owens valley non-development

four months ago, i posted an article on my other blog about something happening in the owens valley. since no blog from a ucla water resources guy is complete without something about owens valley, i'm reproducing the entry here...

when i glanced at the la times today, i wasn't too surprised to see another headline discussing the owens valley situation. (the article has since been taken down, but you can start searching for the original story by clicking here). an entire century of squabbling, law suits, explosives and hatred haven't been able to resolve this issue, and it is still making headlines.

almost exactly one-hundred years ago, officials of the city of los angeles essentially lied, cheated and stole in order to make millionaires of a few fat cats who happened to be running the city.

now, there is some talk of trying to mitigate some of the wrong los angeles has done by banning development on the owens valley land. not everyone is happy about the idea, but at least joe edmiston of the santa monica mountains conservacy is enthusiastic:

The way the city acquired that valley's land was a travesty.... Now, all that karma will be reversed. What started out as a selfish act on the part of Los Angeles to take away Owens Valley's water rights will be transformed into magnificent scenery and recreational opportunities, and not just another San Fernando Valley.

broken water contracts

in the west, water contracts are a big deal. as complained about in a recent long beach press-telegram article, the government has contracts with farmers to deliver its ultra-discounted water from its extravagant 'public works' projects at far below market value to enormous corporate farms. according to a recent article in the sacramento bee, the government broke one of these contracts in order to protect some endangered species, and has been ordered to pay reparations to the farmers of over $20 million.

The Tulare and Kern districts and three others sued the federal government over undelivered irrigation water. The undelivered water helped preserve valuable smelt and salmon protected under the Endangered Species Act, but it also hurt farmers' pocketbooks. "At issue is not whether the federal government has the authority to protect the winter-run Chinook salmon and delta smelt," U.S. Court of Federal Claims Judge John Paul Wiese notes in his April 2001 opinion, "but whether it may impose costs of their protection solely on (the water districts)."

but that happened some time ago. what's new is that feinstein appears to be trying to drag the federal government into the middle of this state issue:

A multi million-dollar Central Valley water dispute has caught the Bush administration in a California tug of war. Fearing an expensive precedent, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., this week urged the administration to appeal a $26 million judgment award to five Valley irrigation districts. Feinstein joined other top state officials in warning of bad fallout from a settlement some think could be imminent. "This precedent could make it impossible for the state and federal agencies to protect and manage the San Francisco Bay-Delta, the heart of the state's water system, without vastly increased public expenditures," Feinstein cautioned in a letter to three Bush administration Cabinet secretaries. The California attorney general's office and the chairman of the state Water Resources Control Board are also urging the Justice Department not to settle with the Corcoran-based Tulare Lake Basin Water Storage District and the Kern County Water Agency.

met seeks to buy sacramento water

from the sacramento bee:

Sacramento Valley irrigators are on the verge of selling billions of gallons of water to Southern California, although details are being kept under wraps until negotiations are done. A handful of related one-year deals, expected to be completed in early 2005, could send more than 160,000 acre-feet of water from Northern California to the Los Angeles-based Metropolitan Water District and other thirsty suitors who want to ensure municipal supplies last through the summer.

on the price of the water:

Metropolitan spokesman Adan Ortega said the district plans to offer irrigators a downpayment of $10 per acre-foot. That would give the district options to buy the water in April and May. The final price has not been made public, although in 2003 it was $100 an acre-foot. "We are trying to ... build a buffer so that when it is really dry, we are able to take water out of storage," Ortega said.

more water shortages

from the arizona republic :

The federal government will reduce water deliveries on the lower Colorado River as early as 2006 if drought conditions don't improve, a top water official said Friday. Interior Secretary Gale Norton will impose the cutbacks unless the seven states that use the river agree on a drought-management plan of their own. They were given an April 1 deadline to submit such a plan.

the article makes it sound like better conservation during wet years is the key to surviving during dry years:

Better management of Lake Mead and its upstream sibling Lake Powell will be key to surviving the drought, said John Keys, commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the agency that operates the reservoirs and oversees the Colorado. For example, he said, if the states were willing to give up small amounts of water over several years, thereby keeping Lake Mead levels higher, more serious shortages might be avoided in the future.

tiered rate system

it baffles me how little southern californians think about water. conservation does not seem to cross their minds. as i walk around the westwood area where i go to school, it is commont to look down and find that i'm standing in a river of water, pouring off the saturated soil as landlords continue watering.

water will continue to become more and more expensive. in the deal struck between metropolitan and the palo verde irrigation district, water is being purchased for hundreds of dollars per acre foot. desalination will raise these prices even higher.

in la crescenta valley, for instance, the water district has proposed a three-tiered system in which the heavy users or water pay more per gallon than their conservation-minded neighbors. according to this la times article:

The first-tier rate is actually lower than what customers pay now, said Dennis Erdman, general manager of the district. All water customers pay $2.97 per 1,000 gallons — one unit — of water. Under the proposed plan, all customers would pay $2.46 per thousand gallons for the first 11,000 gallons used during a billing cycle, which is two months. The cost would go up to $3.35 per unit for water use up to 30,000 gallons, and $5.03 for usage above 30,000 gallons.

the question is, will such a system actually be sufficient to motivate people to conserve?

bay area invasive species removal

invasive species are a major problem here in the western us. the southern california 2003 institute of the enivonment report card, for instance, claims that

There is international recognition in the scientific community that invasive species represent perhaps the single most significant global ecological problem for the 21st century.

so i was happy to see this article, which claims that our bay area friends are working to restore an area (albeit a small one) to its original native flora.

Orange County officials are completing construction drawings for a project to restore the habitat on about six acres, just south of the [Peter and Mary Muth Interpretive Center]. The $400,000 project will include removing invasive plants that have crept into the area, which has been used for farming and once provided access to a salt-processing factory in the bay. They will be replaced with coastal sage scrub and native grasses, said Ernie Seidel, project manager with the Orange County Harbors, Beaches and Parks Department.

six acres! wow, thats small. still, devoting those resources to that project still shows some commitment to do something. how easy it is to screw things up, and how hard it is to put things right again.

mccloud water deal

when a sawmill in mccloud, ca closed down, it didn't take nestle waters to strike a deal with the town to buy around 500 million gallons of its water each year. from us water news online

When elected officials struck a 100-year deal to sell Nestle SA more than a half billion gallons of water annually, it was billed as the way to bring back industry and jobs. It didn't take long for those who felt left out of the process to protest. Opponents say they were never asked if McCloud should make the economic transition from wood to water, question whether a provision letting Nestle drill wells would dry up aquifers, and worry about the 300 trucks a day that might rumble through town.

another case of a huge corporation pushing little towns and people around, perhaps? more from the article...

Sales of bottled water have exploded in the United States over the past decade, outpacing beer, coffee, milk and trailing only soft drinks in volume, according to the Beverage Marketing Corp. As the fastest growing segment of the drink industry, production grew by 7.5 percent in volume and recorded $8.3 billion in wholesale sales last year.