The Sacramento Bee editorialized over the weekend about the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP), articulating a position similar to many in keeping an open mind about a canal or tunnel that could eliminate the need to operate the major federal and state pumps in the south Delta that are harmful to California’s fisheries and the San Francisco estuary.

The Bee put its finger on a key issue in noting that, south of Delta exporters “seem to have an expectation that BDCP can provide them with even more Delta water – more than the record high pumping of the previous decade – and that federal and state agencies will sign off on such a plan as ‘fish friendly'."

The Bee quite reasonably points out that “living in the real world” means exporters “can't keep drawing ever more water out of an estuary in collapse and claiming that flows don't matter much for the life cycle of fish. The National Research Council, among other scientific bodies, has made clear that minimum flows are essential for fish recovery, especially during dry years.”

And The Sacramento Bee editorial concludes by recommending that:  “What these contractors should be seeking is what state law calls for – better reliability of water deliveries, not more total supply.”  EDF could not agree more.

Which raises the interesting question:  What is “better reliability” of water deliveries?  And how unreliable are things today?  We hear a lot about diminished reliability, but the numbers tell an interesting story:

The chart below shows State Water Project (SWP) exports south of the Delta starting in the early 1960s through last year.  The green dotted line represents hydrology, or roughly, how much it rained that year:

Two things stand out:

1.  SWP deliveries have not been merely reliable, they have trended sharply up over time, especially during the 2000s.
2. Trends aside, since the late 1980s, deliveries closely track hydrology – SWP contractors get more when it rains more.

By most measures, this record of deliveries, and increasing deliveries, has been quite reliable other than during very dry years.

Central Valley Project (CVP) Delta exports tell a similar story of relatively stable and high levels of deliveries, if not the very highest, for the last several decades:

None of which is to say that south of Delta exporters do not suffer serious consequences when there are cutbacks during drier years – of course they do.  The question for the State, as the Bee so crisply puts it, is whether more reliable is the same as more.

Within the BDCP process, renewed efforts are underway to take a hard look at alternatives to Delta exports to shore up water supplies for those contractors who are among the first to be cutback during drought. The opportunities for better groundwater management, conservation, recycling, even graywater are substantial. And of course, in a state that consumes 40 million acre-feet of water on average each year, the potential for water transfers remains considerable.

Linda Esteli Mendez, Tom Graff Fellow

By Linda Esteli Mendez, EDF Tom Graff Fellow

Recognizing the importance of freshwater to the health and vitality of the world's people, the United Nations General Assembly designated March 22nd, 1992 as the first "World Water Day." Each year a new theme related to freshwater is celebrated on March 22nd. This year's theme is water and food security.

How is freshwater related to food security?  

The US Department of Agriculture defines food security as, "access by all members at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life." At the same time, many argue that how that food is made and delivered is an important part of food security. Are we supplying food in a way that is healthy and sustainable for primary environmental resources? Are we using sustainable amounts of freshwater and are we ensuring that our food production is minimizing pollution on freshwater resources? 

Last century, population growth increased twofold and agriculture doubled food production. However, while feeding the world, agriculture has become the biggest water user and irrigation claims 70% of all freshwater for human use. Is it any wonder then that water supplies for food has been and still remains a core issue to food security? 

Climate change poses risks to water supplies and food security

One need look no further than Texas or Mexico to see the impacts of climate change on water and food security.  According to Bloomberg Business Week, the "driest year in Texas history has caused record-setting agricultural losses, costing the state's farmers and ranchers about $7.62 billion in 2011, the Texas AgriLife Extension Service said Wednesday."

And in a special series on PBS Newshour, climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe of Texas Tech University told PBS that, “What climate change is doing is it’s increasing our temperatures, and higher temperatures mean faster evaporation,” she says, “So you need more water to provide the same amount of irrigation for crops if temperatures are higher. And that’s what we see happening here in Texas and in many places around the world.” 

In Mexico, "the water shortage wiped out millions of acres of farmland this winter, caused 15 billion pesos ($1.18 billion) in lost harvests, killed 60,000 head of cattle and weakened 2 million more livestock, pushing food prices higher in Mexico," according to a report in  Reuters. 

What are the solutions for protecting freshwater and food supplies into the future? 

At EDF, we believe that sustaining and improving the resilience of our ecosystems is a key answer to that question. Ecosystems — whether they are forests or rice fields, wetlands or grazing lands — provide a variety of environmental services but are at the same time vulnerable to climate change impacts. Maintaining healthy ecosystems to ensure water supply, water quality and other environmental services is thus essential. With an ecosystem services approach, environmental services (such as water supply, food production and outdoor recreation) are recognized and valued, trade-offs are managed and short-term gains do not undermine the long-term benefits that environmental services provide and that are critical for resilience. In general, improving resilience through an ecosystem services approach should reduce our vulnerability to climate change. 

The Center for Conservation Incentives at EDF is working hard to conserve water resources in the United States. We believe that farmers are at the heart of any process of change. As natural stewards of our land and water resources, farmers can be in the driver seat in practices that conserve water supply and water quality. Farmers have the opportunity to be compensated for their stewardship while being part of the solution for providing clean water and stabilizing the resilience of our ecosystems. 

Mokelumne River Watershed

The Mokelumne Watershed Environmental Benefits Program is a model of how farmers can voluntarily work together with other land stewards to improve the quality of freshwater supplies while lowering the costs of water supply to downstream users. By creating a framework where environmental services are tracked and traded, the program substantially increases both the amount and effectiveness of environmental stewardship. Under this vision, landowners and other stewards will be compensated for undertaking sustainable management practices and restoration activities. By providing incentives, we will foster a healthier ecosystem in the Mokelumne watershed, sustaining and improving its environmental services, while reducing costs.

On World Water Day we offer the Mokelumne Watershed Environmental Benefits Program as an example of the imperative of providing incentives to farmers and foresters for protecting our freshwater resources far into the future, but we also remember that we still have a long way to go to secure healthy ecosystems for the sustainment of all life.

Linda Esteli Mendez has roots in Nicaragua. Shaped by her country's historical social struggle, since an early stage she decided to commit her life to social and environmental justice issues.  She is an alumni from the Pan-American School of Agriculture, Zamorano University in Honduras (2007), and holds two master degrees, one in International Land and Water Management from Wageningen University, the Netherlands, and the other in Agricultural Public Policies from the Institute of Tropical Regions of Montpellier SupAgro, France. She has worked on a diverse array of rural development projects including, irrigation in Nicaragua, microfinance for women in Senegal, amongst others. Before joining EDF, she completed an honors research project on land and water reform processes in South Africa followed by an internship with International Rivers. She is happy to be working with EDF on the Mokelumne Watershed Environmental Benefits Program that creates solutions for freshwater supply and quality in California.

I had thought “Waiting for a Miracle” was originally done by the Grateful Dead. It turns out the song was written by Leonard Cohen.

But it might just as well be the theme song for California water wonks.

It's been an abysmally dry year, through February – the seventh driest of the last 107 years as measured by the Eight River index. But with storms coming in from the Pacific Ocean this week there's hope of another miracle March. We had such months twice during the six-year drought from 1987 to 1992.

In 1989, as figure 1 shows, the combined flow of the rivers which comprise the index for December through February was only 2.5 million acre-feet. After a series of storms, the March index alone was more than 6 million acre-feet.

Two years later, with only 1.2 million acre-feet of runoff through February, 1991 was on track to be the driest year on record. March brought 2.6 million acre-feet of flow – more of a minor miracle but still more than twice the previous three months, but very welcome nonetheless.

Will we get lucky again? We will have to wait and see. Here is a catchy little tune to listen to as you watch the raindrops fall.

The Ninth Circuit vindicated environmental and fishing group plaintiffs in their 14-year litigation to implement the Central Valley Project Improvement Act’s (“CVPIA”) requirement to reallocate 800,000 acre-feet of federal project water back to the ecosystem.

The 1992 CVPIA, also known as the Miller-Bradley bill for its co-sponsors, requires that the federal government double Central Valley salmon population levels from their average of several decades ago.  California has adopted a similar salmon doubling objective.  Key to meeting this goal was the directive that the Department of the Interior must dedicate 800,000 acre-feet of Central Valley Project water for salmon and other restoration measures in the CVPIA.

Federal water contractors have strongly resisted the reallocation of the 800,000 acre-feet for salmon, and have fought hard in the federal courts to eliminate this requirement.  For many years they have insisted that any water released for any regulatory purpose had to be deducted from the salmon water set dedication, whether or not it would contribute to the salmon doubling mandate.  The effect of this interpretation was, as the Court ruled, to relegate the salmon population mandate to a secondary role, or even no role at all.                      

Today, the Ninth Circuit firmly and finally rejected the position of the Westlands Water District and other CVP water contractors that the 800,000 acre-foot dedication is unrelated to the salmon doubling requirement and can be used primarily for non-CVPIA purposes.  The bottom line is that going forward, the federal government is obligated to fully implement this Congressional direction and to provide the water necessary to achieve the salmon doubling requirement.  Its failure to do so to date is certainly one of the reasons that Central Valley salmon continue to fare so poorly, and why the agency has fallen so far short of the Congressional direction to double populations.

It is long past time for the Department of Interior to set aside the policy guidance developed during the Bush administration that limits the amount of the CVPIA dedicated water to support salmon doubling objectives.  The Court of Appeals has now cleared the way for a new more appropriate, and more legally defensible, implementation policy.

Spreck Rosekrans is an Economic Analyst at EDF

After a dry December, Californians are starting to worry about this year’s water supply. While we are fortunate that last year’s steady and extended precipitation has left our reservoirs and aquifers in relatively good shape, there are questions about what weather lies ahead. Beautiful blue skies can bring the blues. In winter, skiers lament that mountain tops are barren of snow. But the threat of impending drought looms large for all Californians as well as for our fish and wildlife.

Certainly, a dry December does not mean a dry year. But, based on data collected over the last century, it is highly likely that 2012 will be drier than average.
While there are many ways of analyzing hydrology statistically – using precipitation, snowpack, river flow or other data, I've chosen to use the Eight River Index to assess 106 years worth of data on the water flows on the Sacramento, Feather, Yuba, American, Stanislaus, Tuolumne, Merced and San Joaquin Rivers (more information can be found at the California Data Exchange Center) . The Eight River Index provides a good and relatively simple snapshot of how often "very dry Decembers" have in fact led to dry years. Here's what I found:

If only the mountains looked like this right now (Heavenly Ski Resort)

The Eight River Index for December 2011 was only 510,000 acre-feet (.51 million acre-feet). The historical period indicates that the December Eight River Index has been near this value, between 370,000 and 650,000 acre-feet, in approximately one out of five years.

Snowpack is minimal so far this year (takemytrip.com)

There are of course many ways to slice and dice the data, but the forecast for California’s cities, farms and fisheries is definitely a bit gloomy. And the extended weather forecasts on the Internet do not look much better. There are a few hints of possible rain in a week or so, but mostly we should expect a lot of sun. Let’s be thankful 2011 was a wet year and enjoy the balmy weather while it’s here, but hope that the storms return over the coming weeks and months and provide lots of water for people, crops and wildlife.

Spreck Rosekrans is an Economic Analyst at EDF

Since we’re neighbors let's be friends.

This old Safeway jingle comes to mind in the wake of the East Bay Municipal Utility District’s decision to withdraw its plans to expand Pardee Reservoir, in the Sierra Nevada mountains of Northern California, and to work instead with neighboring Contra Costa Water District.

Expanding Pardee would have buried a beautiful stretch of the Mokelumne River that is a popular recreation area for boaters (myself included) and others in the nearby foothill communities. Instead the East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) intends to invest in the expansion of the less controversial (and “offstream”) Los Vaqueros Reservoir, owned and operated by the Contra Costa Water District (CCWD).

There are three reasons to cheer this decision.

First, as an environmentalist I celebrate California's rivers and lament that dams have impeded the flow on so many of our streams, especially in the Sierra Nevada. I understand of course that we live in a semi-arid state and that we need to provide reliable water to 39 million people and our world-class agricultural economy, so many dams are necessary. But it's a good thing whenever we can meet our water supply needs and still allow our rivers to flow.

Second, as an EBMUD customer, I feel more comfortable with water stored close to home. The viability of EBMUD's Mokelumne River aqueduct depends in part on the stability of the notoriously fragile levees in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta on which it rests. I am pleased that EBMUD engineers have taken steps to ensure the aqueduct's seismic reliability and that we EBMUD customers have made significant financial contributions to levee repair and maintenance on certain islands. Still it seems risky to depend so heavily on uninterrupted supplies from so far away. The Los Vaqueros option will improve reliability as it is located in the Bay Area.

Third, I am pleased to see improved cooperation between local water agencies. It is particularly important in the Bay Area that our water utilities be better integrated, both physically and institutionally. This is true not only of CCWD and EBMUD but also of the other agencies that supply water to the contiguous cities around the Bay: Zone 7, Alameda County Water District, Santa Clara Valley Water District and the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. In a logical world these districts would not only provide each other additional options in the event of a pipeline outage, but would also establish criteria for sharing supplies in the event of hydrologic shortages. For example, in 2008 drought and endangered species concerns significantly limited diversions from the Delta on which many cities in the South and East Bay depend, but the Tuolumne River flows that supply cities on the peninsula were scarcely affected. With increased integration, these agencies could better share water in times of crisis.

EBMUD’s change in plans makes sense from an environmental perspective and from a reliability perspective. The choice seems obvious and could have been made some time ago. Unfortunately, however, the change in course came about only after massive grassroots opposition (kudos to the Foothill Conservancy and their colleagues), a court ruling, and changes in leadership at both agencies.

Spreck Rosekrans is an Economic Analyst at EDF

As The New York Times pointed out yesterday, not everyone is happy with the development and operation of California’s groundwater banks. Lawsuits in Kern County, the site of the largest water storage investments in California over the last 20 years by a wide margin, illustrate some of the complex issues associated with sharing aquifers.

Most of this dispute is over accounting. The many adjacent projects in Kern are very clear about land ownership but are far less clear about how much each has recharged the groundwater table and how much each has withdrawn from it.

To their credit, the Kern County parties are trying to actively manage withdrawals and recharge the aquifer (although the spate of lawsuits indicates that they still have some distance to go to ensure that everyone believes that the resource is being used equitably). In many parts of the state, competing neighbors simply drill deeper and deeper wells leading to an overdraft of millions of acre-feet per year – a classic tragedy of the commons. This unsustainable “mining” of nonrenewable supplies is reminiscent of the mounting national debt that we are leaving for our children.

We have increasing problems with the quality of groundwater supplies as well. In some areas, polluted aquifers (usually from excessive fertilizer use) have caused the shutdown of many wells. Some cities, such as Modesto, Turlock, Davis and Woodland have abandoned their wells and are turning to surface supplies or are in the process of doing so. And the problem of polluted wells is especially acute in small towns in Tulare County where surface alternatives are often unaffordable (see what the dedicated people at the Community Water Center are doing to help).

But groundwater provides up to a third of our overall water supply in dry years, so it’s too big to fail. These problems must be resolved.

Over the last 20 years, water agencies have invested far more in groundwater storage projects than they have in surface storage. The reasons are largely economic. The large surface storage projects that were built throughout the middle of the 20^th century now collect the flow of all major streams in California’s Central Valley. Today there is little momentum for pursuing additional on-stream surface storage (occasional cries for the proposed Auburn and Temperance Flat Dams not withstanding) due to the cost and limited yield associated with available sites as well as resistance from the public that supports balancing supply demands with reasonable accommodation for the ecological health of our rivers and fisheries. 

Kern County, with its favorable geology, large agricultural demand and proximity to the California Aqueduct, has led the way in groundwater development. Many of the projects in Kern, such as the Kern and Pioneer Water Banks, store water for local agricultural use – especially the region’s pomegranate, pistachio and almond orchards. Others, such as Semitropic, store water for urban communities in the Bay Area and in southern California. Even Irvine has developed its own project on a neat square parcel in the center of the county. Good stewardship of the Kern County aquifer is essential for communities throughout California.

Solving the problems associated with groundwater, in Kern and elsewhere, is not simple. It will require improved cooperation at the local level and some degree of state oversight – a concept that has been anathema in many communities. But we have resisted tackling this tough issue for too long, and our future depends on getting it right.

Spreck Rosekrans is an Economic Analyst at EDF

Exports from the Bay-Delta may reach an all-time high in 2011. Through July 15, pumping for the State Water Project and the Central Valley Project has totaled 4.86 million acre-feet. With ample supplies in northern reservoirs and Sierra rivers still full of melting snow, it is likely that the pumps will continue to run at or near capacity through the end of the water year (September 30).

As shown in Figure 1, the annual export total is projected to reach 6,610,000 acre-feet – 140,000 acre-feet more than the previous record of 6,470,000 acre-feet set in 2005.

The record export level is expected even though pumping levels were reduced not only during much of the winter and spring to protect salmon and other endangered fish but also in the late fall and early winter due to mechanical problems at State Water Project facilities. 

It is rare of course that water is as abundant as it is this year. In drier years let's make sure limited supplies are distributed fairly to all — families, farmers and fishermen alike.

Spreck Rosekrans is an Economic Analyst at EDF

You would expect the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California to oppose any legislation that could destroy the Bay-Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) and thereby leave the State Water Project vulnerable to catastrophic collapse of the delta’s notoriously fragile levees.

Unfortunately, Metropolitan is oddly “neutral” on a high stakes water bill, the “San Joaquin Valley Water Reliability Act” (H.R. 1837)– on which the U.S. House of Representatives Natural Resources Committee is scheduled to vote next Wednesday.

MWD should oppose the bill, and so should all Californians who care more about the long-term water reliability of Delta exports than short-term delivery levels.

Sponsored by Congressmen Devin Nunes (Tulare) and Kevin McCarthy (Bakersfield), H.R. 1837 seeks to upend both California’s water rights system and environmental protections in favor of moving more water from north to south as soon as possible. The current proposal may be significantly revised to accommodate some areas of the state.

Nevertheless, the bill’s authors have made it abundantly clear that they intend to eliminate virtually all protections for fisheries in the Central Valley and Bay-Delta, eschewing the balanced approach that was enshrined in California law less than two years ago in a package of bills negotiated by Metropolitan itself.

Many observers believe that the U.S. House of Representatives will pass H.R. 1837 in some form, an action likely to throw California back into serious conflict around water issues, regardless of what happens in the U.S. Senate. Surprisingly, few, if any, of the urban water agencies active in the collaborative BDCP process, including Metropolitan, have stepped forward to oppose this destructive and divisive legislation, despite the very real threat that it poses to progress within the BDCP. (On  July 7, Contra Costa Water District issued its letter of opposition.)

The BDCP planning process includes not only a potential structural fix that could protect urban Southern California from impending levee failure, but also long-term commitments to restore and protect the Delta and its fisheries. If even a fraction of the provisions in H.R. 1837 pass, the promise of a sustainable ecosystem will be eliminated for all practical purposes. In other words, the BDCP will not be able to protect the Delta and its resources and it will garner little support in many parts of the state.

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

(Note: MWD has explained to me that they "have taken no action" at this time with respect to H.R. 1837, which is different from taking a "neutral" position. So the word "neutrality" is used above in the colloquial sense, not the legal sense. I apologize for any confusion.  - Spreck)

Spreck Rosekrans is an Economic Analyst at EDF

The 1992 Central Valley Project Improvement Act includes numerous provisions to protect and restore fisheries, especially the salmon industry that has been decimated by the construction of dams and the diversion of freshwater for irrigated agriculture. Section 3406(b)(2) of the CVPIA, which authorizes the Department of the Interior to allocate up to 800,000 acre-feet of “project yield” annually to increase the Central Valley’s wild anadromous fish populations and for other restoration mandates, has provided valuable protection – especially in the operational flexibility to prevent large numbers of fish from being entrained in the massive pumps that export water from the Delta. The issue of how to implement the 800,000 acre-feet of project yield has been the subject of ongoing litigation since 1997.

Last week, agricultural water districts along the west side of the San Joaquin Valley filed a new claim to prevent reductions in water pumping from the Bay Delta. The pumps are being reduced to prevent juvenile salmon from being trapped or killed at the pumping stations and to help their migration out to the ocean. More than 5000 juvenile salmon have been entrained at the CVP pumps this month. The water districts claim “the pumping reduction decision is arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion and otherwise not in accordance with law."

Monitoring data from the California Department of Fish and Game show the daily entrainment of young salmon since export rates increased on June 1. Fishery managers at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have used their discretion to use some of their b2 supplies to reduce pumping to protect some of these fish.

This year salmon populations have slightly improved and commercial fishermen, after a three year industry shutdown, have been afforded an abbreviated season. The districts who have filed these new legal charges will receive 80 percent of their maximum contract entitlement in 2011 – far more than they received over the last four years but less than they would like. Meanwhile, most farms statewide will receive plentiful water supplies. Figure 2 shows that most customers of the federal Central Valley Project will receive 100 percent of their contract entitlements.

It is not the salmon, of course, but more than 100 years of water law that determines which farms receive full entitlements and which do not. In its effort to rebalance water management in the Central Valley to better protect native fish, Congress included provisions in the CVPIA (see section 3405) to encourage marketing of water among its customers so that all farmers – buyers and sellers alike – would have similar incentives to increase productivity (the most “crop per drop”) through mechanisms such as drip irrigation.

We at EDF suggest that CVP customers seeking additional water supplies employ the CVPIA’s marketing provisions to increase productivity system-wide and allow the fishery protections to be implemented as intended by Congress.