Water in Time of Scarcity – No Water No Life

Society of Environmental Journalists 26th Annual Conference

“Land of Extremes / Home of Big Dreams.”

Speakers

Brett Walton

Moderator: Circle of Blue News Agency

Nadine Bailey

CEO, Family Water Alliance

Brian Stranko

The Nature Conservancy CA, Water Program Dir.

Newsha Ajami

Urban Water Policy Director, Stanford University

David Pettijohn

Dir. Water Resources, LA Dept. of Water & Power

Sacramento CA – Sept 23, 2016

Introductory Note

Freshwater issues were the obvious subject of the Society of Environmental Journalists’ 26th Conference. This was an obvious choice of topic, given California’s serious drought conditions at that time. This drought also became a Spotlight focus for No Water No Life. Just as NWNL felt that wiser usage of freshwater in the US needed to be addressed, it was also a main thread of presentations and discussions throughout this gathering of journalists.

Outline

LOS ANGELES LONG-TERM WATER PLANS
SACRAMENTO VALLEY DROUGHT ISSUES
POSSIBLE WATER POLICY CHANGES
GROUNDWATER & WATER QUALITY
“SABERS DRAWN” over WATER INTERESTS
FIRE, FISH, FARMS and WATER
LOS ANGELES: “3 STRAWS in a BATHTUB”

Key Quotes We’ve spent much of our time explaining to the public that the Sacramento Valley is, in fact, a giant bowl – a giant watershed. If you put water on a crop in the Sacramento Valley, it goes back into the watershed and heads down to the Delta. — Nadine Bailey

In 50 years from now do we want these same challenges? If we build the next dam and the next aqueduct, will it serve us in 50 years? — Newsha Ajami

LOS ANGELES LONG-TERM WATER PLANS

BRETT WALTON This panel was formed to respond to drought issues. As every Californian and many other people across the country know, drought changes everything. Ski resort operators lay off employees; fish suffer; wildfires and air pollution worsen; wells go dry. A range of issues cascade from a lack of water. Today, we’ll focus on the responses. What are people doing to respond to these changes in water availability and timing? What are Californians learning that might apply to other people in the country.

David, Los Angeles is the biggest city in California. How has this drought changed how you look at water and what you’re doing for water supply?

DAVID PETTIJOHN Drought has had a pretty dramatic effort in Los Angles and thus has somewhat changed the way we look at water. Los Angeles has taken water-use efficiency and water conservation seriously for a long time. So, I’ll tell you a little about the past; some things we are doing currently to respond; and some future efforts we’re taking.

If you look back to 1970, the City of L.A had 2.8 million residents. At the time, we were using about 600,000 acre-feet of water. To visualize an acre-foot of water, imagine covering a football field with its end zones with a foot of water. That’s one acre-foot of water. So, in 1970, we used a 600,000-foot column of water that could cover a football field. An airliner flies only 20,000 to 30,000 feet – thus the height of that column would 2 to 3 times higher than that airliner. That’s the amount of water we delivered in 1970.

Fast forward to 2015: the L.A. population was 4 million people – almost twice as many as in 1970. But now we use less water than we did in 1970. We used just 514,000 acre-feet of water last year, 86,000 less than in 1970. That is one of the lowest gallons per capita, per day usage of any large U.S. city. In fact, compared to any U.S. city over a million people, we have the lowest per capita water use. We’re at 104 gallons per capita, per day in L.A.; and that includes residential and commercial use – plus all unaccounted water loss in the system. That’s essentially our track record.

During this drought, we took aggressive action. In a drought, what you quickly face is behavior modification. We have about $2 million every year for outreach, so we doubled that to $4 million to kick up behavior change. We also instituted new green building codes that essentially mandate water-use efficiency for various devices and sub-metering for residential multifamily dwellings.

If a building’s less than 3 stories and has more than 50 units, you must sub-meter that building. In the old days, there were no sub-meters on multi-family residential units, so those customers tended to waste water. We instituted a rate increase of about 3% a year for the next 5 years. We went from a 2-tier rate structure to a 4-tier rate structure. Previously, the first tier was $5, second tier was $6 – not much of a signal to the customer. Now the first tier went down to $4.50, and the highest tier up to $8 – quite a signal with 4 different tiers. We also did something unique for water agencies in California. We decoupled our water rates, meaning we set a revenue requirement. If you over-collect from that requirement the following year, customers get a rate break. If you under-collect due to drought, or you’re hitting conservation hard, the following year’s rates automatically adjust up. So, when facing scarcity, we can really hit hard with conservation water-use efficiency messages and incentives, and thus not erode our revenue stream.

We went to Phase 2 of our emergency water conservation ordinance in the city. That has a whole list of simple prohibited uses: fixing leaks, not watering between 9:00 and 4:00 p.m., not allowing water to run off your property, and not irrigating during rain. We also instituted and enforced 3-day/week watering in the city. Many cities around the state have restrictions on water use and prohibitions, but they don’t enforce it. We do. Last year we got about 14,000 complaints of people wasting water. We investigated those, and 99% of people were responsive to our investigations and complied. We’ve only had to issue 75 follow-up fines out of 14,000 reports of waste in Los Angeles.

We have extensive lists of rebates and incentives for all kinds of indoor and outdoor water-using devices in the city. Since 1990, we spent about $350 million on those. With that investment we’ve installed hardware-based, conservation for about 105,000-acre feet a year.

L.A. has done a first-time, comprehensive water-loss audit and compound analysis in response to this drought. We have an excessive water-use ordinance for the first time that will target water users in Tier 4 – our highest water users. We’ll give them a budget to comply with; and if they don’t comply, the fines can be severe. If the city is in Phase 5 of its emergency ordinance and you’re still violating for 24 months, you can end up with a monthly fine of $40,000. So even the richest people in Los Angeles are going to have a signal if they’re wasting water.

We also have future plans for the city. The mayor just adopted a “Sustainable City pLAn.” That plan has water-use goals for the city: a 20% additional reduction in water use by 2017; a reduction in purchased imported water into the city by 50% by 2025; and a requirement that we source all water the city uses locally by 2035.

These are aggressive goals, but we have plans to reach those goals. They are found in our 2015 Urban Water Management Plan. We also have a track record on how reach each of those goals and a Stormwater Capture Master Plan. We also put out a Conservation Potential Study that we’re finalizing now. Then we’ll release a Recycled Water Master Plan to include a capture, conserve and reuse policy to address those goals. That’s our past, present, and future.

SACRAMENTO VALLEY DROUGHT ISSUES

BRETT WALTON Nadine, you’re up here in the Sacramento Valley – a very different part of the state. Thus, you represent rural and agricultural communities. How does the drought here differ from Los Angeles?

NADINE BAILEY It was interesting to hear David say they’ve started conserving water in Los Angeles. From my perspective, the minute that Los Angeles had to start conserving is when they started beating up on farmers for using water on crops. All we heard was that we were wasting water. It’s an interesting problem here that is going on in the agricultural community.

We’re sitting at the very bottom of the Sacramento Valley. It took me two-and-a-half hours to drive down here. As you drive north from here towards Mount Shasta, you’ll see the mountains that provide about 70% of the water used in California in this giant bowl that’s called the Sacramento Valley. In addition to providing the water for the rest of the state through the Sacramento Valley Project, we also provide for a lot of fisheries that start here. The main spawning beds for the salmon fisheries start where I live in Redding. They had to come up with cool water to save those fish in these cold-water pools. That was one of the biggest impacts from the drought, when the tributaries to the Sacramento River started to dry up.

One thing that they did was look at agricultural water use. The Sacramento Valley agricultural users took some heavy, heavy cutbacks when everybody was saying, “Well, wait a minute, I drive down the road, and I see water on a rice field.” We’ve spent much of our time explaining to the public that the Sacramento Valley is, in fact, a giant bowl – a watershed. If you put water on a crop in the Sacramento Valley, it goes back into the watershed and heads down to the Delta.” It may take a little longer, but it does. In the meantime, we’re also a key component of the Pacific Flyway. Ducks, geese, and many shore birds come through here to rest in the winter on the same crops that provided food for the country during the rest of the year.

We have some interesting problems, and we’ve had severe cutbacks. I think the final one left 40% of the rice fields dormant. To us, that means a lot. It’s not just that there was a farmer that didn’t have a crop. The tire shop didn’t sell tires to that rice farmer. A bunch of birds —pheasants, quail amd such— didn’t have the refugia they like around fields’ edges. They disappeared. There were many impacts to local businesses and farmers. That, in turn, impacted the people that eat that rice.

Rice from the Sacramento Valley goes all over the world. It may be easy to cut back, but somebody’s rice bowl is going to be empty, because of what our farmers do. We try to make people understand we’re all in this together. It’s not just black and white. This agricultural system needs augmentation and some updates; but it’s a system that provides water for L.A., municipalities, a tremendous amount of rice, wheat, barley, produce, tomatoes…, and is also a home to wildlife. So, when you talk about cutting back on water, it impacts the whole system when you stop feeding those businesses.

BRETT WALTON Thanks, Nadine. We’ll get back to some of those ecosystem interactions when we talk with Brian.

POSSIBLE WATER POLICY CHANGES

BRETT WALTON Newsha Ajami. you deal with the rules of the game – the policy questions, so to speak. Nadine just said the system needs to be overhauled or updated from urban to agricultural water usage – wholescale, in some cases. What policy changes do you think would be appropriate for the State that would better respond to these circumstances?

NEWSHA AJAMI It’s always interesting to hear the “ag” perspective. The reality is that we are all in it together. California’s settlement trend has been very different from other states, especially Eastern states, because people here along the coast are not necessarily “water-rich.” Thus, the trend is that we’ve built a massive infrastructure to move water to where people want to live. Much of this infrastructure is reaching the end of its life or facing degradation and challenges. Now is an opportunity for us to rethink what we want the next generation of infrastructure to look like. In 50 years from now do we want these same challenges? If we build the next dam and the next aqueduct, will it serve us in 50 years? Shouldn’t we talk about rethinking and reimagining how we got here and where we want to go? Water is a very local and regional issue. It depends on regional climates and infrastructure available to the people in each region. Many opportunities exist for creating local solutions for challenges we now face.

David talked about “stormwater capture.” That provides opportunities for our future water-supply portfolio. Reuse and recycling of the water is another opportunity. But the most important opportunity is water conservation and efficiency. It’s probably the first step, since it’s the cheapest solution to tap into before we start investing in other things. I go back to David’s point: L.A. probably still has a long way to go. Many urban areas have a long way to go to become more efficient in their use of water, despite their efforts to conserve and save water in the past 25 to 30 years to provide additional supply for the future generations.

With the same water allocations, they’ve still provided reliable water supplies. Conservation and efficiency provide an opportunity for the public to know what they’re using and then be more thoughtful about their usage. There are many ways to change people’s behavior. I’ve mentioned reuse and recycling, which is very important. When you think about California, one thing we constantly talk about is the need diversify our water-supply portfolios which can be very similar to the renewable energy portfolios.

We had the 30% by 2030 Rule. Now we have gone to a 50% by 2030 goal. I think 2030 is the target year. We had a lot of different energy generation options, locations and available opportunities. It’s the same for water. There are opportunities to rethink and diversify the way we built these portfolios.

GROUNDWATER & WATER QUALITY

NEWSHA AJAMI I’ll mention two points Brian will talk about as well: groundwater and water quality. Basically, the quality of every drop of water we use is degraded. To protect our water sources, the water we use needs to be cleaned and returned to the environment. Groundwater is a hidden resource we have. We barely think about it, because it’s not visible. We’ve not been very thoughtful in using our groundwater sustainably.

Yes, we’re all here to live and enjoy life, but we must be very thoughtful in using our resources. Much of what my group does at Stanford in our focus on sustainable water resource management. How best can data and research can inform policy? How best to impact and drive policies that focus on diversifying water supply portfolios and building new information technology? What are the best decision-support tools that can better use the data we have so they can be more efficient and effective in managing the existing systems we have? How we can diversify that portfolio to include more recycling, reuse, stormwater capture and local solutions within different communities?

“SABERS DRAWN” over WATER INTERESTS

BRETT WALTON Thanks, Newsha. Brian Stranko, if you were on yesterday’s tours, you might think the default method among various interest groups addressing California water issues is “sabers drawn.” You are trying to find common ground between these interests to promote projects with multiple benefits. How do you negotiate between ecosystem interests and farm interests and city interests?

BRIAN STRANKO The Nature Conservancy believes that sabers don’t work that well to solve problems! We’re about solving problems – both for people and for nature. The Nature Conservancy is a nonprofit organization with a mission to protect and restore the lands and waters upon which all life depends. When that comes to water in California, we must be very thoughtful about “the people side” of the equation as well as “the nature side” of the equation. We must consider how we can stretch every drop of water and find a balance.

One fundamental way we do that is by using science. For a long time, there’s been confusion over what nature needs in terms of water. We often talk about just getting more water for nature. Well, we need to be more specific so we can find solutions to farmers having water, cities having water – and nature having water. The reason is because nature’s needs aren’t constant when it comes to water. Nature’s needs fluctuate across a given year.

If you think about salmon, they are often out in the ocean and don’t need a lot of water flowing down a river while out there. But when they come back to rivers to spawn, they absolutely need water in the rivers at the right time for spawning and new offspring. If we fine-tune when salmon come into our river systems, we can say, “Hey, let’s pay some farmers or ranchers to forego irrigating at those times so more water flows downriver for those few weeks that salmon need water flows.”

Over the course of this drought, we’ve been successful in the Shasta River Valley. Below Mount Shasta in far northern California, we’ve worked with ranchers to provide water for salmon in 4-week periods in the spring when young salmon migrate to the ocean and in the fall when adult salmon want to come in to spawn. We offered to pay folks a bit of money if they’d forego irrigating at those times. We gave ranchers enough time to water their pastures first, and that allowed them to provide enough time for salmon to get through their migration. It’s a good solution.

The other water-wildlife solution we’ve found is with birds in the Central Valley. Migratory birds in the Pacific Flyway, like salmon in California, don’t need water all the time. They come down from the north when it gets cold to find stopovers in California. We try to determine when the birds will be here. Then, as we do in the Shasta-salmon example, we identify 4- to 8-week periods in the fall and in the spring when we can pay rice farmers to irrigate and flood their fields a little bit longer than they normally would.

That is a win-win. The birds get the water they need, and we get the benefit of water percolating into our groundwater, thus recharging our groundwater supply. These are the types of solutions that we look for. In finding them, we help both our farmers and nature survive the hard times that come during a drought.

FIRE, FISH, FARMS and WATER

BRETT WALTON Now I want to bring in Nadine on some of the work that Family Water Alliance has been doing concerning fire and fish, two things that clearly affect water supplies for farming in the Sacramento Valley.

NADINE BAILEY In addition to Family Water Alliance, we’re also the Sacramento Valley Fish Screening Program. Twenty-two years ago, our founders decided not to fight the Endangered Species Act, but to work with us in protecting fish. In the last 22 years, we’ve put in 30 screens on the Upper Sacramento to keep salmon from going into farm water being pumped from the Sacramento. We’re now also looking at other ways to protect our water sources. The 2012 Bagley Fire hit the lower McLeod River, a designated Wild and Scenic River, and the Claiborne Creek, before we had a major rain event in the fall. This area burnt very hot since it hadn’t been logged. This forest is extremely overstocked.

The fire went in. We used to have about 60 “stems” per acre in California forests. Now, in some places, we have about 300, 400, or 500 stems per acre – more trees than we historically have had. With this fire, there wasn’t time enough to do any restoration. After the fire, we had a massive rain event; and the whole creek blew out. That water went into Shasta Dam and flowed down with debris – totally changing that whole watershed. That is a forest issue we must deal with. Simply just locking them up, like we did for the spotted owl, hasn’t worked.

I applaud the Nature Conservancy’s work in Arizona that’s getting downstream water users to pay for some of the thinning and restoration that must be done. It accomplishes two objectives. It creates a healthy forest and provides jobs for local people. Also, some of the water users that wouldn’t otherwise be able to help can get involved and support that system. They’ve done some amazing things. Arizona faced massive destruction – even worse than this – as an entire hillside came down into a community. Now they’re joining together to get large water users to help with funding recommended solutions. That’s what we’re working on to protect our water sources.

LOS ANGELES: “3 STRAWS in a BATHTUB”

BRETT WALTON The water from the Sacramento Valley flows into the Delta; and some is exported down to L.A., where David oversees water supplies. He will now expand a bit about this shift away from imported water in L.A. and what that means in terms of investment and just what it means for local facilities in Los Angeles.

DAVID PETTIJOHN All imported water supplies have eroded over time – especially in Southern California. I tell people it’s “3 straws in a bathtub.” One straw goes out to the Colorado River; one straw goes north to the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers; and the third straw goes to the eastern Sierras to the Owens Valley. Those aqueduct systems have all come under pressure over time. For instance, when I first started with the department, the Los Angeles Aqueduct System was exporting 400,000 to 500,000 acre-feet each year.

Now we’re down about 220 acre-feet in an average year. During the drought, it was down as low as 60 feet. On average, about half of the historical water supplied from the L.A. aqueduct system has been reallocated to the Owens Valley Basin ecosystem in the Mono Basin, in Lower Owens River, Owens Lake. So, the water is being used. There are similar problems on the Colorado River. It has not had a shortage since its infrastructure was filled after it was first built. The study now by U.S. Bureau of Reclamation shows that this year there won’t be a shortage on the Colorado River. But next year, the probability of the Colorado River facing a shortage for the first time in its history is 40%. For the following 4 years, that probability jumps up quite a bit. It comes up to 60%. So, there are high probabilities that we’ll be in a shortage on the Colorado. It’s not a matter of if – just when.

On the state side, the California Water Project has had about a 30% curtailment in deliveries. This has happened due to problems in the Delta threatening smelt and salmon. That has had a pretty big impact on Southern California.

You’ve heard about the California Water Fix, also called The Twin Tunnel Program. That project was designed to keep the water supply from going through the Delta. It was meant to find a way to continue exporting water without reversing the flows in some of the Delta’s rivers, which occurs when you turn the pumps on in the south of the Delta. Some think that would be beneficial to the ecosystem, and also secure some of the water supplies. But whether that project gets built or not, Southern California must start thinking about the fact that its local water supply must be a much bigger portion of our future water supplies. Southern California is doing that, and it’s not just the City of Los Angeles.

I’ve mentioned some of the projects we’re thinking about. We also have a Groundwater Replenishment Project. We’ll take advanced-treated recycled water and spread it into the San Fernando Basin. It’s basically an indirect potable-reuse project. I mentioned we’ve spent $350 million since 1990 on conservation. That will continue, as we keep moving the conservation needle as much as we can.

We have been doing a lot to address of stormwater issues. People think stormwater is a new resource. Water agencies don’t even consider it; although the city of Los Angeles captures about 60,000 acre-feet of stormwater a year. That percolates into our groundwater basin and is pumped out. But our Stormwater Capture Master Plan shows a pathway forward for the City to double or triple that amount by 2040. If you’re really interested in stormwater, the American Academy of Environmental Engineers and Scientists last year gave us their Grand Prize for Excellence in environmental engineering for our Stormwater Capture Master Plan. If interested, you can see our plan at www.ladwp.com/scmp.

Those are some of our main initiatives to try to reach these goals that the city has set for itself. The challenge is to reduce purchased, imported water by 50% by 2025; and to source fully 50% of all the water used in the City locally by 2035. These are aggressive goals, and some of the initiatives we’re pursuing to try to achieve those goals. Thank you.

If interested in the lengthy, follow-up Question and Answer period, please contact No Water No Life for that un-edited transcription of that final section of our tape.

Posted by NWNL on April 26, 2025.
Transcription edited and condensed for clarity by Alison M. Jones.

Water in Time of Scarcity California Megadrought