LWVC – “California Plumbing” by the LWVC Water Committee

In the 20th century, water project developers relied on engineering infrastructure to meet the economic aspirations and lifestyles of Californians in a region where rainfall is not regular. Main examples:

• The Los Angeles Aqueduct transports water from the eastern side of the Sierras to Southern California, initially for agriculture and later for urban development.
• The Colorado River Aqueduct and All American Canal serve urban Southern California and agriculture in the Imperial and Coachella valleys.
• The federal Central Valley Project (CVP) system of dams, reservoirs and canals primarily serves agriculture in the Central Valley, but also the Central Coast and urban users in Contra Costa and Santa Clara counties.
• The Hetch Hetchy Project, originating in Yosemite, delivers water from the Tuolumne River through the San Joaquin Valley to the greater San Francisco Bay Area.
• The Mokelumne Aqueduct provides water to urban users in the East Bay Area.
• The State Water Project (SWP) system of dams, reservoirs and canals transports water originally classified as “surplus” in the North to meet varying needs in coastal areas, the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California.

The final four of these projects impact the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and the San Francisco Bay-Delta estuary. In 2008, the State Water Resources Control Board reported that the water rights it managed in the Bay/Delta Watershed exceeded the average annual natural flow: for every acre-foot of water in the Delta Watershed, 8.4 acre-feet of water was promised on paper .

Ongoing water battles between regions and between urban and agricultural users reflect “paper water” or other unrealistic expectations that actual supplies cannot reliably meet. When supplies fell short of expectations, the water agency was pressured to deliver water anyway, even at the expense of endangered species and the health of people and the delta and estuary ecosystem. When surface water is not available, users resort to groundwater and overdraft it to compensate.

Each of the major water projects faces supply, environmental and climate challenges that planners did not anticipate. It is no longer clear that more infrastructure is the answer.

Jane Wagner-Tyack, LWVC Water Committee Co-Chair

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The next part of our series of articles on California water can be posted to your local League Voter at this link.

Next comes: The water-energy nexus – Water movement, heating and treatment, and wastewater treatment collectively represent one of the largest end-uses of electricity and natural gas in California.