The Water Package – New Solutions, not “Back to the Future.”

Much of the press coverage of Governor Schwarzenegger’s bill signing press conferences have described the water package passed by the legislature last week as an “infrastructure” package, leading to the mis-impression that the purpose of this package is primarily to finish the job Governor Pat Brown started when the State Water Project was approved in 1960 -- by building more dams and a peripheral canal.  That's not what this package does.  We see it very differently.

California's water needs today are far different from those in 1960.  In 1960, Earth Day, seen by many as the birth of the modern environmental movement, was still a decade away.  The Sacramento River ran thick with spawning salmon each fall. No one thought that, a half century later, we could be on the brink of losing forever Delta fish species and the State’s salmon fishery.  Disruptions from climate change and sea level rise were decades away.  It’s not surprising that the strategies that Governor Pat Brown advocated in the 1960's are not the right solutions for California today. 

California doesn’t need a “Back to the Future” water policy.  We need water strategies that respond to the conditions we face today and that will meet the state’s need for the coming century.   Thankfully, the water policy reform legislation builds the foundation for a 21st Century water policy based on those new solutions.  Specifically, the bills include: 

Increased protections for the Delta.  The Delta governance bill (SB 7X 1) includes extensive new protections to ensure that the Delta will get the water it needs to restore a healthy ecosystem, healthy fisheries and a healthy fishing industry.  I’ve written about those protections here.  Far from promoting a canal, the bill makes it more difficult to build a damaging canal than before this bill was passed and it requires implementation of a Delta ecosystem restoration program that meets the highest standards under State law.  It establishes state policy of reducing the state’s reliance on water exports from the Delta, investments in alternative water supplies, and requirements for a comprehensive analysis of alternatives to a canal.

A balanced strategy for the Delta.  The state’s Delta planning efforts in 1960 were driven by one consideration – more water supply.  With the creation of a Delta Stewardship Council, a Delta Conservancy and a new Delta Plan, this bill directs the state’s future Delta efforts to be more balanced – including ecosystem protection, flood management and the needs of Delta communities, as well as water supply.  My colleague Doug Obegi has written about this issue in greater detail here.

Investing in a virtual river of new water supplies.  Today, dams and traditional surface storage projects are among the most environmentally damaging, expensive and slowest water supply options available.  Water agencies know this.  That’s why no water agency in California has expressed any interest in investing the billions it could take to partner in a new major traditional dam project in the Central Valley.  Instead, the water supplies for California’s future will come from a virtual river composed of supplies from water conservation, water recycling, groundwater management and capturing urban stormwater.  Together, those tools can produce more water than we have ever pumped from the Delta.  Today, there is remarkable agreement among urban water agencies, business leaders and environmentalists about the importance of these tools – a far cry from the world in 1960.  That agreement is embodied in the new state policy in SB 7X 1 of reducing reliance on the Delta and investing in alternative water supplies.  The water policy reform package includes new provisions on groundwater monitoring and the nation’s first-ever state-wide water conservation target (SB 7X 7, which is discussed in detail here).  

This water policy reform package represents a historic milestone on the path to new sustainable policies for our economy and environment.  The emphasis in these bills is on alternative water supplies, environmental health and policy reform – not the “infrastructure” solutions of the past.  

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