Water Warning
I cringed when I read this article in the Pasadena Star News because I just knew the howls of outrage from the never-right wing would shortly be on the way. Here's the lede:
A federal judge's ruling Friday means Southern California's primary supplier will likely call for water rationing as soon as next year, officials said.
U.S. District Court Judge Oliver Wanger imposed limits on flows caused by pumps sending water from the San Joaquin-Sacramento River delta to users around the state, saying the pumps were drawing in and destroying the endangered delta smelt.
Wanger's ruling — which only lasts for a year — imposes the limits from the end of December, when the smelt are about to spawn, until June, when young fish can move into areas with better habitat and more food.
Metropolitan Water District officials called Wanger's ruling one of the largest court-ordered water curtailments in state history. They said based on initial estimates supplied by the state, MWD stands to lose as much as 30 percent of its supplies from Northern California next year and possibly longer.
That, combined with reduced supplies from the Colorado River and this year's record dry spell, means the MWD has to plan for a shortfall in deliveries to its 26 member cities and agencies, MWD Board President Timothy Brick said earlier this week. [Emphasis added]
What? Deprive Southern California residents (in the Los Angeles basin and its environs) of water for a lousy fish?
Yes. The San Joaquin-Sacramento River delta is one of the most sensitive and most important ecosystems in the state. Environmentalists have been warning us for decades about the degradation of that system and its impact on the water supplies for the state's most important agricultural area, yet Southern California (which has very little in the way of its own water) has continued to assume that it has the right to that water and the water in the Colorado River. As the population here grows, that right is being asserted aggressively, even though that right doesn't actually exist, delta smelt or not.
And it's not as if Southern California residents have been particularly good stewards of the water it takes for granted. Just how wasteful we've been is reflected in the measures one local municipality has had to take to conserve water.
As for how agencies would force customers to use less water, one need only look to Palmdale.
That city has already imposed restrictions limiting lawn watering to no more than three alternating days a week, and only during nighttime hours; prohibiting the hosing down of sidewalks; and asking restaurants not to serve water to customers unless they ask for it.
Regular violators can face $1,000 fines and disconnection of water service.
The MWD's plans are not only necessary and inevitable, said Patztert, but must be part of a sea change in the way Southern Californians consume water.
"In Southern California we overwater our lawns by anywhere from 6 to 8 feet per year, wash our cars twice a week and sprinkle our streets and sidewalks," said Patztert, noting that 70 percent of local domestic water consumption is used to water lawns. "If we got rid of the English gardens and lawns and replaced them with drought-tolerant landscaping, we could conserve enough water to sustain twice the present population." [Emphasis added]
Here's the thing: it's not just the delta smelt's protection that's the problem, it's the combination of increasing population in an area without adequate water supplies and the wasteful use of water. That problem is only going to increase as climate change gets into full swing.
It won't be just a return to water wars, it will be the lack of adequate water supplies over all that we'll be facing.
This is just the first round.
A federal judge's ruling Friday means Southern California's primary supplier will likely call for water rationing as soon as next year, officials said.
U.S. District Court Judge Oliver Wanger imposed limits on flows caused by pumps sending water from the San Joaquin-Sacramento River delta to users around the state, saying the pumps were drawing in and destroying the endangered delta smelt.
Wanger's ruling — which only lasts for a year — imposes the limits from the end of December, when the smelt are about to spawn, until June, when young fish can move into areas with better habitat and more food.
Metropolitan Water District officials called Wanger's ruling one of the largest court-ordered water curtailments in state history. They said based on initial estimates supplied by the state, MWD stands to lose as much as 30 percent of its supplies from Northern California next year and possibly longer.
That, combined with reduced supplies from the Colorado River and this year's record dry spell, means the MWD has to plan for a shortfall in deliveries to its 26 member cities and agencies, MWD Board President Timothy Brick said earlier this week. [Emphasis added]
What? Deprive Southern California residents (in the Los Angeles basin and its environs) of water for a lousy fish?
Yes. The San Joaquin-Sacramento River delta is one of the most sensitive and most important ecosystems in the state. Environmentalists have been warning us for decades about the degradation of that system and its impact on the water supplies for the state's most important agricultural area, yet Southern California (which has very little in the way of its own water) has continued to assume that it has the right to that water and the water in the Colorado River. As the population here grows, that right is being asserted aggressively, even though that right doesn't actually exist, delta smelt or not.
And it's not as if Southern California residents have been particularly good stewards of the water it takes for granted. Just how wasteful we've been is reflected in the measures one local municipality has had to take to conserve water.
As for how agencies would force customers to use less water, one need only look to Palmdale.
That city has already imposed restrictions limiting lawn watering to no more than three alternating days a week, and only during nighttime hours; prohibiting the hosing down of sidewalks; and asking restaurants not to serve water to customers unless they ask for it.
Regular violators can face $1,000 fines and disconnection of water service.
The MWD's plans are not only necessary and inevitable, said Patztert, but must be part of a sea change in the way Southern Californians consume water.
"In Southern California we overwater our lawns by anywhere from 6 to 8 feet per year, wash our cars twice a week and sprinkle our streets and sidewalks," said Patztert, noting that 70 percent of local domestic water consumption is used to water lawns. "If we got rid of the English gardens and lawns and replaced them with drought-tolerant landscaping, we could conserve enough water to sustain twice the present population." [Emphasis added]
Here's the thing: it's not just the delta smelt's protection that's the problem, it's the combination of increasing population in an area without adequate water supplies and the wasteful use of water. That problem is only going to increase as climate change gets into full swing.
It won't be just a return to water wars, it will be the lack of adequate water supplies over all that we'll be facing.
This is just the first round.
Labels: California, Water
posted by Diane at 1:38 PM
2 Comments:
Just say no to lawns.
give 'em choices: lawn? or pool?
if there's a choice.
this year and last i didn't use my swamp cooler cuz it wastes a lot of water, and i have dogs and a fishpond and i keep pools for both of 'em (the dogs' is plastic and 6" deep...).
the fresh water crisis, i fear, will be one of those which is both greater and more swiftly upon us than anyone (except apparently the Bush criminals, who've bought a huge fresh water reservoir in paraguay) expects...
Post a Comment
<< Home