A Briefing on
California
Water Issues
Briefing Document
Includes:
Editor’s Note:
California
and water. The two always
have been and always will be inextricably linked. No resource is more
vital to the state's prosperity or steeped in more controversy.
This briefing issue is
produced by the Water Education Foundation to provide the public with a
short overview of the current key issues in
California
water.
There is a need for a fair and balanced portrait of these critical topics
because decisions on these controversial issues affect everyone in the
state.
It is important for
Californians to know the views of the three main interest groups --
agricultural, urban and environmental -- who have a stake in management of
our water resources. It also is necessary to learn about the issues facing
governmental officials who oversee water management. The mission of the
Foundation is to provide impartial coverage of water issues to lead to a
broader understanding and resolution of water problems.
California
water
issues can appear overwhelmingly complex and controversial. Through the
Foundation, we try to open the door to understanding these issues so that
Californians will be able to best manage and protect this precious
resource.
We believe that learning
about water will help you determine what decisions should be made
regarding these important issues.
People interested in more
in-depth information on these current water issues and other topics are
encouraged to subscribe to Western Water magazine, published bi-monthly by the Foundation, or
refer to the Foundation's Layperson's Guide series. The publications can
be ordered through our online store.
– Rita
Schmidt Sudman, executive director, Water Education Foundation
Updated March 2004 Glenn
Totten
As the nation's most
populous state,
California
faces many complicated and
compelling problems. Although polls have shown the public's top concerns
are education, job security, crime and immigration, water fuels the
economy. Proper management of the quality and quantity of the state's
"liquid gold" is critical to
California
's well-being.
Since the days of Mark Twain
-- who is said to have coined the phrase "Whiskey's for drinking; water's
for fighting over" -- cities, farmers and
environmentalists have battled over who will control
California
's
water. The three powerful political factions have effectively turned the
water issue into a stalemate by blocking one another's agenda.
Yet the critical question of
how -- or if -- the state's limited water supply can be stretched to meet
future needs remains. The fundamental controversy surrounding
California
's water
supply is one of distribution. The decades-long conflicts between
competing interests over the use of available supplies have been
exacerbated by the state's swelling population and periods of drought.
According to U.S. Census
Bureau figures,
California
’s population currently is
estimated at 35.5 million, and is projected to hit 49.3 million by 2025.
In its 1998 California Water Plan update, the state Department of Water
Resources (DWR) forecast a gap between water supply and demand ranging
from 2.4 million acre-feet during normal years up to 6.2 million acre-feet
in drought years by 2020. (An acre-foot of water is about 326,000 gallons
-- enough to cover an acre of land, about the size of a football field, 1
foot deep and meet the average needs of between one and two residential
households.) A new state water plan with updated supply and demand
projections is expected to be completed in 2004.
In addition to satisfying
the basic needs of residential customers, demands for more reliable and
higher quality water supplies continue to come from the state's
agricultural industry, businesses, manufacturers and developers. At the
same time, protecting water quality, which may impact water allocation, is
of fundamental importance to people, fisheries, wildlife and recreational
interests.
Within
California, there are two major arteries serving as
the sources of surface water for urban and agricultural areas: The
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (Bay-Delta) and the
Colorado River.
The Delta serves as a major
water source for approximately two-thirds of the state – over 22 million
people. The region is fed by two major rivers: the
Sacramento from the north and the
San Joaquin from the south. The mixture of fresh
water from these two waterways and numerous tributaries combine with salty
ocean water from
San
Francisco
Bay
to create the largest estuary on the West Coast of North
America. Massive pumps at the southern end of this marsh pull
approximately 5.5 million acre-feet annually of fresh water from the
entanglement of waterways and sloughs southward to Central Valley farmland
via the Central Valley Project and ultimately, to the southern California
region via the State Water Project.
The massive Colorado River
winds its way through the southwestern
United States before terminating in the
Gulf of California in
Mexico
. Along the way, the
river provides water to seven states including
California
, with
each state's water use determined by the Colorado River Compact of 1922.
According to the compact,
California is
permitted to use 4.4 million acre-feet of the
Colorado annually, but for over a decade,
California
has been
using well beyond that. As water conditions have tightened in several of
the other states, the secretary of the Interior has demanded that
California reduce its use of the
Colorado River - a major challenge to
river water users.
Adding to the increased
emphasis on water conservation, water management in the northern part of
the state has, for the past several years, been driven by the struggle to
balance water needs and environmental protection in the
Bay-Delta.
The Sacramento River
endangered winter-run and spring-run Chinook salmon are anadromous fish
that travel down river, through the Delta to the Pacific Ocean and back to
complete their life cycle. The federal Endangered Species Act (ESA)
requires modification of water project operations and restriction of water
exports to protect the salmon. Further pumping constraints were imposed to
protect the tiny Delta smelt, a threatened fish found only in the Delta,
thus adding more fuel to the water distribution controversy among farmers,
environmentalists and cities.
California
's capricious climate
fluctuates between flood and drought, which significantly impacts
supplies. A six-year drought between 1987 and 1993 was followed by five
years of above-normal precipitation from 1995 through 1999. Another dry
cycle occurred between 2000 and 2002, but thanks to late-season rains the
water year that ended in September 2003 had near-average
precipitation.
Drought can wreak havoc on
the state. The 1987-1993 drought served as a
wake-up call to many. It highlighted the fact that if available supplies
are not used more efficiently and/or expanded, overdrafted groundwater
basins, water rationing for urban users, fallowed farmland and lost jobs
loom on the horizon. Several western states, including many in the
Colorado
River Basin
, are
experiencing serious drought. Reservoirs along the
Colorado River are at 30-year lows. The dry
conditions have the potential to affect the availability of surplus flows
from the Colorado River upon which
California depends (see
Colorado River section).
In addition to the
hydrologic drought, some water interests complain about the imposition of
a "regulatory" drought. A number of contractors' water deliveries have
been cut back during average rainfall years to meet the requirements of
federal laws that aim to preserve the state's dwindling native freshwater
fisheries and riparian-dependent species.
In order to resolve the
stalemate over the limited water supply and ever-increasing demand, a
coalition of federal and state agencies with management and regulatory
responsibilities in the Bay-Delta -- a critical link in the water supply
system – was formed in 1995. This coalition, now called the CALFED
Bay-Delta Authority, has made significant progress in several areas, such
as groundwater storage, environmental water account, ecosystem
restoration, water conveyance and water recycling. Voter approval of
Proposition 50 in November 2002 will keep state funds flowing to CALFED,
but supporters have had a harder time getting federal support.
The federal government has
dipped its toe into another divisive
California water issue – the amount of water the
state can take from the
Colorado River.
The Bush administration took a hard line during negotiations with southern
California water interests to finalize a
plan to reduce use of
Colorado River
water. When those talks failed to yield an agreement acceptable to federal
officials, Interior Secretary Gale Norton said she would hold
California
to its
4.4 million acre-foot allocation starting
January 1,
2003.
A figurative cloud hanging
over
California
is the prospect of global climate change and what it might
portend for the state’s water future. Several scenarios predict
temperature rises of between 3 degrees Centigrade and 5˚C by 2090, which
could change precipitation patterns in the state and the timing of runoff.
Temperature increases and rising sea levels also could raise salinity in
the Bay-Delta, potentially affecting many species that have adapted to its
unique habitat.
Various public interest and
environmental groups, urban water agencies and irrigation districts are
working to find solutions to
California
's water problems. Innovation
is a key component in this solution, and practices such as water
recycling, desalination and water marketing are becoming the water jargon
of the future. But as with every proposal, there are glitches. A stumbling
block for water recycling thus far has been the lack of public trust over
science's ability to clean wastewater to the point of potability.
Likewise, water marketing has met with obstacles due to lack of a defined
market. Desalination faces cost and environmental hurdles. Discussions
will undoubtedly continue in the areas of growth, expanding urban
supplies, water conservation, the Bay-Delta, water marketing, agricultural
drainage and water needs for fish and wildlife.
ALLOCATING MORE WATER FOR
FISH AND WILDLIFE
A critical challenge for the
water world has been to provide more water to protect and restore fish and
wildlife. Societal values have evolved over the last century from an ethic
of conquering nature to one of coexisting with it. This fundamental change
in values, combined with the passage of strict state and federal laws
protecting endangered species and their habitat, and lawsuits by
environmental groups to enforce these laws, has impeded most conventional
water development for the last two decades.
Since the Gold Rush,
California
and the American West have been transformed from vast,
sparsely populated open spaces into one of the world’s leading regions for
food production and manufacturing. Much of that development was made
possible by tapping the region’s abundant natural resources, especially
water, and putting them in the service of human needs.
That rapid and intensive
development has made significant changes in the natural environment. Fish
populations have been depleted, wetlands drained and rivers forced into
artificial channels. Dams and levees have altered natural water flow
patterns. Native species of many plants and animals have declined, and in
some cases become extinct. Water quality has been impaired by pollutants
from mining, urban sources and agricultural activities.
Widespread interest in
environmental restoration is a relatively recent phenomenon. Its roots
date back to the 1960s and 1970s with enactment of federal legislation
such as the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act in 1968 and the Endangered Species
Act (ESA) in 1973. Together with companion laws enacted in
California
, these
measures helped create the legal apparatus for protecting endangered
native populations of wildlife, fish and plants that has since expanded to
encompass broader restoration objectives. The ESA prohibits actions that
harm listed species or disrupt their normal pattern of behavior. Many
threatened and endangered species live in riparian areas, and the ESA
mandates have led to the alteration of dam operations, water diversions
and pumping facilities.
Most recently, debate has
raged over attempts to amend a collection of
California
laws
known as the fully protected species statutes. Those statutes predate
California
’s ESA and prohibit even incidental take of 37 species of
birds, mammals, reptiles and fish. By contrast, both the federal and state
ESA laws allow a certain amount of “take” for some endangered species
under certain circumstances and when mitigation efforts are undertaken to
offset the killing of the species. However, species listed under the fully
protected species laws cannot be killed or have
their habitats destroyed.
Movement toward changing the
fully protected species laws occurred in 2003, when former Gov. Gray Davis
signed legislation (SB 317, Kuehl) that authorizes take of endangered
species in order to facilitate the broader goals of conserving irrigation
water in the
Imperial Valley and
transferring some of that conserved water to urban uses. The law was part
of a three-bill package that enabled the Quantification Settlement
Agreement (QSA), a complex accounting of the rights of several
California
water
districts to use
Colorado River water.
Other bills in the package put the onus on the state for environmental
restoration of the
Salton Sea and
provided a mechanism for funding the restoration work.
In the Delta, CALFED’s
Ecosystem Restoration Program (ERP) is intended to address a variety of
issues such as water diversions and land use changes that have affected
native fish, wildlife and plants. The ERP, along with the water management
strategy, also is designed to assist with the recovery of endangered
species found in the Bay-Delta.
A
key component of the ERP is its focus on adaptive management. Adaptive
management can help bridge the gap between scientific theory and actual
results by allowing for scientific research, test programs and monitoring
of pilot restoration projects. For example, scientists would identify a
goal, such as increasing Delta smelt populations, and a range of options
to achieve that goal. These actions would then be monitored to determine
if they are meeting the goal. If not, they would be
modified.
Some of the typical ERP
actions identified by CALFED include acquiring water from sources
throughout the Bay-Delta’s watershed to provide flows and habitat
conditions for fishery protection and recovery, improving Delta outflow
during key periods, constructing setback levees, developing assessment,
prevention and control programs for invasive species, and modifying or
eliminating fish passage barriers, including the removal of some dams and
construction of fish ladders and fish screens at other dams.
The ERP proposes that
between 132,200 acres and 158,200 acres of land within the Delta be
converted to wildlife habitat or other uses, of which 120,000 acres to
151,200 acres is estimated to be farmland. CALFED officials hope their
acreage estimates are high and that less farmland actually will need to be
converted for ecosystem restoration. Specific Delta islands on which
CALFED is restoring fish and wildlife habitat include Staten, Prospect,
Twitchell and Sherman islands, and McCormick-Williamson Tract. Stage 1
funding is estimated at $1.3 billion, including $200,000 for the
Environmental Water Account. An additional $300,000 has been identified
for the Science Program. Click here for
the Foundation's Briefing on the Bay Delta.
Other actions identified in
the ERP include, but are not limited to, proposals to:
-
Implement large-scale
restoration projects on selected streams and rivers, including Clear
Creek, Deer Creek,
Cosumnes
River
,
San Joaquin
River
and
Tuolumne
River
, in
cooperation with local participants.
-
Improve fish passage
through modifications or removal of the following locally owned dams:
small diversion dams on Butte Creek; eight Pacific Gas & Electric
Company diversion dams on
Battle Creek
; McCormick-Saeltzer Dam
on Clear Creek; Woodbridge Dam on
Mokelumne
River
; and Clough Dam on Mill
Creek.
-
Restore habitat in
San Pablo
Bay,
Suisun
Bay
and Suisun Marsh and the Yolo
Bypass including tidal wetlands and riparian habitat.
-
Improve salmon spawning
and juvenile survival in upstream tributaries by purchasing up to
100,000 acre-feet of water per year by the end of Stage 1. Some of these
flows may be contributed to the Environmental Water Account
(EWA).
-
Complete protection and
restoration of the
Sacramento River
meander corridor as part of the Sacramento River Conservation Area/SB
1086 program.
-
Implement an invasive
species program, including prevention, control and eradication elements.
-
Improve dissolved oxygen
conditions in the
San
Joaquin
River
near
Stockton
, where dissolved oxygen in
the river dips below state environmental criteria, causing a migratory
block for salmon and threatening other fish.
Since efforts to restore the
winter-run salmon were initiated in the late 1980s, an increase in their
numbers has been recorded. Many attribute the boost in numbers to
above-average precipitation, instream flow increases and non-flow measures
to aid the salmon.
Recovery, however, is far
from complete and some fish populations continue to decline. Another
Chinook population - the spring-run - has dropped from around 1 million to
a few thousand. The spring-run Chinook is listed as threatened under the
ESA. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s fisheries arm
(NOAA Fisheries) lists the central
California coho salmon and coho stocks in northern
California
as threatened. Steelhead trout populations are listed as
endangered in southern
California and
threatened in the south-central
California coast, central coast, the Central Valley
and in northern
California
. The fall and late-fall runs
of Chinook salmon on the
Sacramento and
San Joaquin rivers are presently
candidates for listing.
The Central Valley Project
Improvement Act (CVPIA), passed in 1992, provides assistance to the
environment. The law reallocated 800,000 acre-feet annually (600,000
acre-feet in dry years) of CVP yield to restore valley fisheries.
Additionally, the act ensured annual instream flows for the Trinity River
and
Central Valley wildlife refuges, but
restoration plans have been controversial. Former Interior Secretary Bruce
Babbitt signed a Record of Decision in December 2000 to increase flows in
the
Trinity River from about 340,000
acre-feet annually – about 25 percent of its historic flow – to 369,000
acre-feet in a dry year to 815,000 acre-feet in a wet year. However, a
federal judge ruled in December 2002 that the department must reconsider
the plan to weigh the effects it will have on power generation and
endangered species downstream in the Bay-Delta. The judge gave Interior
four months to re-evaluate its plan, but environmental groups and two
Indian tribes that fish the river are considering an appeal.
The Trinity is a tributary
of the Klamath River, which became a flashpoint in Fall 2002 in the fish vs. farmers dispute over water in
the
Klamath
Basin
that straddles
the California-Oregon border. An estimated 33,000 adult Chinook salmon
died on the lower Klamath in September 2002, some
say because of upstream water diversions for irrigation. A January 2003
report by the California Department of Fish and Game concluded that
reduced releases of stored water to the Trinity and Klamath rivers in
2002, combined with high densities of adult fish returning to spawn,
likely caused the fish deaths. Reclamation has created a voluntary water
bank in the
Klamath
Basin
to collect water from land
fallowing, groundwater substitution and other methods to be used to meet
needs of endangered fish.
Another species of
fish, the
Sacramento
splittail, has been the center of controversy since being
listed as threatened under the federal ESA in February 1999. That action
prompted a lawsuit by state water contractors, and in 2000 a federal
district court judge invalidated the listing. The decision stated that
NOAA Fisheries’ predecessor agency failed to consider opposition to the
listing by state Department of Fish and Game scientists and data showing
record or near record high abundance of splittail in 1998. The ruling also
stated that the fisheries agency failed to adequately explain how it
reached the conclusion that the splittail is threatened with extinction.
USFWS delisted the splittail as a threatened species in September
2003.
Habitat management plans to
protect biodiversity – the variety of plant and animals species and their
interaction -- are vying with the controversial ESA single-species
approach. The biodiversity approach, adopted by Interior, allows
landowners who have endangered species on their property and agree to a
habitat conservation plan to avoid having to take additional steps to
protect a listed species. The plans are seen as a way to provide
landowners with more economic certainty. However, critics say habitat
plans are being used as a means to get around the ESA
protections.
A state-initiated habitat
conservation plan was developed in southern
California
after
the gnatcatcher, a song bird that lives in coastal sage scrub, was listed
as threatened under the federal ESA. Real estate developers vigorously
opposed the bird's listing. Under the Natural Communities Conservation
Planning (NCCP) program, parcels of sage scrub will be conserved but
development of other parcels will beallowed.
GROWTH
By July 2003,
California
's
population was estimated at 35.5 million people, reflecting the
tremendous overall growth experienced during the past decade. Water demand
in urban areas is expected to increase in average water years from its
current 8.8 million acre-feet annually to 11.4 million acre-feet by 2020,
according to 1998 projections.
A buzzword emanating from
state and federal levels is so-called "smart growth" or, the idea of
allowing growth while protecting and ensuring resources. Areas such as the
Central Valley have experienced
population booms over the past decade, leading communities and governments
to try to protect against the possibility of over-population, including
impacts to the state's finite water supply. Although the state's growth
has been closely tied to water development, it was not until recently that
local land use agencies and water districts were required to communicate
about the impacts of proposed development projects on water
supply.
Responding to the demand of
continued growth on the state’s limited water resources, policy makers
authored legislation to ensure surface and groundwater supplies are
adequate to meet budding development. SB 672 (Machado) requires the State
Water Plan to incorporate greater emphasis on regional and local solutions
to meet community water needs. SB 221 (Kuehl) requires officials to make
the determination, prior to issuance of a final subdivision map, that
20-year water supplies exist to meet the needs of new housing developments
of 500 homes or more. Finally, SB 610 (Costa) expands the requirements
that public water purveyors prepare water supply assessments early in the
land use planning process. All of the bills became law on
Jan. 1,
2002.
Some people contend that, in
addition to more efficient water use, the state's economic future depends
on constructing new water storage and transfer facilities and adding to
the State Water Project (SWP). The SWP is one of two major state water
delivery systems and has not been completed as planned. The cost and
regulatory process involved in new projects, however, are formidable.
Water shortage is just one of many problems stemming from rapid population
growth. Urban sprawl -- including into vulnerable floodplains – also
brings traffic congestion, air pollution, environmental degradation and
declining services.
Continuing to develop in the
state's floodplains is a significant concern because of risks to lives and
property. Many of the alluvial valley areas of
California
are
extensively developed, and flooding in these areas has caused billions of
dollars in damage. Building in these high-risk areas continues because
development pressures supersede flood safety concerns.
California
is the most urbanized state
in the nation, and most of the projected growth will occur in the
Central Valley and south coast region.
The 18-county
Central Valley population
is projected to reach 13.8 million by 2040 - a 64 percent increase from
today's population of 9 million. Recent population growth in
California
cost the
state 500,000 acres of farmland lost between 1988 and 1998, according to
the University of California Agricultural Issues Center. Some consider the
conversion of land to urban development a threat to agricultural
production and the region's air quality.
One of the biggest
battlesinvolving water and growth
has centered on Newhall Ranch, a large residential/commercial development
planned for northwestern
Los
Angeles
County
. Although the project won approval in 2003 after years of
debate, critics raised questions about its potential impacts on the
Santa Clara
River
watershed and
whether water supplies will be adequate for the 21,000 new homes. A judge
in late 2003 found environmental documentation for the project
adequate.
ENHANCING AND PROTECTING
URBAN SUPPLIES
Many urban water managers
worry about
California
's water supply reliability
during an extended drought. For this arid region of the
United
States
, it is not a matter of if a
drought will occur, but when. Keeping water in the state's elaborate
network of canals, reservoirs and aquifers is of the highest importance
for a state so dependent on water for its economic stability.
Though
California
has not
faced a multi-year drought since the early 1990s, fears remain over the
devastating impacts a prolonged shortage of water could have on the state.
Drought-proofing the state has become a serious priority at every level of
the water hierarchy. The need for a solution when an extended drought
occurs was emphasized by the 1987-1993 drought, which highlighted the
vulnerability of many regions in the state, particularly southern
California and the central coast.
About 20 million
Californians get some portion of their water from the SWP -- the state's
major distribution system for urban water supplies. The 29 water agencies
that buy SWP water have contracted for long-term deliveries of about 4
million acre-feet of water. The existing facilities, however, allow the
SWP to deliver between 2.5 million and 3.5 million acre-feet in a normal
water year and 1.1 million acre-feet in dry years. Faced with delivery
uncertainties, some water districts have taken out insurance in the form
of off-stream storage facilities.
Metropolitan Water District
of Southern California (MWD), the state's largest water wholesaler serving
17 million people, built a new off-stream reservoir in
Riverside
County
to nearly
double its surface water storage capacity. Completed in 2000, the $2
billion
Diamond
Valley
Lake
stores 800,000 acre-feet of
water.
In 1997, Contra Costa Water
District completed construction of an off-stream reservoir at a cost of
$450 million. The Los Vaqueros Reservoir holds 100,000 acre-feet of water.
Most of the water is for emergency supplies and to improve the quality of
Delta water exported to
Contra
Costa
County
that can become salty during
summer months and droughts. In March 2004, local voters approved a measure
that will allow the district, in conjunction with state and federal
agencies, to continue studying the feasibility of expanding the reservoir
to 500,000 acre-feet. This is one of the surface storage proposals under
study through the CALFED plan.
New reservoirs are expected
to be used in conjunction with alternative sources, such as wastewater
recycling, water conservation, water transfers, groundwater banking and,
for some coastal communities, seawater desalination.
California
has some
200 water reclamation facilities that recycle about 450,000 acre-feet a
year. The treated wastewater is used in a variety of ways, ranging from
irrigation to groundwater recharge. It is anticipated that another 162
recycling plants will come on line this decade. These projects, which are
mostly in southern
California
, are expected to produce up
to 1 million acre-feet of recycled water annually by 2020.
There have been some
problems associated with gaining public acceptance of water recycling
projects. The so-called "yuck factor" has, in several instances, killed
entire water recycling projects. In 1998,
San Diego
dropped a recycling proposal
because of public resistance. Similarly, the Dublin San Ramon Service
District in the Bay Area scrapped plans in 2002 to inject purified,
recycled water into its groundwater basin for later recovery as drinking
water. Instead, the district will use the recycled water for landscape
irrigation.
Developing alternative
sources of supply -- from increasing storage capacity to expanding reuse
of recycled wastewater –- is not a panacea for meeting all the anticipated
demand, but helps close the gap between supply and demand. The Orange
County Water District is expanding its water recycling program. With help
from a $30 million Proposition 13 grant, the district’s Groundwater
Replenishment System plans to inject about 75,000 acre-feet annually of
highly-treated wastewater into the local groundwater aquifer. When
completed in 2007, the replenishment system will produce about 72,000
acre-feet of water per year to help offset water imports from northern
California
.
In addition to rising water
demand, urban water agencies face water quality issues. Surface water and
groundwater supplies have been contaminated by both manmade and natural
substances. The most significant threat to water quality is nonpoint
source pollution, which includes runoff from city streets, construction
sites and agricultural fields, leaking underground storage tanks,
accidental spills and abandoned mines. Controlling nonpoint pollution is
very difficult because it does not come from a single source.
The federal Clean Water Act
(CWA) regulates both surface water and groundwater quality and is enforced
by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The CWA was amended in
1987 to include a requirement that states develop nonpoint source
pollution assessment and management programs.
A key part of the effort to
combat nonpoint source pollution are total maximum daily load (TMDL)
regulations. According to the EPA, TMDLs are "a calculation of the maximum
amount of a pollutant that a water body can receive and still meet water
quality standards." Even as states, including
California
, have
been adopting TMDLs for specific water bodies (nearly 3,000 in 2002), EPA
has been unable to settle on a consistent framework for the program. In
December 2002, former EPA Administrator Christie Whitman withdrew a July
2000 TMDL regulation, calling it “unworkable.” Whitman said her action
would not stop implementation of the TMDL program, and she promised to
work on ways to improve it. The California State Water Resources Control
Board and its nine regional boards are continuing to adopt and enforce
TMDLs.
Federal and state laws
regulate drinking water in the
United States
, which is
generally the best in the world. EPA oversees drinking water quality for
the nation, while in
California
the Division of Drinking
Water and Environmental Management in the Department of Health Services
(DHS) oversees state drinking water laws. After spending two decades
focused on the long-term health effects of chemical contaminants and
removal of such pollutants, public water officials increasingly have
turned their attention to microbial concerns such as cryptosporidium and
giardia. Officials with the federal Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention are conducting studies to determine the percentage of
gastrointestinal illness cases that are due to drinking water consumption.
But chemical contaminants
remain a concern, with new ones such as MTBE and perchlorate seeming to
emerge every few years. Those two recently joined arsenic and chromium 6
as priorities for water quality and drinking water standards. Chromium, a
naturally occurring element found in the earth’s crust, also is released
by some industrial processes such as chrome plating and paint coloring.
California
’s DHS regulates chromium 6 in drinking water at a maximum
contaminant level of 50 parts per billion (ppb). The department was
supposed to establish a primary drinking water standard for chromium 6 by
January 1,
2004, but can’t act until it receives a recommendation from
another state agency.
In a similar vein, arsenic
has generated interest and concern from the water community. Also a
naturally occurring element, industry, mining and agriculture all have
contributed arsenic to
California
’s water supply. On
Oct. 31,
2001, Whitman of the EPA announced a new arsenic drinking water
standard of 10 ppb. Drinking water purveyors have until 2006 to be in full
compliance with the rule.
MTBE (methyl tertiary butyl
ether), a clean air gasoline additive, is not regulated by the federal
Safe Drinking Water Act. It has been detected in some lakes due to
inefficient two-stroke engine motor boats and watercraft and in
groundwater supplies because of leaking underground fuel tanks. Some
communities have had to shut down wells because of MTBE contamination.
MTBE is a suspected human carcinogen because of studies linking it to
leukemia, lymphoma and liver and kidney cancers in animals, but the state
Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) has concluded
that MTBE does not meet the definition of a human carcinogen under
Proposition 65.
Alarmed by the reports of
water supplies contaminated by MTBE, state officials banned the addition
of the chemical to gasoline as of
January 1,
2004.
California
set a maximum contaminant
level (MCL) for MTBE of 13 ppb in May 2000. Although EPA has not set a
drinking water standard for MTBE, since 2001 the agency has required all
large water systems to monitor and report the presence of MTBE. The likely
replacement for MTBE is ethanol, derived mainly from corn.
The newest chemical
contaminant of concern is perchlorate, which is used in rocket
propellants, road flares and fireworks and in auto air bag inflation
systems. Very mobile once it gets into water, perchlorate has been turning
up in an increasing number of
California
groundwater sources, mainly
in
Los Angeles
,
Riverside
and
San Bernardino
counties. OEHHA issued a draft document for scientific review
in December 2002 that proposed a drinking water public health goal of
between 2 ppb and 6 ppb for perchlorate. DHS has issued an advisory action
level of 4 ppb until a drinkingwater standard is established.
Another emerging contaminant
concern is NDMA, or N-nitrosodimethylamine, first observed in a northern
California
drinking water well in 1998 and since found elsewhere. Like
perchlorate, NDMA is used in rocket fuel production, but also has a
variety of industrial uses and can be a byproduct of a drinking water
disinfectant, monochloramine. NDMA is a known animal carcinogen and a
suspected human carcinogen. DHS has set an action level of 10 parts per
trillion for NDMA, but no MCL has been established yet.
WATER
CONSERVATION
For hydrologists, an
important tool is a “water balance,” a comparison of water supply to use.
A water balance published by DWR in its 1998 update of the California
Water Plan (Bulletin 160-98) forecasts a statewide total net demand of
80.1 million acre-feet in an average water year met by a supply of 79.9
million acre-feet in 2020, a deficit of 200,000 acre-feet. Under drought
conditions, the projected imbalance increases to 2.7 million acre-feet.
DWR expects to complete an update of the water plan in
2004.
In the past, the traditional
way of closing the gap between supply and demand has been to increase
supplies -- either by building new facilities such as dams or by tapping
underground aquifers. But building new facilities is costly, and such
projects face strict environmental review before they can be approved.
Groundwater resources, although abundant in many areas of
California
, are
overdrafted in some places and take time to replenish. And overpumping
groundwater can lead to subsidence, an often irreversible collapse of the
earth’s surface overlying an aquifer, or saltwater intrusion into coastal
aquifers. Conservation is an option that can cost-effectively stretch uses
of available water and help preserve groundwater resources. State
officials estimate that a combination of urban and agricultural
demand-management programs, land fallowing, water banking and voluntary
rationing during droughts, and permanent land retirement in areas with
poor drainage could reduce net water demand by a total of 3 million
acre-feet by 2020.
Agriculture uses about 75
percent of the state's developed water, and environmentalists have long
contended a 10 percent reduction in irrigation water use could free up
enough water to permit decades of urban population growth. Since the
1980s, state agricultural water consumption has remained relatively stable
at around 9 million irrigated acres. At the same time, improved farming
techniques have led to an increase in per-acre production.
The Agricultural Efficient
Water Management Practices Act resulted in the development of a memorandum
of understanding (MOU) by which signatory irrigation districts and water
agencies committed to adopt a number of mandatory and conditional
efficient water management practices (EWMPs). The MOU, which to date has
been signed by 50 agricultural water representing 4.7 million acres,
requires signatory water suppliers to submit water management plans to the
Agricultural Water Management Council comprised of one member from each
signatory agency. In addition to the six “universally applicable” EWMPs,
there are a dozen “conditionally applicable” EWMPs that may be adopted by
signatory agencies on an as-needed basis, subject to cost/benefit
analysis. These measures include construction and operation of tailwater
reuse systems, automation of canal structures, and installation of water
meters to measure the volume of water delivered to individual water users.
Accurate water use data are considered critical to the design and
operation of effective water management plans.
Water demand has also has
been affected by the CVP Improvement Act (CVPIA), which fundamentally
changed CVP operations by putting the protection of fish and wildlife on
an equal footing with irrigation and flood control. Built in the 1940s,
the federal CVP is the largest water storage and transfer system in the
state. It stores up to 12 million acre-feet and delivers 7.3 million
acre-feet annually, 90 percent of which is used to irrigate about 3
million acres of farmlands south of the Delta, with the remaining 10
percent of CVP water used for wildlife refuges.
The full impact of the
CVPIA, however, is just now being felt. A management plan for the
dedicated yield for environmental purposes was released in late 1997 but
did not require the total 800,000 acre-feet of project yield to be
allocated annually. The plan became the subject of a lawsuit and was
eventually thrown out by a judge. In July 1999, a trial was held on the
use of the 800,000 acre-feet of water and Interior developed a new
accounting plan. The plan contains several methods of accounting for
upstream reservoir releases and Delta outflow. The plan was ultimately
approved by the court and farmers on the west side of the
San Joaquin
Valley
could see
water supply cutbacks as high as 50 percent.
Conservation of farm
irrigation water is a key part of a water transfer between the Imperial
Irrigation District (IID) and the San Diego County Water Authority (SDCWA)
that is included in the QSA. A portion of the money paid by SDCWA for IID
water will go to help
Imperial Valley
farmers improve irrigation efficiency on their crops. Some of the water
conserved by increased efficiency or land fallowing will be transferred to
urban users in
San
Diego
.
DWR concluded that by 2020,
irrigation efficiencies and increased conservation could reduce net demand
by about 300,000 acre-feet. An additional 200,000 acre-feet of water could
be conserved by retiring some farmland with serious drainage problems on
the west side of the
San
Joaquin
Valley
. A bill passed by the state Legislature in 1998 will pay $200
million to finish lining the All-American and Coachella canals (which
transport Colorado River water to the Coachella and Imperial valleys) and
help by increasing irrigation efficiency and water
conservation.
On the urban side, a 2003
report by the Pacific Institute said
California
could postpone development of
major new water sources by cutting its urban water use by one-third
through a combination of efficient technology, policy changes and improved
public education. Most of the projected water savings could come from
wider use of existing technologies such as low-flush toilets, more
efficient outdoor irrigation and water-saving clothes washers, according
to the institute.
THE
BAY-DELTA
The Sacramento-San Joaquin
Delta is a 1,153-square-mile region located where the
Sacramento
and
San Joaquin rivers converge and flow into
San
Francisco
Bay
. The Delta is a vital link for the state's water supply.
Forty-two percent of the state's annual runoff flows through this maze of
islands, marshes and sloughs. State and federal water facilities located
in the south Delta pump water to supply farms and cities in central and
southern California, providing water to about two-thirds of the state's
population. These projects and local facilities also provide about 60
percent of the water used in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The Delta is a highly
productive agricultural region because of its flat topography, mild
climate and abundant water. Its waters support 28 native and 28 non-native
fish populations, in addition to the salmon and steelhead populations that
migrate through the estuary.
Farm interests, cities and
environmental groups have battled for decades over the Delta's water and
the health of its ecosystem, but at the end of 1994 they joined with state
and federal agencies in a process to develop long-term solutions to
protect the Bay-Delta. They agreed on a set of interim water quality
standards that require water exports to be reduced by about 400,000
acre-feet in average rainfall years and up to 1.1 million acre-feet in
drought years. The accord provides cities and farmers with more water
supply certainty because it assumes the outflow will adequately protect
ESA-listed and other declining Delta fish species. If additional water is
needed to protect ailing species, the federal government will provide any
water presumably purchased from willing sellers above and beyond the
amount set forth in the plan.
Five years of
studies and discussion coordinated by the CALFED Bay-Delta Program
culminated in a 1,200-page plan for the Bay-Delta announced in August 2000
by top state and federal officials. A 54-page Framework Agreement provided
an overview of a seven-year, $8.7 billion program designed to give each of
the major stakeholder groups – urban, agricultural and environmental –
something. The agreement offered ideas for how to increase water storage
and water conservation, improve water quality and restore ecosystem
functions through a broad array of projects. But none of the interests got
everything it wanted.
The CALFED plan itself is
extremely comprehensive; the solutions it outlines will not be implemented
overnight, and it will take time to see results. The Ecosystem Restoration
Program alone calls for over 600 different actions in all the regions of
the Bay-Delta watershed. Other elements are equally complex. How to ensure
the plan stays on course over the next 30 years given the cycle of
political administrations in
California
and
Washington,
D.C., remains a major issue.
Increased water recycling,
water conservation, water transfers, millions of dollars in additional
habitat restoration projects, and improvements in Delta levees also are
included in the 30-year, $10 billion package. Legislation was signed in
2002 to establish a permanent governing structure for CALFED, the
California Bay-Delta Authority. It will oversee implementation of CALFED
with a diverse group of state, federal, regional and public members
holding power to issue contracts and distribute funds; track progress on
implementation of the program; coordinate with federal agencies on
budgetary actions; promote partnerships with local interest to implement
the program; and oversee implementation of the program’s science
element.
A test of the cooperative
attitudes fostered by CALFED is expected to come during 2004, when a plan
to increase pumping in the South Delta undergoes environmental review. The
plan, formally called the Project Integration Proposal, calls for pumping
more water into storage during wet periods for later use. Supporters say
the plan would preserve Delta water quality yet make more water available
to CVP and SWP contractors, but some Delta farmers and environmental
groups are skeptical.
Another major Delta issue is
drinking water quality. About 22 million Californians receive at least a
portion of their drinking water supplies from the Delta. Because the
region was once a swamp, it has rich, organic soils containing compounds
that are the building blocks for suspected human carcinogens called
trihalomethanes, or THMs. THMs are disinfectant byproducts formed when
chlorine is used to treat drinking water. Water utilities have spent large
amounts of money to find ways to reduce THMs without increasing the risk
of microbial agents in drinking water.
Concerns were further raised
by two Department of Health Services studies released in 1998. The studies
suggested a link between pregnant women in their first trimester who drank
tap water with high levels of THMs and an increased risk of miscarriage.
Special attention was paid in the studies to bromodichloromethane, a THM
that forms when chlorine combines with bromides -- such as those found in
the Delta -- during the chlorination at the treatment plant.
Water agency representatives
point out that the limitations of the water quality database in the study
mean that its conclusions are subject to a large degree of uncertainty.
Federal rules limit THMs in drinking water to 100 ppb.
Environmental groups say the
byproducts are more of a threat than what is suggested by existing
studies, pointing to their analysis of water quality and health data that
reveals a link between high rates of birth defects and miscarriages and
regions with high amounts of chlorination byproducts. Such high
chlorination would not be necessary if drinking water sources were
cleaner, the groups say.
Environmental health experts
believe the link between the byproducts and the possible harm to unborn
children is suggestive, not conclusive. High levels of byproducts are
nonetheless of concern, according to researchers. EPA in 2002 instituted
stricter standards for seven byproducts: five haloacetic acids, bromate
and chlorite. Also required is a one-fifth reduction in allowable THM
levels.
In addition to these complex
water quality issues, the 1,100 miles of levees that protect Delta islands
and channel water through the maze of Delta sloughs are unstable. Levees
are highly erodible and susceptible to failure by erosion, seepage,
earthquakes and land subsidence. If massive failure occurred, salt water
would flood many Delta islands, forcing Delta water users throughout the
state to rely on stored supplies. Water deliveries to southern and central
California
would be seriously disrupted.
COLORADO
RIVER
Southern
California
is facing a decrease in the
water supply provided by the
Colorado
River -- one of the most controversial and heavily regulated
rivers in the world. Allocation of the lower
Colorado
has been
fought over for decades and involved interstate compacts, a U.S. Supreme
Court decision, a treaty with
Mexico
and federal and state
legislation. The lower
Colorado
's flow is divided between
Arizona
,
California
,
Nevada
, several
American Indian tribes and
Mexico
. As other states in the
Colorado
basin have increased their use of the river’s water, and
drought has gripped the region, pressure has mounted on
California
to cut
back its chronic overuse.
The six
California
water
agencies that receive
Colorado River
water have continually used about 800,000 acre-feet more than their
combined annual 4.4 million acre-feet share of
Colorado River water. The water districts are IID,
Palo Verde Irrigation District, MWD, which built the 242-mile long
Colorado River Aqueduct that transports up to 1.2 million acre-feet of
flow to its users, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, SDCWA and
Coachella Valley Water District (CVWD).
Citing growing demand from
other states along the river, the Interior Department warned
California
for
several years that it could not continue to overdraw its annual allotment
of
Colorado River water. In response to
Interior’s warnings,
California
drafted a Water Use Plan for
the
Colorado River (known colloquially as
the “4.4 Plan”) to reduce its consumption of the
Colorado River back to its 4.4 million acre-feet
apportionment. The plan relied heavily on water conservation in the
agricultural sector and water transfers to the urban sector. Under the
proposed plan, up to 800,000 acre-feet of water would be conserved via
dry-year fallowing agreements, canal seepage recovery, groundwater
banking, conjunctive use and desalination of drainage water, and an
American Indian water rights dispute would be settled within the state
(16,000 acre-feet to the San Luis Rey Indian tribe located near San
Diego).
After nearly a decade of
contentious negotiations, the southern
California
water agencies, federal
officials and state representatives reached a landmark accord in late 2003
on a new division of
Colorado River water
known as the QSA. The agreement defines, or quantifies, each agency’s
rights to water from the river, a process that allows for water transfers
among them. The biggest such transfer, and a linchpin of the 4.4 Plan, is
one between IID and San Diego of up to 200,000 acre-feet annually
(possibly 300,000 after the tenth year).
Imperial
Valley farmers served by IID signed up in late 2003 to fallow
land (take land out of production) or conserve irrigation water to free up
water for the transfer.
The QSA and the 4.4 Plan may
mark a turning point in
California
water annals. Successful
implementation of the two will require unprecedented cooperation among
historically antagonistic southern
California
water agencies to trim back
excess
Colorado River water use. Cutting
usage back to 4.4 million acre-feet per year by 2016 is likely to require
creative solutions that will include conservation, water transfers and
land fallowing. If the agriculture-to-urban water transfer is successful,
however, it could prove to be a model for transfers elsewhere in
California
and the West.
A key issue in the QSA
negotiations was the fate of the
Salton
Sea, which is sustained mainly by irrigation runoff from
Imperial Valley and
Coachella
Valley
farms. As the
negotiations proceeded, some feared that land fallowing or conservation
could decrease the amount of water flowing to the sea, causing it to
shrink and become saltier. Water agencies involved in the talks feared
they could be held legally liable if the
Salton
Sea environment deteriorated. A 40-mile-long inland lake, the
Salton Sea already is 25 percent saltier
than the
Pacific Ocean, yet provides
vital habitat for some 400 bird species.
QSA negotiators came up with
a creative way to fund
Salton Sea
restoration efforts and ease concerns about legal liability. State
legislation enacted in 2003 puts the legal liability for protecting the
Salton Sea environment on the state of
California
. It also provides a creative funding mechanism to pay for
Salton Sea restoration under which IID
will sell surplus
Colorado River water to
the state for $175 per acre-foot, which in turn will sell it to MWD for
$250 per acre-foot. The “profit” realized on the sale will be used to fund
Salton Sea restoration
work.
Restoration plans that
currently appear to have the most support call for diking off the sea to
shrink its size by about half and treating water flowing into the sea from
the New and
Alamo rivers to reduce salts.
Supporters of these plans believe they would gradually improve water
quality of the
Salton Sea and preserve
the habitat that is vital to the sea’s fishery and bird populations. Tests
to determine the feasibility of shrinking the sea began in late 2003. Cost
estimates for restoring the sea range from $500 million to $3.5 billion,
according to federal estimates.
If nothing is done to offset
the sea’s increasing salinity, scientists estimate the sea will reach the
50,000-ppm to 60,000-ppm threshold in 12 to 20 years. The sea now receives
about 1.3 million acre-feet of inflow, of which about 1 million acre-feet
comes from agricultural drainage. It is estimated the water transfers in
the QSA between IID and SDCWA and IID and CVWD could reduce inflow from
IID farms by up to 700,000 acre-feet.
Because the sea’s
evaporation rate is now equal to present inflow, this reduction would
accelerate the sea’s rising salinity. With the transfers, scientists
believe the
Salton Sea would reach the
50,000-ppm to 60,000-ppm threshold at least 10 years earlier than
predicted, maybe even sooner. The sea would also shrink in size, leaving
many people who now have lakefront property several hundred yards from the
shoreline.
WATER
MARKETING
Water marketing -- the sale,
exchange or lease of water from one user to another -- has the potential
to become a key tool for meeting rising water demand. Water transfers,
however, can raise a host of issues because of the unique nature of water,
the interdependence of many users and the traditional use of the
resource.
The 1987-1993 drought
brought water transfers to the forefront. Out of necessity, water agencies
in 1991 arranged many short-term transfers -- exchanges for one year or
less. In 1991,
California
became a water broker with
the creation of the state Drought Water Bank. Through the bank, the state
bought mostly surplus surface water from agricultural users who fallowed
fields or used groundwater, and sold it to critically water-short urban,
agricultural and environmental users. The drought bank was re-established
on a more limited scale in 1992 and 1994.
The passage of the CVPIA also promoted water transfers
by allowing CVP 
water designated for
agricultural purposes to be voluntarily transferred to urban uses. Yet,
transferring water -- in particular from farms to cities -- is an
emotionally charged issue because whoever controls a region's water
controls its destiny, as shown by the transfer of water out of
Owens
Valley
to
Los Angeles
in the
early 1990s. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power purchased
thousands of acres in
Inyo
County
in the eastern
Sierra Nevada solely for the purpose of exporting
water. It built two aqueducts – one in 1913 and the other in 1970 -- to
transport the valley water to the city of
Los Angeles
. The second aqueduct
exported surface and groundwater and included diversions from streams
feeding into
Mono
Lake
, a basin north of
Owens
Valley
.
One of the major concerns
over water marketing is the potential for farmers to sell their surface
water and pump groundwater in its place, depleting the underground
resource. There also are risks of third-party impacts to rural communities
and agriculture-related industries if farmers sell their water and quit
farming. Agricultural suppliers, farm workers and other related businesses
can lose income, which can rock the rural community. Environmentalists are
divided on the issue of water marketing. Some say that trades alleviate
the need for new water projects and storage facilities and are part of he
solution to meeting rising urban demands. However, there are concerns that
transfers that alter water releases, may cause temperature and flow
fluctuations that can harm fish, particularly salmon eggs and young
fry.
Because most of
California
's
precipitation falls in the northern part of the state and the greatest
water demand is in central and southern
California
, many transfers have to be
routed through the Delta. Given the estuary's complex environmental and
water quality problems, the State Board requires that all through-Delta
transfers undergo an environmental assessment prior to
approval.
Another issue is whether the
source of water proposed for transfer actually augments supply. Transfers
from conserved or recycled water, for example, can increase supply. Other
types of transfers can reallocate or in fact decrease supply, such as
where water that has been contracted for but never allocated -- known as
"paper water" -- is traded.
Sensing business
opportunities, private companies have tried to get into
California
’s water
market, but without much success so far. Companies such as Cadiz, U.S.
Filter, Vidler and Western Water Co. have made a business out of
purchasing land with water rights (primarily groundwater) on the premise
the water will be sold to those willing to pay a premium to use it.
Private companies are considered integral in establishing a viable water
market in
California
, and as the market develops, it is possible that more and
more private companies will offer their services to water users willing to
pay.
GROUNDWATER OVERDRAFT AND
CONTAMINATION
In an average year,
groundwater accounts for about 30 percent of
California
's urban
and agricultural water supplies, and up to 40 percent in a drought year.
This does not include the water required for environmental uses. More than
9 million Californians – nearly one in three – rely solely on groundwater
to meet their needs, including the major cities of
Fresno
and
Bakersfield
. Along
California
’s central coast, 90 percent of the drinking water comes from
groundwater. Although groundwater and surface water are treated as
separate resources, they are intimately connected.
In average rainfall years,
Californians use more groundwater than is replaced by precipitation,
stream seepage or artificial recharge programs. Annual statewide overdraft
-- taking out more than is replenished -- is estimated by DWR to be
approximately 1.4 million acre-feet in a normal year. The long-term
decline in groundwater storage can result in lowered water tables and
increased energy costs for pumping. In some basins, overdraft leads to
land subsidence and can cause sea water and other contaminants to invade
the aquifer.
One method of increasing
water supply reliability is the joint or "conjunctive" use of surface
water and groundwater supplies. More than 65 water agencies in the state
operate groundwater recharge programs. The success of many of these
programs, however, depends on purchasing available surface water from
other users.
At the core of any
conjunctive use project is a concept that many in
California
have
resisted – groundwater management. For a conjunctive use program to
succeed, water must be measured and managed as it is extracted from and/or
recharged into a groundwater aquifer. Yet managing a groundwater basin, to
some, equals a state-dictated system for a resource that has,
historically, been considered a property right of overlying landowners.
And while the state’s surface water system is designed to move water from
areas of plenty to areas of need, proposals to transfer groundwater from
one area of the state to another invite suspicion.
Each conjunctive use
project, however, is different, with its own set of legal, political and
technical challenges, and some question how much “new” water projects will
ultimately yield. Where do you get the surface water to store in a
groundwater aquifer? How do you determine a groundwater basin’s safe
yield? How long will it take to extract the groundwater? What about
overlying landowners’ rights to the native groundwater? How do you protect
the quality of that native underground supply?
One significant groundwater
recharge program is the Kern Water Bank in
Kern
County
, which was transferred from
DWR to the local water agencies in 1996. Under the program, available
surface water from the SWP, CVP or
Kern
River is purchased by the six participating water agencies to
recharge depleted aquifers and shallow ponds. The Kern Water Bank can
store 1 million acre-feet of water using 12 square miles of recharge
ponds. Much like a traditional savings account, water deposited into the
bank can be withdrawn as needed.
While
California
uses
more groundwater than any other state, it and
Texas
are the only
remaining Western states lacking a comprehensive statewide groundwater
management system. Regulation exists in some local districts or in basins
that have been adjudicated by the courts, but generally there are no
controls in
California
over extraction. Agricultural
interests oppose statewide regulation for fear it would curtail pumping in
drought years.
In 2003, DWR updated its
principal groundwater publication, Bulletin 118, for the first time since
1980. In addition to summarizing groundwater resources in each of
California
’s nine hydrologic regions, the new Bulletin 118 devotes
considerable attention to groundwater management. Legislation enacted in
1992 (AB 3030) provided a systematic procedure for local agencies to
develop groundwater management plans, and 10 years later over 200 local
agencies had adopted such plans. DWR said in Bulletin 118
that a sample of the plans indicated some are merely boilerplate summaries
of existing programs and not all are being actively
implemented.
The Legislature tried to
upgrade the content and enforcement of local groundwater management plans
by enacting SB 1938 in 2002. That law tied receipt of state funds for
construction of groundwater projects to inclusion of defined components
(such as objectives and monitoring protocols for groundwater levels, water
quality and subsidence) in local groundwater management plans. Bulletin
118 includes a model groundwater management ordinance that local agencies
can adapt to their needs.
The quality of groundwater
is another concern. All of the state's groundwater basins are contaminated
to some degree. Contamination usually concentrates in small sections of
the basin. Serious threats to potable water supplies are contamination
from landfills, leaked toxins, solvents, microbial agents, acid mine
drainage and agricultural chemicals. The huge cost, complexity and time
required to clean up contaminated basins has forced some communities to
abandon their wells and rely on imported surface water
supplies.
Some of the most widely
publicized groundwater problems in
California
involve contamination from
manmade chemical compounds. Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from
industrial sources, which are known or suspected carcinogens, seriously
polluted wells in the
San
Gabriel
Valley
in
Los
Angeles
County
. In the
Central Valley,
irrigation runoff containing fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides has
significantly polluted some areas. The city of
Santa Monica
in
mid-1997 was forced to close half of its drinking wells after the gas
oxygenate MTBE was found at levels exceeding recommended safety
levels.
In some overdrafted coastal
aquifers, seawater has intruded and impaired groundwater quality. The
Orange County Water District is injecting treated wastewater to block
seawater intrusion into its coastal aquifers.
AGRICULTURAL
DRAINAGE
The leaching of applied
chemicals and naturally occurring trace elements from agricultural soils
poses problems throughout the West. It is especially acute in
California
. The
state's $30 billion agricultural industry produces half the nation's
fruits, nuts and vegetables and directly and indirectly employs one out of
six Californians. Yet the environmental impact of such intense irrigated
agriculture cannot be overlooked.
Drainage water can be
tainted not only with pesticides but also high concentrations of salts,
selenium, arsenic, boron and/or other trace elements. Decades of surface
irrigation have leached selenium from soils in parts of the south and west
sides of the
San
Joaquin
Valley
and the
Imperial Valley.
Selenium is a naturally occurring trace element that is vital to humans
and animals in minute quantities but toxic to wildlife when concentrated.
In 1983, the discovery of thousands of dead or deformed waterfowl at the
Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge alerted the public to the dangers of
concentrated selenium levels. Kesterson, a western
San Joaquin
Valley
wetlands area
that was supplied with agricultural drainage water from the San Luis
Drain, was closed in 1986. In 2000, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals ruled that the federal government had to do something to dispose
of the drainage water but did not specifically endorse a drainage canal
and discharge into the Delta.
In April 2001, Reclamation
filed a plan that says it will evaluate “viable drainage alternatives”
with a record of decision by 2005. Among those choices is completion of
the San Luis Drain, which would cost an estimated $500 million to $13
billion.
Selenium levels in excess of
those deemed safe also have been found in the
Salton
Sea and in agricultural evaporation ponds in the
Tulare
Basin
. In order to protect
migratory waterfowl, attempts have been made to close the
Tulare
Lake
Basin
drainage ponds that have
selenium levels higher than those found at Kesterson. Drainage water is
the only source of water in many of these ponds, resulting in high
concentrations of selenium, other trace elements and salts. Under an
agreement with the USFWS, alternative bird habitat was provided in 1995 by
five of the 10 pond operators to reduce the exposure of waterfowl to the
Tulare
evaporation ponds. According to the USFWS, about 40 percent of
the alternative habitat successfully mitigated the hazards to the
birds.
Subsurface drainage systems
are commonly used throughout the
San
Joaquin, Imperial and Coachella valleys to drain excess or
saline water from the root zone of crops, where dense soils prevent water
from percolating into the subsurface. To alleviate problems wrought by
irrigating the west side
San
Joaquin
Valley
's poorly drained saline soils, Reclamation began constructing
the San Luis Drain in 1968 to carry drainage water to the Delta. The work
on the drain was halted in 1975 when concerns arose over the cost and
impact of the discharge on Delta water quality and wildlife. Following a
lawsuit by Westlands Water District farmers, Westlands and Reclamation
entered into a settlement whereby Reclamation agreed to cooperate with
Westlands on potential drainage solution studies. Eventually, an
arrangement was reached whereby land shown by the studies to have drainage
problems would be purchased by Reclamation and taken out of production.
However, opposition by some landowners shelved the settlement.
Reclamation allowed some
farmers served by the CVP San Luis Unit to use a 28-mile section of the
San Luis Drain f
