Month: June 2015

Drought Bills: Small Changes, High Impact

As Californians continue to cope with the impacts of the ongoing drought, actions to improve the way we manage water are being taken at all levels of government. Last week Governor Brown signed into law Drought Trailer bill (SB 88) and Resources Budget Trailer bill (SB 83). These bills will improve the way we respond to the current drought and better prepare us for future droughts. Here are three ways they will do this:

  • Consolidation of some small water systems with bigger ones to increase drinking water accessibility for at-risk communities. Many small, disadvantaged rural communities in California lack reliable and safe drinking water. These communities often lack economies of scale because the cost of improving and maintaining these systems is high and their customer base is small. Even when these small water systems are eligible for state funding for capital improvements like water treatment systems, they often lack the technical and operational capacity necessary to sustain them over time. In some cases, consolidation—the physical or administrative merging of drinking water systems—can be a cost-effective solution. The bill allows the State Water Resources Control Board to pursue consolidation when other solutions are not appropriate, and it provides protection against liability issues that may make larger agencies unwilling to consolidate. In our report Paying for Water in California we recommended consolidation as one of a suite of actions that could help address chronic safe-drinking water challenges.

  • Better monitoring and reporting requirements for water diverters and some water rights holders. Earlier this year we recommended improving the state’s water information system to effectively manage water resources during droughts. This bill takes California one step closer to this goal. For example, individuals who divert water under the most senior water rights were previously required to report their diversions to the Water Board every three years; now they’ll be required to report annually. Surface-water diverters who use more than 10 acre-feet a year will also be required to install measuring devices. Well-drilling logs will also become public. The new reporting requirements reflect progress in modernizing California’s water accounting capabilities. The next step is to integrate improved water information and resource planning tools to better manage water scarcity.

  • Temporary environmental oversight exemptions for groundwater recharge projects, recycled water system standards, and local decisions to prohibit drilling of new groundwater wells. The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) can play an important role in evaluating the environmental impacts of projects or regulations, but the length and cost of the review process can discourage responsive policymaking. This bill streamlines review for projects and policy decisions that are low-risk and well-tested, but could immediately increase drought resiliency. California’s regulatory framework is such that these projects will likely be reviewed in other forums, so this bill doesn’t eliminate all oversight. As we heard from San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo at our April “Water in Silicon Valley” event, this kind of streamlining would have real-world impacts. San Jose is seeking an expedited process from CEQA to begin building a groundwater recharge system that would expand use of San Jose’s existing recycled water system.

As the legislative year continues we can expect more statewide policy changes that address our stressed water system. We’ll provide regular updates on key water legislation in this blog.

Online Learning and College Costs

As the price of attending college has risen and access to higher education has declined, policymakers are looking to online learning as a way to better serve student needs, increase access—and lower the costs of higher education. In California, the state’s community colleges have taken the lead in online learning, with total course enrollment reaching about one million. We have been able to study the impact of online education on hundreds of thousands of students at the state’s community colleges. What we found points to important issues in the discussion of higher education access and costs.

It is easy to understand why online education is being championed as a cost-saver. Online courses do not require classroom space, and the cost of developing courses can be amortized over time. Savings could come through economies of scale, including centralization of online student services. If faculty members do not have to invest as much time designing, facilitating, and seeking approval for individual online courses, the colleges’ overall labor costs could drop.

But at this point, these savings are theoretical. So far, there is no empirical evidence that online learning is less expensive than face-to-face learning. In fact, research shows that preparing an online course is usually more time consuming—and therefore expensive—than preparing a traditional class.

And there are other drawbacks to online education as it’s currently practiced. In California’s community colleges, online student success rates are lower than success rates in traditional courses. Success rates for African American and Hispanic students are significantly worse. If these gaps persist and online enrollment continues to increase, then community colleges will be less equitable. The result will be increased costs to students and the state—and a failure to realize the promise of online education.

Despite these drawbacks, certain online courses are highly successful. Our analysis of these courses led us to recommend that the colleges move away from the current model, which relies on an individual faculty member to design and deliver an online course, and adopt a more systematic approach to creating online courses. A team that supports faculty members—including administrators, media developers, and information technology experts—would be better able to maximize the potential of the online learning environment.

However, it is unclear how moving to a team model would affect costs. Incorporating specialists in course design would raise upfront costs. Regularly updating software and updating course material could quickly exceed any savings from economies of scale. Providing essential student support services, such as technical support, online tutoring, and counseling, might also significantly raise costs.

But online learning is an important tool for improving access to higher education in California, even if it does not cost less. Online classes are increasingly popular in the community colleges—which are the higher education institutions most likely to serve nontraditional students. Incorporating best practices into these courses would improve the colleges’ ability to serve the state’s diverse students.

The community college system’s Online Education Initiative is an important step in the effort to accommodate demand for online learning and improve student outcomes. If it is successful, it can serve as a model for other online learning programs in higher education.

Better Reservoir Management Would Take the Heat off Salmon

Over the past few weeks, the state’s largest reservoir—Shasta—has been in the spotlight as managers struggle to meet multiple demands with dwindling reserves. Surface reservoirs are central to managing California’s water supplies for a variety of purposes. However, during extended droughts, when the amount of water in reservoirs gets low, water allocation decisions can involve difficult trade-offs. This year the trade-offs at Shasta are particularly challenging, since the survival of a run of endangered salmon may be on the line.

Most of Shasta’s water goes to agricultural water contractors in the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys. The reservoir generates abundant hydropower and supports a large recreation economy. Shasta, along with Folsom and Oroville Reservoirs, is also the principal source of water for controlling freshwater outflows from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. These outflows are necessary to maintain water quality for both human uses as well as fish habitat.

Balancing all of these demands for Shasta water is made more complex by the needs of winter-run Chinook salmon—an endangered species that is edging close to extinction.

The Sacramento River was blocked by Shasta Dam in 1944. This shut off access to spawning grounds for millions of winter-run salmon that historically migrated to the river’s headwaters in late winter. Their eggs—deposited in the gravels—survived the hot California summers because of the abundant cold spring flows in these headwaters.

Today, the dense, cold water that collects at the bottom of the reservoir in winter and early spring is the only available source of cold water for these fish. Spawning is now restricted to a relatively short stretch of the Sacramento River immediately below the reservoir where temperatures are kept low enough by cold water releases.

In late summer of 2014, the water released from Shasta was too warm, resulting in the death of almost all the winter-run Chinook salmon eggs. According to a report by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, temperature models used to forecast dam operations failed to fully account for reservoir water temperatures and the performance of gates used to selectively draw water from various depths. By the time the errors were discovered, early season water releases for irrigation had used up available cold water.

This year the weather circumstances are roughly the same: low winter and spring inflows and unusually warm temperatures. In a report to the State Water Resources Control Board in early spring, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation provided assurances that temperature needs for winter-run Chinook could be met while allowing water releases for irrigators and meeting water quality requirements in the Delta.

But in late May, reservoir managers revealed that winter-run salmon eggs were at risk due to high temperature releases for a second consecutive year. This year’s miscalculations were different than last year’s. Operations staff failed to incorporate water temperature data that showed that the lake had warmed rapidly in the spring. As before, these errors led to overly optimistic projections for available water.

State and federal officials have committed to trying to stave off another complete loss of winter-run Chinook, acknowledging that failing to do so may lead to extinction. They say themselves that this is going to be no easy task given the warmth of water in the reservoir.

These difficulties in managing Shasta Reservoir highlight a significant policy challenge that needs to be addressed during this drought, and that also has implications for managing future droughts.

Uncertainty—whether from data collection or failures of technical models to adequately represent extreme conditions—needs to be more explicitly integrated into decision-making. When water supplies are very limited, there is great pressure to meet all competing demands to the maximum extent possible, leaving little room for adjustment to unanticipated conditions or events. This is especially true for cold water in reservoirs because early season releases for irrigation or other uses limits options to adjust later in the season.

To incorporate uncertainty into drought planning, priorities need to be clearly defined, and a margin of safety established for top priorities, such as preventing extinction of endangered species.

A greater margin of safety would likely have prevented the loss of winter-run Chinook salmon in 2014 and helped avert the challenges this year. To be sure, this would have meant increased water scarcity for some downstream irrigators. But this scarcity would not be permanent, since the rains will eventually return. And policies such as crop insurance and emergency drought support can lessen the financial costs of water shortages to farmers. For the salmon, there will be no second chance: extinction is permanent, regardless of whether it rains again.

Californians and Water Conservation

In our May statewide survey, we found that 60 percent of Californians think people in their part of the state aren’t doing enough to respond to the current drought. The prevalence of this belief varies somewhat across regions. It turns out that Californians’ assessments of their neighbors’ efforts generally align with their area’s water conservation levels.

Earlier this month, the State Water Resources Control Board released conservation statistics for April 2015, showing how much each of the state’s ten hydrologic regions reduced its monthly water use compared to April 2013. This data shows that statewide water use declined by 13.5 percent in April, and that reductions ranged widely across the state. The South Coast region, which includes Los Angeles and neighboring counties, had a reduction of 8.75 percent, while the northeastern North Lahontan region (on the Nevada border) had a reduction of 37.5 percent.

For our survey, we interviewed at least 80 residents in 5 of the state’s hydrologic regions (the Sacramento River, San Francisco Bay, San Joaquin River, Tulare, and South Coast). When we compared survey responses about water conservation efforts with the water use reductions in these regions, we found that perceptions and reductions are aligned in almost all areas.

In the Sacramento River region, which had the biggest cut in water use among the five regions considered, residents were most likely to say that people in their area are doing the right amount to respond to the drought. These residents were also least likely to say people in their area aren’t doing enough. Responses in the region were split about evenly between “the right amount” (41%) and “not enough” (40%).

In contrast, residents of the South Coast—the region with the smallest cut in water use—were most likely to say that people in their area aren’t doing enough to respond to the drought and the least likely to say people are doing the right amount. In this hydrologic region, residents were more than twice as likely to say people aren’t doing enough (63%) than they were to say that people are doing the right amount (25%).

This pattern holds across the state, with one exception. The San Francisco Bay hydrologic region’s conservation rate is second best, yet its residents are the second most likely to be critical of conservation efforts in the area. This contrast between satisfaction with conservation efforts and conservation results might be attributable in part to ideology. Statewide, liberals (67%) were more likely than moderates (60%) or conservatives (52%) to say people in their area aren’t doing enough, and the San Francisco Bay region has a relatively high concentration of residents who identify themselves as liberals (41%). Also, water use in the Bay Area is historically lower than in other parts of the state, so conservation may be a deeply ingrained positive value.

What this comparison of survey responses with water use statistics tells us is that many Californians seem to have a good sense of how well their communities are doing in addressing the drought. Whether this sense comes from observations of neighbors, knowledge of their own behavior, or signals from local government and agencies, it suggests that Californians know what is needed to combat the drought.

Chart note: Survey responses are sorted by county into hydrologic regions. Counties that fall into more than one hydrologic region are assigned to the region where most of the population lives.

More Money, More Challenges for K-12 Schools

The 2015-16 budget agreement between the legislative leadership and governor provides substantial additional funding for the new Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF). The money allows the state to implement the formula more quickly, and some districts will experience very large funding increases. While LCFF significantly expanded district financial flexibility, it also calls for districts to use the new funding to improve local performance. Districts may find meeting various state and local expectations a complex task.

The budget includes $53.1 billion for LCFF, or $6 billion more than appropriated in the 2014-15 budget. To put this into perspective, this represents an increase of more than $1,000 per pupil on average, or 14% more than schools received this year.

When LCFF was enacted in 2013-14, the administration estimated that the transition from old to new formula would take eight years. But funding increases were larger than forecasts in 2014–15 and 2015–16. Since 2013-14, almost $11 billion has been added to LCFF, leaving a gap of only $5.5 billion to fully fund the formula. Depending on the health of the economy, this gap could disappear completely in the next few years—and far earlier than originally forecast.

The LCFF simplified school funding by consolidating several dozen funding streams into a formula that distributes funds based on the number of students in each grade and the proportion of low-income, English-learner, and foster students in each district. The formula also sets district funding targets to equalize per-pupil funding levels across districts. In addition, funding levels for kindergarten and grades 1–3 were enhanced to give districts the incentive to reduce class sizes in the early grades. Similarly, high school funding levels were increased to support vocational classes and other courses to prepare students for college and careers.

Districts must balance how new funds are spent with the various requirements of LCFF and local expectations for spending increases. They must make progress in shrinking class sizes (despite the shortage of available teachers in some areas). They also must pay for improvement plans that are required under LCFF. The law requires districts to assess student and school outcomes in eight state priority areas and develop improvement plans and budgets that address local priorities for improving student performance.

Districts must also accommodate the typical financial pressures of any large organization, such as physical plant maintenance and employee salary and benefit increases. LCFF generally requires that districts use money targeted for high-needs students only for educational services for those students. However, in a recent letter sent to school superintendents, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson advised that extra funding for high-needs students may be spent on across-the-board salary increases if the expenditure will improve services for those students. This interpretation may allow districts more discretion and increase pressure for larger employee raises.

The coming fiscal year promises significant new funding for schools—and significant demands for those funds. It is important these funds are well spent, in part because districts are unlikely to see increases of this magnitude in the near future. Forecasts from both the Department of Finance and the Legislative Analyst’s Office suggest that school budgets in 2016–17 and 2017–18 are likely to grow at a rate of about 3%. This year’s 14% increase in LCFF funding may represent the largest chunk of new discretionary funding that most districts will see for several years.

The High Cost of Drought for Low-Income Californians

Californians across the state are feeling the impacts of the severe drought, now in its fourth year. Among those hit hardest are the state’s low-income residents and communities.

The worst impacts are occurring in poor rural communities. Rural residents generally rely on groundwater, from either their own wells or wells managed by small community systems. Even before the drought hit, contamination by nitrate and other pollutants was a big problem. With the drought, many wells are now going dry. These problems are now firmly on policymakers’ radar, but the solutions aren’t simple. Affordability is a major challenge, not only because of low incomes, but also because small systems don’t benefit from economies of scale. That makes infrastructure upgrades costly on a per-household basis. Costs of properly running the systems can also be quite high.

The state has recently made several changes to help these rural communities, including dedicating more funds and establishing a new Office of Sustainable Water Solutions within the State Water Resources Control Board to provide technical and financial support. The governor’s office has also proposed legislation that would authorize the board to mandate utility consolidations. As we argued in our 2014 study Paying for Water in California, physical consolidation with larger nearby systems is a good option for many small systems. In places where the distance is too great to hook these communities up, administrative consolidation can still help provide economies of scale in management and technical oversight, ensuring better long-term outcomes.

Less on the radar but also worth monitoring are the effects of the drought on the urban poor. Large metropolitan areas have generally been in much better shape during this drought, and they also are less prone to the kinds of problems witnessed in small rural systems. Urban systems benefit from economies of scale for new investments and have some ability to provide lifeline rates for lower-income households, by using revenues from the rest of their customer base.

But there are warning signs on the horizon. Urban water bills have been rising faster than inflation, making affordability a challenge for poor households in some areas. And since the 1996 enactment of Proposition 218, a voter-approved constitutional amendment, public water utilities are generally not able to increase budgets for lifeline rates without a two-thirds approval by local voters. (Privately owned utilities—like those providing electricity and telecommunications services—are exempt from this provision.) The drought raises new affordability challenges, because the extra conservation now required will lower revenues below costs for many utilities. To cover these costs, some utilities are increasing the fixed service fees on monthly bills, rather than increasing the rates charged per gallon used. Such service fees disproportionately impact lower-income households, who tend to use less water.

Now more than ever, utilities should consider the equity implications of their rate structures. And as we argued in the Paying for Water study, Californians may need to consider reforming Proposition 218. One important reason is to enable the use of lifeline rates, a tool for ensuring that poor households have access to an essential service. Finally, to durably support safe drinking water needs in rural communities, where the local funding base is inadequate, Californians should consider instituting a statewide lifeline rate system funded by a small surcharge on monthly water bills.

View slides from the presentation Water, Drought and Social Justice in Urban and Rural California.

Improving Online College Courses

Not all online college courses are alike. In fact, students in California community colleges are more likely to be successful in courses that have been designed recently than ones that are much older. And success varies by course topic, but not always in ways you might expect.

Hans Johnson, PPIC senior and Bren fellow, identified some elements important to a successful online course at a briefing in Sacramento last week. The research suggests that courses designed by a team—including media developers and information technology experts, as well as instructors—are better able than a single faculty member to take advantage of the online medium.

Online learning is an important topic throughout higher education. The report—Successful Online Courses in California Community Colleges—points out the increasing popularity of online offerings at the community colleges. Online learning reaches students who aren’t able to attend classes in traditional settings, Johnson said, and improving it is key to improving student success.

Getting to Groundwater Sustainability

David Orth’s involvement in California water issues spans nearly three decades, and in that time he’s seen at least four droughts, serious declines in Central Valley groundwater tables, major floods in the Central Valley, and a host of other water challenges. But to hear him tell it, nothing was quite so daunting as working on the recent state groundwater law. Orth is general manager for the Kings River Conservation District, a California Water Commissioner, and a key participant in the negotiations leading up to the enactment of the 2014 Sustainable Groundwater Management Act.We spoke at a recent event in Fresno about the challenges facing the new groundwater law.

PPIC: What keeps you up at night regarding the new groundwater law?

Orth: The new law has really elevated the standard significantly, from voluntary management to a much higher bar of sustainability. It will be critical to get people who use the water involved in solutions to groundwater problems, and avoid protracted litigation. The tools we have include a few that I expect will be more easily embraced, but when we start talking fees and pumping limits, I’m afraid the reaction we might get will be for people to retreat to their corners and lawyer up. It’s also hard for stakeholders to fully understand the scope of the problem, since you can’t see it. Helping to educate stakeholders and then working collaboratively with them to get buy-in on solutions will be key.

Another huge challenge is land use. There’s a pretty big conflict between the economic objectives of growth and development of the land-use agencies and our ability to cap our water use. How we find that balance will be critical. The land-use agencies are concerned that new development, urban and agricultural, could be restricted by limited water supply, resulting in significant negative economic impacts. But I think sustainability requirements will create certainty, and in the long run, more solid and consistent economic conditions.

PPIC: What is the most important thing that local agencies should be doing now to prepare for the changes that the groundwater law will bring?

Orth: There are three things, really. First is to organize the various local agencies—both the water and land use agencies—to create the governance structure and leadership systems for regulating groundwater. In the Kings Basin, for example, we have about 40 to 50 local agencies that need knitting together. Second is the outreach component I mentioned. In the Kings Basin, we’re been heavily engaged in outreach and education, and I think it’s the most important thing we need to do. And third, there’s the need to gather data. Again, the Kings Basin has a bit of a head start—10 years ago we started an integrated planning process to eliminate over-drafting of our groundwater, and we’ve developed models and monitoring programs to support that objective. A good data set will inform outreach and also good solutions, so we need to do these things concurrently.

PPIC: Do you think this drought has changed people’s perceptions of the need for better groundwater management?

Orth: There is definitely heightened awareness of the drop in groundwater, and the need to do things differently. There’s greater awareness both politically, in Sacramento and at the local level. Less than five years ago, we couldn’t have done this law—groundwater was a no-touch area. The grower community is still kind of split, but there’s a lot of recognition that things have to change.

PPIC: What gives you hope for the future?

Orth: Six months ago, people were saying this law would be a disaster. Now that’s changing, and there’s broad acknowledgment that it’s needed, and probably not as bad as they thought it would be. Mindsets have changed in a very positive way. The other thing that gives me great hope is bringing the different agencies together to talk about solutions in an integrated way. The kind of integrated planning we’ve been doing for 10 years in the Kings Basin is now being re-created across the state. There’s more collaboration among cities, different types of agencies and counties. This collaboration gives me a lot of hope.

Read “Why Farming Needs the New Groundwater Law”

Learn more about Kings Basin groundwater management planning

Increasing Transfer Students at UC

The University of California has agreed to bring in more transfer students as part of its budget agreement with the governor. Specifically, UC has committed to enrolling one new transfer student for every two new freshman. This means that one third (33%) of entering students will be transfers system-wide and at each campus (except Merced) by 2017. It also means that unless there is funding to increase enrollment, there may be fewer places for entering freshman.

Three campuses—Davis, Los Angeles, and San Diego—met the transfer enrollment goal in the fall of 2014. The other five campuses have a long way to go: they would have needed to enroll between 500 and 950 more transfer students each to reach the 33% target last fall, given their freshmen enrollment levels.

In total, the five campuses would have had to enroll 3,776 more transfer students to meet the ratio last year. Are there enough qualified transfers to make up that ground? Some campuses have plenty of applicants. Berkeley, Irvine, and Santa Barbara admit fewer than half of their transfer applicants, and each campus denied more than 7,000 applicants in 2014. Riverside and Santa Cruz, however, could have more trouble finding students to fill the spots. Those campuses already admit almost 60% of their transfer applicants, and though they denied enrollment to about 3,600 students in 2014, many of these students could be ineligible for transfer to the university or specific major to which they are applying.

UC hopes to increase the size and strength of the pool of transfer applicants, as the UC President’s Transfer Action Team suggests in a recent report. The report recommends actions to increase outreach at the community colleges, streamline some of the transfer processes, and support transfer students once they arrive at a UC.

There is evidence that transfer students are successful at UC. Transfer students and students who enroll as freshmen have similar graduation rates. About 60% of freshmen graduate in four years and 83% graduate by their sixth year; 53% of transfer students graduate two years after transferring to a UC and 86% graduate by their fourth year after transferring.

UC’s recent budget agreement with the governor did not allocate any state funds for enrollment increases. That can change, depending on action taken by the legislature and governor.

Placing more community college transfers in UCs could help California close the gap between the number of college graduates the public higher education system is producing and the projected demand for college graduates by 2025. But at a time when UC is already turning away qualified high school graduates, the tradeoff between admitting transfer students and freshmen could be painful. Finding space for more eligible students in both categories would most benefit the state in the long run.

Chart source: Author calculations from University of California Office of the President Data.
Note: “Additional transfers needed” assumes a desired 2 to 1 freshmen to transfer ratio and that the enrollment of freshmen does not change. *Merced is not required to maintain a 2 to 1 ratio of freshmen to transfers.

Video: Let’s Pull Together to Solve the Groundwater Crisis

Groundwater overuse is an invisible problem that has surged with the drought. Shrinking aquifers can bring great risks for the state’s economy and well-being of groundwater-dependent communities, which is why the state stepped in to regulate its use last year. Last week, PPIC’s Water Policy Center and the California Water Institute at Fresno State co-hosted an event that brought together local experts representing agricultural, urban, and rural community perspectives. The discussion addressed the challenges of managing groundwater sustainably and implementing the new groundwater law in the San Joaquin Valley.

The event’s take-away message was clear: it’s time to stop finger-pointing and focus on cooperation. Business as usual is no longer an option when it comes to this shared resource. Local agencies and groundwater users need to come together to determine how to best manage their local resource for long-term sustainability, or risk having the state step in and do it for them. David Orth, a state water commissioner and manager of the Kings River Conservation District, said, “We have the opportunity to come up with good sustainability plans, and if we do it right, the state stays out of it. The burden is on us to succeed.”

Ellen Hanak, director of the PPIC Water Policy Center, noted that the Central Valley “is in many ways ground zero for drought impacts” on groundwater. The fact that more Californians than ever before now say the drought is the biggest issue facing the state provides opportunities for change. (View her presentation slides.)

Moderator Mark Grossi, veteran environment reporter for the Fresno Bee, has seen a shift in thinking about water in the Central Valley as well. “Forgive me for smiling, but I’ve been covering water since Governor Brown’s first term. I grew up in Bakersfield, and covered water in Kern County … Every time the subject of groundwater came up in the valley, people laughed me out of the room. Now we have the kind of drought that people have been talking about for a long, long time”— the kind of drought that has helped launch the workings of a law to manage groundwater more sustainably.

Some cities have begun tackling these issues head on. Luke Serpa, the director of public utilities for the city of Clovis, described a series of investments intended to soften the impacts of the drought, including water recycling, re-use of stormwater to recharge underground basins and other approaches to increase local supply.

Sue Ruiz, who works with local well-dependent communities, brought home the difficult realities of shrinking groundwater tables for people in the region, and the challenges of solving these problems in ways that don’t excessively burden low-income households. She described people whose wells have run dry facing 6-12 month waits for well-drillers to sink deeper wells, a sometimes slow response from the state, and too few dollars to fund long-term solutions. Poverty compounds the problem, as homeowners can’t get a loan to drill a new well if their current one is dry; without a loan, many can’t afford to pay the tens of thousands of dollars it can cost to drill.

“We’re drowning in drought,” she said.

One serious subject got a big laugh. Luke Serpa noted that his city’s mandated 36% water cut is a big hurdle, especially because it needs to happen over a short timeframe. His city’s new unofficial slogan? “If your lawn’s not dyin’, you’re not tryin’.”

View videos from past regional events:

From Droughts to Floods: Water in Silicon Valley
Water and California’s Future (Los Angeles)