Spreck Rosekrans is an Economic Analyst at EDF.

More than 2 centuries ago, Ben Franklin told us that we will learn the worth of water when the well runs dry. As reported yesterday, by The Voice of San Diego, the Irvine Ranch Water District has taken Franklin’s words to heart by soaking “wasteful” households with hefty rate increases. The Voice is impressed, noting that per capita water use in Irvine is only 90 gallons per day, far less than the 162 gallons per day consumed in San Diego.

Irvine’s innovative approach is well known to California’s urban water wonks. Each homeowner receives an allocation that is based on Read more »

Ann Hayden is a Senior Water Resource Analyst at EDF.

It’s been a long time coming for the San Joaquin River, but yesterday marked the beginning of the return of both the river and the salmon runs that it once supported.

Congress overwhelmingly approved the project as part of a landmark wilderness bill (sponsored by Senators Feinstein and Boxer) that will require river flows along the San Joaquin River below Friant Dam, re-watering a 63-mile stretch of the river that has been mostly dry for decades. In addition to mandated river flows, the legislation includes provisions to restore riparian habitat as well as measures to help valley farmers. This deal is in no small part due to the tireless efforts of fishing and environmental interests, led by NRDC, who first took the matter to court in 1988, showing that sometimes persistence and hard work does indeed pay off.

Additional flows on the San Joaquin will surely help the imperiled Delta ecosystem as well and will be factored into efforts to create a Bay-Delta Conservation Plan as well as Delta-related activities within the California legislature.

Victories like this are few and far between—giant kudos to our colleagues who worked so hard for so many years.

Ashley Rood is a Research & Outreach Associate with EDF.

The Voice of San Diego brings up an important question: how can you begin to conserve water if you don't know how much you use? San Diegans who live in single family homes pay for each unit of water they use but those in apartments and condominiums typically don't.

The article reports that water cuts (and penalties) due to drought are expected in San Diego as of this summer, "and because the city has only one meter on most multi-family complexes, it's impossible to separate water hogs from conservation-minded residents.” This means every resident in a particular complex, whether deserving or not, could face financial penalties if the overall complex exceeds its water allocation."

Submetering, measuring how much water all individual residences use, becomes more important as supplies tighten. With a submeter, you could discover a leaky pipe faster and see the automatic benefits of installing a low-flow shower head—saving money and resources. Our energy grid is ahead of the curve, with smart meters going into homes throughout the country—providing real time access to energy usage.

Of course, even single family homes in some Central Valley cities such as Sacramento, Fresno and Modesto do not yet have meters (though we are assured they are coming soon). And we still do not measure groundwater use in most of California.

If we're going to get serious about using water efficiently, we need to know how much we are using.

Ashley Rood is a Research & Outreach Associate with EDF.

Last Friday, close to 400 EDF staffers gathered in offices across the country, thanks to the evolution of video, to celebrate Tom Graff’s 38 years of service to the environment. As Tom said, the video conferencing equipment wasn’t quite up to par when he opened the EDF California office in the attic of a fraternity at UC Berkeley in 1971.

As colleagues from coast to coast paid tribute to Tom with their personal stories, the celebration was a reminder that Tom’s work reaches far beyond the battles of the Western Water world for which he is best known. In 2006, Tom was on Treasure Island with Governor Schwarzenegger and a phalanx of other elected officials and dignitaries for the signing of AB32, California’s landmark global warming bill. 20 years ago, Tom was on the front lines of the fight to reduce acid rain. Before that Tom sat across the table from California’s biggest electric utilities to ensure that they abandoned construction of large coal and nuclear plants, supporting conservation and cogeneration as cleaner AND cheaper alternatives. And Tom kept his finger on the pulse of transportation and land issues throughout the state over the decades.

But Friday wasn’t just a celebration of Tom Graff as the environmental hero - it was a celebration of Tom as a leader, mentor, colleague and friend to all of us at EDF, even to those who never had the opportunity to work with him directly.

Here are just a few of the words that came up time and time again to describe Tom’s unique style: funny, witty, humble, enthusiastic, compassionate, inspiring, strength through knowledge, soul of the organization.

I know I couldn’t have found a better initiation into the world of environmentalism than working by Tom’s side—among other things he showed me the power of the pen and the importance of humility and kindness—luckily for us, he won’t be too far away.

Spreck Rosekrans is an Economic Analyst at EDF.

Last Tuesday, the State Water Resources Control Board ruled on the petition by Federal and State water project operators to retroactively relax standards in the Delta. The Board refused the petition but announced that there would be no “enforcement” for violating Delta outflow standards in early February.

In 1994, as part of the Bay-Delta Accord, the State Water Project and federal Central Valley Project agreed to meet Delta outflow standards, known as “X2”, to provide low-salinity habitat for Delta fish. The original plan was that after three years, other water agencies in the Central Valley would share in the outflow obligations. But the projects, with support of their contractors, determined that involving others was too problematic and have agreed to continue to bear sole responsibility for meeting this obligation.

Casual conversations with project operators have indicated that they have no plans for ensuring that more such petitions will not be forthcoming in 2009 or in the future. Read more »