Think about that. Rivers running dry in England – the Misty Isles. Here in California, we have long known that climate change will have profound water-related impacts, ranging from lost snowpack and reduced total runoff to more intense flood-causing storms and threats to trout, salmon and other species. You can read NRDC’s report on these impacts here.
In the past year, California has taken major steps to ensure the reliability of our water supplies and the restoration of our aquatic resources. But there’s a glaring hole in these efforts – the lack of a national program to rein in climate change. Earlier this week, Senators Kerry and Lieberman released their draft climate bill. You can read a detailed initial summary of that bill here.
With the release of this bill and the start of the debate in the Senate, it’s appropriate to reflect on the importance of a federal climate bill from a water perspective. After all, in the American West, water is where climate change is hitting the ground. The draft bill is a solid start for the Senate debate. However, unfortunately, as drafted, that bill would not allocate any funds to help the nation’s arid states adapt to the inevitable impacts of climate change on our water supplies. That’s something NRDC will be working to change as this debate moves forward.
Remember, the debate about a federal climate bill is about more than ice caps and polar bears. The implications of that debate are as close as your kitchen faucet.
]]>Let me give a couple of examples.
The Delta Vision Strategic Plan calls for large scale Delta habitat restoration “on the order of 100,000 acres.” Designing and implementing a restoration program on this scale will be a long-term effort. Given the complexity of the Delta ecosystem, detecting long-term, system-wide improvements in ecosystem health as a result of this restoration will also be a long-term endeavor. The scientific community agrees that habitat restoration is one essential component of an effort to restore the Delta ecosystem. But it won’t happen overnight.
The BDCP process is evaluating options for a Peripheral Canal, tunnel, or pipeline through, around or under the Delta. Most experienced observers anticipate that it will take 20-25 years to design, permit and construct such a facility – under the best of circumstances. So for the next quarter century, we may be managing the plumbing system we have today, with modest changes.
A Delta-wide flood management effort will not be less time-consuming.
And finally, there’s climate change. This is where you can really see the importance of a realistic planning horizon. Professor Jeffrey Mount of U.C. Davis famously concluded that there is a 2/3 likelihood of large scale failure in the Delta by 2050, as a result of sea level rise driven by climate change and other factors. The Public Policy Institute of California proposed a controversial “do not resuscitate” policy for some Delta islands. After the PPIC report came out, I sat down with a good map, a piece of paper and a Sharpie. When I was done, the paper was nearly blank. I learned that there are few islands we can walk away from today, even if we want to . Most Delta islands have highways, rail lines, towns (or cities), gas storage facilities, aqueducts and other important infrastructure.
There’s a paradox here. It’s hard to see how we can save all Delta islands if sea level reaches three feet or more. But we can’t just walk away from the Delta. The solution here is realistic phasing. Let’s face it. Even if we wanted to, we can’t just abandon Sherman Island. It’s perhaps the most vulnerable Delta island, but it is also bisected by an important highway and is a key to preventing the loss of other islands to the East. For the next several decades, we have little choice but to try to protect Sherman Island. That’s why one of NRDC’s early recommendations for the Council is to work on a management plan for Sherman Island.
After the first 25 years of the implementation of the Delta Plan -- call it Phase 1 - we’ll know more about sea level rise and climate change. We’ll see the effectiveness of our management decisions during Phase 1. As we look forward, Phase 2 may look quite different. And Phase 3 is still looking through a glass darkly. But let’s not kid ourselves – we’re looking at long phases here.
As a people, Americans don’t naturally think in quarter-century increments. We’re not always very good at maintaining focus and patience when realistic solutions require a decade -- or decades. There are important exceptions to this generalization, of course. Think about the decades-long efforts involved in the interstate highway system, the federal reclamation program, cleaning up traditional municipal sewage, or the work of the Corps of Engineers.
In California water, however, patience has not been our strong suit. The Delta Stewardship Council should see this as a growth opportunity.
]]>The land in question has already been retired from farming as a result of salt accumulation. Obviously, this land has far less environmental value than land in the Mojave Desert, which has been the primary focus of most industrial-scale solar development proposals in California. The Westlands site is relatively close to California cities, as well as major power transmission corridors. A project of this magnitude also has the potential to generate jobs in a region that has been hit by three dry years, the collapse of the construction industry and the general economic downturn.
This project is still in the early stages. It must secure financing, obtain permits and agreements with utilities to purchase power. However, the growing common ground around this idea, among the Westlands Water District, farmers, environmentalists and solar entrepreneurs, is certainly promising.
]]>When most people think about climate change and water, they tend to think first about the projected loss of snowpack. But this report places an emphasis on what may be a more important implication of global warming - a reduction in the total amount of water available for the state. This reduction comes from several causes - a predicted decrease in precipitation, increased evaporation, changes in runoff timing, and increased plant consumption. This report reinforces the case that California has hit Peak Water in terms of the amount we should expect to squeeze from our overtaxed rivers.
The report also reinforces the need for California to emphasize the tools that we have called the Virtual River to meet future water needs, such as the state's recently passed water conservation bill. In coming years, we will need to look for additional opportunities to increase the amount of water gained from agricultural and urban water conservation, water recycling, groundwater clean-up and management, and urban stormwater capture. We used to call these "alternative" supplies, but we need to change the language we use to describe these tolls. This document shows that these will be the backbone water supply strategies in the 21st century.
In Australia and the Colorado River basin, droughts have been so extended that many in the water community have started moving away from the term "drought" and toward thinking of drier conditions as "the new normal." It may be too early for that in California, as even the Farm Bureau is predicting a wet, or at least normal, winter in California, as a result of El Nino conditions in the ocean. Nevertheless, this report suggests a clear direction for decision-makers and water managers. We should not think of dry years as a short-term phenomenon to be forgotten after the first heavy rains. We need to plan seriously for a drier future.
The report has plenty of additional food for thought on water issues. I'll mention just one more item. The state recommends a serious investigation of opportunities to "reintroduce anadromous fish to upper watersheds" (Strategy 5(c).) Salmon in the Bay-Delta system have lost as much as 95 percent of their historic spawning habitat - locked behind massive dams. For years, fisheries advocates have looked for ways to get salmon to the cool spawning habitat above dams like Shasta, Englebright, Oroville, Folsom and others. In the past, some of these proposals haven't gained much traction. Given the plight of the state's salmon industry and the projections of climate change impacts in this report, this is an idea whose time may have come. Kudos to the state for including this adaptation strategy.
]]>Late last week, the California Legislature released a package of five major water reform bills (find links to each bill here). Like many others who work on water issues, I'm still combing through them. But I can already sense that this is an opportunity to lift California out of our current water crisis and into an economically and environmentally sustainable future.
Why is this happening now? For starters, the state finally has a budget, and lawmakers are turning to other pressing issues. What is interesting is that water has now risen to the top two or three priorities of our legislature.
Three things are driving this new sense of urgency:
Today, it's a challenge to find anyone who believes that the course of California water policy over the past decade will be sustainable in the future. This emerging reality has prompted some high-level reaction. In September of 2006, the governor and the legislature commissioned the Delta Vision Task Force to write an ambitious new plan for the future of the Delta. That plan was completed and submitted to the legislature in December of 2007. In February of 2008, Governor Schwarzenegger also announced that he wants California to decrease per capita water use 20 percent by 2020.
Assembly Speaker Karen Bass and Senate President pro Tem Darrel Steinberg responded to these developments by convening a small legislative working group. After lengthy discussions within that group, Bass and Steinberg released a package of five heavily amended water bills. The package includes cost-effective measures for conserving and using California's water more efficiently in order to achieve the governor's water conservation goal. NRDC and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California are co-sponsoring this legislation, which is being carried by Assemblymembers Mike Feuer and Jared Huffman.
The package also takes the bold and much-needed step of proposing major reforms to the state's water agencies. The Delta Vision Task Force concluded that "governance reform" is required to resolve issues in the Delta because the California's current fractured and antiquated agencies are simply not up to the job. The bills would create a new Stewardship Council to manage the Delta, require the development of a comprehensive Delta plan to address ecosystem, water supply and flood management issues, establish a new Delta Conservancy to implement restoration projects, and strengthen the powers of the Delta Protection Commission to regulate inappropriate land use in the Delta.
As I study the bills more closely, I'll have more detailed recommendations for improvements. But I welcome this opportunity for reform.
You see, we really can change the way water management works in California. I have seen it before, although not on such a sweeping scale. Back in 1992, Congress passed the
Central Valley Project Improvement Act to make the project more responsive to the environmental and economic needs of the state.
The CVPIA changed the landscape pretty substantially. Prior to the law, the Bureau of Reclamation claimed it did not have the authority to protect endangered species. Now we have two new federal biological opinions requiring the CVP to protect Delta species listed under the ESA (see my colleague Doug Obegi's post about this here). Today, no one at the Bureau questions the need to protect these vanishing species. The law was also designed to promote water transfers. Today, there is a thriving water transfer system among agricultural water agencies south of the Delta.
The package of five bills before the legislature has the potential to have an even bigger impact - but on a broader set of water issues.
AB 49, for example, could make water conservation strategies--things like smart irrigation controllers-- business as usual. And all Californians would benefit from agency reform that allowed the resolution of difficult Delta issues.
These times don't come around too often. I hope our lawmakers seize the moment.
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In general, the Central Valley does not receive as much annual solar radiation as the state's desert south - a key consideration in evaluating potential photovoltaic or concentrated solar projects. However, during the hot summer months when California's electricity demand is at its peak, the Central Valley has significant potential for both concentrated solar and photovoltaic projects.
A large Central Valley solar energy project could be a very ambitious undertaking, potentially representing many gigawatts of installed capacity. This prospect is not unrealistic. Utilities have begun to recognize the potential for such facilities in Central California. For example, last August, PG&E signed agreements for 800 MW of solar capacity at two new proposed facilities in Central California. A year ago, the South San Joaquin Irrigation District flipped the switch on a seven acre photovoltaic system -- one of the largest in California. And just last week, Cleantech America announced that it had received approval for a new 5 MW photovoltaic facility in the Central Valley community of Mendota.
Solar power is not cheap. The key to determining the feasibility of a very large-scale Central Valley solar project is accounting for several potential additional benefits of such a project.
Along with renewable power, the most obvious benefit of a cotton-to-solar project would be a potential reduction in water use. For example, 100,000 acres of cotton consumes more than 250,000 acre-feet of water per year - nearly half of the water consumption of the City of Los Angeles. Farmers, environmentalists and urban residents could all see benefits from a large solar project, if it could help reduce water use by cotton or other low value crops. This year, some farmers in the Central Valley are hurting. Three successive dry years have drained the reservoirs of the State and federal water projects, reducing agricultural water deliveries. Looking down the road, it appears likely that, as a result of climate change, the need to protect the Delta ecosystem, the rights of other water users, and the need to restore California's salmon fishery, the State and federal water projects may never again pump the record amounts of Delta water diverted just a few years ago. A cotton-to-solar project should not be seen as reducing agricultural acreage, but rather as adding a new crop for farmers - one that would be unaffected by dry years.
Why focus on cotton? Cotton is relatively low value and among the crops most likely to be displaced as farmers turn to new ideas. Cotton is also highly subsidized, consumes vast quantities of agricultural chemicals and provides little habitat. Farmers are already looking for alternatives to cotton. Acreage in cotton production in California is declining. For example, cotton acres in the Westlands Water District fell from 240,000 acres in 1993 to 37,000 in 2008. But California farmers still grow a great deal of cotton. In 2007, state-wide, 450,000 acres were planted in cotton.
Another potential benefit of a Central Valley solar project is help in resolving the chronic drainage problems in parts of the Valley. The agricultural industry and the federal government have already proposed large changes for agriculture in the Valley to respond to the drainage problem. For example, the Westlands Water District has called for the retirement of 200,000 acres of land - one third of the entire district. The Bureau of Reclamation has identified the retirement of 194,000 acres of land as the preferred alternative for addressing drainage issues in the Valley. USGS and the Fish and Wildlife Service have recommended that this target should be 375,000 acres. More than 35,000 acres of land in Westlands has already been permanently retired. Some of this land might be available for the initial phase of a solar project. And a "buy down" in water use could create an income stream to help finance the conversion to solar.
A Central Valley solar project could also provide jobs in some of California's most disadvantaged communities. One interesting option would be the creation of a thin film photovoltaic (PV) factory on the West side of the San Joaquin Valley. Applied Materials and Oerlikon both offer "turnkey" PV factories, which customers can order to be built to their specifications. A large scale Central Valley solar project could consume for decades the capacity of a factory dedicated to the project. Such an effort could provide badly-needed local employment.
Some Central Valley communities are suffering from reductions in water deliveries this year. In fact, Valley towns like Mendota and Firebaugh have been economically disadvantaged for decades. Large-scale agriculture in this region, with a high percentage of absentee landlords, has not served these communities well. An ambitious renewable energy project could provide long-term factory, construction, and maintenance jobs. Given its scale and potential duration, such a project could also include scholarship and trade school programs designed to build skills and increase benefits to local communities. Renewable energy might finally provide some of the local economic benefits that the federal water reclamation program has failed to deliver.
The economic feasibility of this idea is enhanced when one considers existing agricultural subsidies. One acre in cotton production in the Central Valley produces an annual yield worth approximately $1,200 (at 2005 prices.) NRDC's analysis concluded that water and crop subsidies represent 17-56% of the total value of this cotton. A renewable energy project that reduced cotton production could help reduce these taxpayer subsidies - yet another potential benefit.
There's one final potential benefit. Selecting sites and providing transmission for renewable energy facilities in California presents a major challenge. In the Mojave Desert, siting and transmission have significant potential for conflict with wildlife and sensitive resources. From this perspective, the Central Valley has a few advantages. The Valley already hosts major existing transmission corridors and cotton fields provide little wildlife habitat.
In short, a Central Valley solar project could offer remarkably broad benefits, including:
Many factors suggest that this is a uniquely appropriate time to carefully evaluate this idea. California is suffering from a third dry year. The California legislature is focused on addressing problems in the Delta. The federal stimulus bill included a significant emphasis on renewable energy. The California Air Resources Board is working on a plan to implement California's ambitious greenhouse gas reduction goals. And Congress is considering a similar climate bill for the nation.
Finally, it's important to note that land owners in the Central Valley are highly sophisticated businessmen and women who have spent decades adapting to changing water supply and market conditions. These owners and their local communities understand local conditions and needs better than anyone. Their involvement is essential if a cotton-to-solar project is to work. Common ground has been hard to find among environmentalists and agricultural interests south of the Delta. An ambitious renewable energy project might provide an important opportunity for a collaborative effort with broad benefits.
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