tide of climate change,” Garcetti said.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom directed his administration to develop a Water Resilience Portfolio for the state earlier this year, a comprehensive strategy to redesign California’s water infrastructure to ensure long-term resilience and environmental protection.

“We need an all-of-the-above approach on water to address the daunting challenges we face,” Blumenfeld said. “The governor’s water portfolio strategy challenges us to think broadly and act boldly to ensure that our communities, our environment and our economy thrive over the long term even as our climate grows more variable.”

Garcetti announced earlier this year that Los Angeles will source 70% of its water locally by 2035 by implementing a range of local water solutions, including:

• Increasing recycling capabilities at the city’s four water treatment facilities to recycle 100% of Los Angeles’s wastewater by 2035, whichwill expand water recycling and reduce reliance on imported water.
• Four planned projects to remediate the San Fernando Valley Groundwater Basin by 2023, an aquifer that can provide enough drinking water for more than 800,000 Angelenos.
• The passage of Measure W, a $300 million measure approved by county voters in 2018 to fund infrastructure projects and programs to capture, treat and recycle rainwater.

Also at the discussion were representatives from the California Department of Natural Resources, Los Angeles Metropolitan Water District, LosAngeles County Department of Public Works, the Regional Water Quality Control Board, Department of Water and Power and Los Angeles Sanitation and Environment.

Following the roundtable discussion, city staff took the state officials on a tour of local water projects, including stormwater capture developments, a groundwater remediation site and a water recycling facility.

https://www.dailybreeze.com/2019/08/17/water-talks/