California Hits Peak Water, But Virtual River Offers Solution
- Barry Nelson
- Senior Policy Analyst, Water Program, San Francisco
- Blog | About
- Posted October 15, 2009 in Health and the Environment
In the past decade, people have become familiar with the concept of peak oil -- the notion that we have passed the zenith of oil extraction and are facing a steady decline in the amount of oil we can recover.
I believe the same trajectory holds true for water, and here in California, we have hit peak water.
Yes, water is a renewable resource, but it is not infinitely so. There is only so much water you can take out of system before you reach limits. In California, those limits take a variety of forms, but they all mean the same thing: on nearly all major river systems in the state, we are taking less water than we used to.
In the San Francisco Bay-Delta, we hit the limit when the entire ecosystem collapsed and the salmon fishery was closed because too much water has been diverted to agriculture and urban users.
Along the Colorado River, we hit the limit when drought settled on the Colorado Plateau and other states objected that California was taking much more than its rightful allotment of river water.
Along the Klamath and Trinity Rivers, the rights of Native American nations to a healthy salmon fishery have played a role in the realization that we have hit limits on these North Coast rivers.
Along the Owens River, we hit the limit when Los Angeles diverted so much water that dust storms from a dry Owens Lake threatened the health of local residents.
We have hit similar walls on the San Joaquin River, the Mono Lake Basin and more. Look at a map of California and you will see that every major watershed has been tapped. We have hit -- or passed -- peak water on each of these rivers.
A century ago, historians wrote about the closing of the American Frontier, but here in California we hung on to a frontier mentality regarding water -- we never felt constrained by the boundaries of what our rivers could provide. Those days are over. Peak water means that the hydraulic frontier has closed as well.
Interestingly, this is not a controversial idea within California's business and urban water communities. Although they may not yet use the term peak water, they are already planning for its reality.
If you look at the water management plans of cities like Los Angeles or the San Diego region or the Southern California business community -- you'll see that they are preparing to meet their needs without diverting more water from the state's rivers. This represents a major change in direction. (The exception to this trend is the agricultural sector, which hopes that billions in taxpayer subsidies for new dams will enable them to squeeze a few more drops from California's ailing rivers.)
This is where the concept of the Virtual River comes in. The Virtual River is where we must turn now that the real ones are tapped out. It consists of the combined water supply potential of conversation, water recycling, improved groundwater management, and urban stormwater capture. These tools can provide more water than we ever exported from the Bay-Delta, the largest single source of water for California in the late 20th century. The Virtual River can be California's biggest source of water for the 21st. It can also improve our water quality, decrease energy use and decrease greenhouse gas emissions.
Just as energy efficiency is the solution to peak oil, the Virtual River is the solution to peak water.
As inspired as I am by the water managers and businesspeople who realize this, California has to take it to the next level. This is where the provisions of SB 68 (Steinberg) come in. That bill includes provisions that recognize California has hit peak water. Specifically, the bill calls for:
- Implementing the governor's goal of cutting per capita water use by 20 percent by 2020 -- a measure that will spur significant improvements in efficiency
- Reducing the state's reliance on water from the Delta -- this is a dramatic turn in policy. F or the last half century, the state's unspoken policy has been to increase our dependence on this ecosystem.
- Giving the state water board new enforcement tools to crack down on illegal water diversions.
- Passing groundwater monitoring requirements that can help California start managing this key Virtual River resource more sustainably.
This bill is coming at a critical time. We have passed peak water -- and climate change will further reduce supplies from our rivers in the future. As currently drafted, SB 68 shows that California can adapt to this reality and tap into the plentiful waters of the Virtual River.
(bookmark or email this entry)
Comments are closed for this post.
We close comments on a blog post when it's clear the conversation has moved on -- click on the tags (above) or on our homepage to see if we've got fresh news and views on this post's topic.
Comments
Philip Bowles — Oct 16 2009 09:03 AM
You left out one important tributary of your Virtual River: markets. Making water prices more transparent, and rules governing beneficial use more flexible, might result in substantial reallocation of water from one use to another. Many agricultural users would welcome a high credit-quality income stream that is not related to crop cycles. This can be done on a voluntary long or short term basis, and can be done while improving, not eliminating, our State's valuable agricultural industry.
Linda Morse-Robertson — Oct 17 2009 12:23 AM
While I agree with a lot of your statements, what fails is that this proposed canal will take MORE WATER THAN CURRENTLY HAS BEEN TAKEN to send to water users in Kern County that had "surplus" water that they sold for MILLIONS in profit. Until the profit is taken out of the equation, agricultural users have no incentive to conserve or reclaim their water, nor do they have any incentive to "find" water...our Delta is virtually collapsing and the "taking" of water for a canal the size of the one in Panama, is just NOT going to solve the problems...take the profit out of water and the Resnicks' of Beverly Hills may just have to reconsider how they do business...living in the Delta, and having NO VOICE, NO representation, and seeing friends of mine who are going to lose their properties, farms that have been in their families for over 100 years to benefit bad dirt, and farmers in the valley who have been LIED to by their own water districts is heartbreaking.
Nunes, Hannity, and Paul Rodriguez have all painted us in the north Delta as people who put a small fish before human needs. Nothing could be farther from the truth. But OUR farmers are being asked, no TOLD, that their farms are going to be destroyed to benefit MOSTLY CORPORATE FARMERS, not the family farms being painted by a tainted, ratings grabbing media, and we are TIRED OF THE BS...
Barry Nelson — Oct 20 2009 08:59 PM
Philip - I agree with you that transfers are an important tool. But they must be done right. Transfers should not be allowed if they would cause further environmental damage. And transfers should be limited to real water. (I know it’s an obvious principle, but some water users have proposed to sell their neighbor’s water supply – or even “paper water” that does not really exist.) The best way to encourage transfers is to allow farmers to sell water that they conserve. Such transfers provide a powerful economic incentive for efficiency. (And by the way, Linda, there is already a provision in federal law to prevent windfalls – if farmers try to sell subsidized federal water.) Done right, such transfers can benefit the seller and the buyer. Those kind of transfers among farmers are commonplace South of the Delta – something that should be better known.