Category: PPIC Water Policy Center

Drought Watch: Saving the Fish

This is part of a continuing series on the impact of the drought.

In a recent California WaterBlog post, Peter Moyle of the University of California, Davis—a frequent collaborator on PPIC projects—highlights an issue not much discussed in the context of this drought: we ignore fish and wildlife at our peril. California is home to 122 different species of native fishes, including 32 kinds of salmon and trout. These fishes are part of the unique natural heritage of California and, as Moyle points out, most are on a trajectory toward extinction. A poorly managed drought can hasten this process.

State and federal laws that protect endangered species reflect the high value society places on native biodiversity. The sweeping Delta Reform Act of 2009, passed by bipartisan majorities, went a step further, placing ecosystem health on par with water supply reliability. Above all, history shows that failure to manage fish and wildlife well during a drought can have very expensive long-term consequences for water management once the rains return.

So what, if anything, is being done for fish in this drought?

The short answer is “not much.” Most discussion at both the state and federal levels has focused not on whether to relax environmental standards, but on how much to relax them. In the coming weeks many petitions will be filed with the State Water Resources Control Board for exemptions from water quality and flow standards. The board has already exempted the Central Valley Project and the State Water Project from meeting flow standards for the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta, which is home to many endangered fishes, including salmon and steelhead. The emergency drought legislation making its way through the state legislature includes significant sums to provide relief to communities hard hit by the drought, but very little to help reduce stress on the environment. On the federal level, the legislation pending in the House would reduce protections for the environment, while the Senate bill—introduced by California’s two U.S. senators—offers little to improve conditions for fish.

Moyle points out that although native fishes adapt well to drought, they are hampered by the many modifications we have made to our rivers, the way we manage water, and our policies regarding fish harvests and hatcheries. He offers some well-known prescriptions for drought management and some novel ideas, including trucking fish to cool water sources and establishing fish triage panels with the authority to allocate water to keep fish alive through a drought. Equally important, his post reminds us that the actions that help the environment most during a drought are those taken long before the drought begins.

 

Drought Watch: A Conversation with Business Leaders

This is part of a continuing series on the impact of the drought.

I recently had the opportunity to talk about the economic impact of California’s ongoing drought with two of California’s leading business representatives: Allan Zaremberg, president of the California Chamber of Commerce, and Dave Puglia, senior vice-president of Western Growers—a group that represents the state’s producers of fresh fruits and vegetables, who supply much of the nation and many overseas markets with high-quality, high-value produce. The conversation was wide-ranging, touching on the extent of the drought, its likely economic impact, and the steps that can be taken to help California avoid economic harm from future droughts.

The conversation highlighted several key points:

  • Two types of water uses are being especially hard-hit by this drought: farming—especially in the San Joaquin Valley—and environmental flows that protect fish and other wildlife. Most urban areas are in much better shape, thanks to major investments made over the past two decades to conserve, diversify water sources, and improve local storage systems.
  • The economic impacts of this drought are likely to be concentrated in farming and related sectors, such as industrial processing of farm products and fertilizer and seed sales. The drought will cause severe hardship in some regions, but it will not likely have major repercussions on the state’s economy as a whole, because farming and related activities make up just a small share—1 to 2 percent—of total state gross domestic product.
  • We need to make systematic investments to reduce our vulnerability to future droughts. Urban areas such as Southern California spent significant sums—mostly funded by local ratepayers—to diversify their water supplies. Farming areas have invested considerably in more efficient irrigation techniques, but they have also been drawing down their groundwater reserves. As a result, groundwater—normally an especially valuable resource during dry years—is in short supply in many areas, less able to help farmers weather the drought.

Drought Watch: How Much Do Recent Rains Matter?

This is part of a continuing series on the impact of the drought.

Drought-parched Northern California had a welcome bit of rain during the first week of February. An “atmospheric river”—a meteorological phenomenon that funnels tropical moisture from the west Pacific into California—produced prodigious amounts of rainfall. In the central Sierra Nevada more than 10 inches of rain fell in just three days. More than 20 inches of rain were measured in the Russian River watershed—an amount greater than the annual average rainfall for the City of Sacramento. Some rivers in the North Coast and Sierra Nevada that were at record low levels on February 1 rose to record highs on February 9.

Drought’s over, right?

Not even close.

Still, it is important to acknowledge how helpful this rainfall was. Small towns like Willits, which were facing emergency drought measures to maintain drinking water, got a much-needed boost to their dwindling water supplies. Folsom Reservoir, down to just 160,000 acre-feet of water before the storm (17% of reservoir capacity), added an additional 100,000 acre-feet, which will help cities in the Sacramento area. Several salmon species starting to make their way to the sea got a welcome boost down the rivers. The Delta, which was becoming as salty as it had ever been in any period in recent memory, received a pulse of fresher water. And there was the psychological boost that comes from no longer being the driest year on record.

But this recent rainfall hardly dented the drought. This year is currently the third driest on record, after the two great dry years in California history: 1923-24 and 1976-77. What’s more, this third-driest year follows two fairly dry years. And California is in a statewide drought. The bulk of the rain fell north of San Francisco, offering no relief to the very driest portions of the state and leaving most of the state’s reservoirs unchanged.

In addition, it was a very warm storm, providing little in the way of improved snowpack—normally an important way to store water until spring. And because the rainfall was so intense over such a short period of time, most of it flowed off the hillsides and into streams rather than recharging groundwater.

While impressive in the intensity and amount of precipitation, this storm did little to alter the state’s drought picture. Things may still change, but given that our rainy season has only about six weeks left in it, the odds are against much improvement.

Researchers have noted that when we think about climate, we are influenced by the weather. As John Steinbeck pointed out in East of Eden, if it is wet, Californians tend to think it has always been so and when it is dry, we forget about the wet. Our climate in 2012–2014 has been dry, but our weather, at least in early February in Northern California, has been very wet.

Drought Watch: Size Matters…in a Drought

This is part of a continuing series on the impact of the drought.

The California Department of Public Health has identified 17 community water districts at risk of running out of drinking water this spring. This affects more than 40,000 people, most of them in normally water-rich Mendocino and Sonoma Counties. Although our early February rains have helped, they haven’t significantly changed the outlook for this year. If the drought continues into next year, many more communities will be in trouble.

State and local officials are appropriately focused on providing emergency supplies to meet health and sanitation needs, but it is instructive to examine how these communities ended up in this predicament and how they might avoid it in the next drought.

The 17 at-risk districts have three things in common:

  • They are small (with populations below 11,000—and as low as 39). The limited number of ratepayers makes it difficult to raise the capital necessary to build drought-resilient systems or take advantage of the economies of scale that come with larger water systems.
  • They have just one, or at most two sources of water, which increases their drought vulnerability.
  • They lack physical connections to other water districts. When hard times come they cannot purchase water from urban or agricultural neighbors (a good case study is the town of Lompico, near Santa Cruz).

Compare these small water districts to larger urban counterparts such as the East Bay Metropolitan Utility District, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, and the granddaddy of them all, the Metropolitan Water District, which provides water to more than 14 million people in southern California. These large districts have broad-based funding, mixed surface storage and groundwater sources, and connections to multiple water networks. As a result, they are in fairly good shape in this third year of a record-setting drought. (The Metropolitan Water District may be in the best position of all: having learned hard lessons during the 1987–92 drought, ratepayers in this dry region have invested more than $3 billion to improve all facets of water management.)

Many of the more than 2,500 agencies that supply water to California’s cities and towns are at risk of severe drinking water shortages in a prolonged drought. Others could be forced to dramatically curtail water for other domestic uses, such as landscaping. When the drought emergency ends—and it will end, eventually—California policymakers may need to help many small water districts reassess funding strategies. Many districts will need to diversify their supply portfolios, and it should be possible for all but the most remote rural districts to set up water sharing with neighbors in times of scarcity and abundance.

Drought Watch: A Better Way to Manage Water for Fish

This is part of a continuing series on the impact of the drought.

As California’s drought wears on, state and federal regulators will be under increasing pressure to loosen environmental standards that protect native fish and other wildlife. Relaxing flow standards in rivers and streams is always problematic; the standards exist because many native species are already in a precarious condition. But during droughts, regulators often make this decision as part of a balancing act, in order to make additional water available to cities and farms. Usually, the standards are relaxed without requiring any payment from cities or growers for the added water they receive. Yet the environmental consequences of relaxing standards can be costly, requiring special efforts to protect and recover species in other ways—such as with conservation hatcheries that help maintain populations of endangered species outside of their natural environment.

In a recent op ed in the Sacramento Bee, we joined a group of researchers from UC Davis, UC Hastings, and Stanford University to propose a new way for California to approach this challenge. The basic idea: instead of giving the water away, California should create a special environmental water market to sell to growers and cities the water made available by relaxing environmental standards. The revenues would be used to support fish and wildlife recovery. This special environmental market would be an extension of the water trading that already happens during droughts. It would help meet California’s goals of both ensuring reliable water supplies and protecting the environment, even during the dry times.

Drought Watch: Lessons from the Past

This is part of a continuing series on the impact of the drought.

As California’s drought crisis unfolds, there will be calls from many quarters for extraordinary actions to help reduce the economic and social costs to communities and sectors at risk. California’s leaders in Sacramento, Washington, D.C., and around the state will need to weigh the pressure to act against the risk of making snap decisions that provide short-term relief yet have much higher long-term costs. As I describe in a commentary for the San Francisco Chronicle – written with PPIC adjunct fellow and UC Davis Professor Jay Lund – water agencies have fallen into this trap when responding to some past droughts. For instance, excessive pumping from the Delta during the 1987–92 drought contributed to the establishment of some invasive species that have plagued management of this system ever since.

Fortunately, there are also positive lessons from past droughts that can help guide today’s actions. One is that a water market – which allows those with relatively ample supplies to lease water to those who don’t – can significantly reduce costs to cities, farms, and the environment. The governor has called for steps to make this kind of trading easier. Another lesson is that communities that diversify their supply sources and establish stronger linkages with neighboring water systems are better able to weather droughts. Parts of the state that are out ahead on this – including Southern California and much of the Bay Area – are in better shape today thanks to these investment.

Drought Watch: Drought Declarations and Water Policy

This is part of a continuing series on the impact of the drought.

As this year unfolds, California will have to come to grips with the significant consequences of the drought emergency declared by Governor Brown. Drought Watch will be a regular feature on this blog, tracking the drought and its policy consequences.

As droughts go, this one is both brutal and unprecedented. We are in the grips of a “Ridiculously Resilient Ridge,” a term coined by Daniel Swain of Stanford University for the high-pressure area that has been pushing storms to the north of us for over a year now. Coupled with the low rainfall and warm temperatures over the previous two years, this dry period is impressive.

Rain and snow in the Sierra Nevada—the state’s most important source of water— are at historic lows, passing our benchmark dry years of 1976–77. Statewide, reservoirs are at near-record lows. In many areas, soil moisture—a critical indicator of the health of our forest and agricultural soils—is as low as it’s ever been for this time of year. Perhaps the most significant indicator, flow in rivers, is grim, setting unprecedented records for low flows during January. Both low soil moisture and record low river flows tell us that we may be witnessing a slowly unfolding ecological train wreck from which it will take many years to recover.

Already we are seeing dramatic proposals for water rationing in communities that failed to diversify their sources of drinking water. California’s recession-proof farm community is unlikely to be drought-proof. Orchard crops—California’s famous fruits and nuts—will be especially vulnerable. The drought will also increase pressure on already over-tapped groundwater basins in the San Joaquin Valley and the Central Coast.

History teaches us a few key lessons about drought. First, as the governor says, he can’t make it rain. He also cannot produce water where it isn’t, though he can make it easier to move water from one place to another. The declaration of an emergency gives the administration and the State Water Resources Control Board, the body that regulates water rights and sets flow and water quality standards, some additional flexibility to facilitate voluntary water transfers and—if things get dire enough—to decide who gets water in an emergency.

The second lesson is that natural disasters often spur longer-term policy changes. That will undoubtedly be the case this year, since major water policy issues are teed up for debate and decisions. The drought will influence our thinking about solutions to the Delta, our chronic overdraft of groundwater, and our struggle to balance water supply reliability and ecosystem health throughout the state.

A crisis can be useful in stimulating action. The challenge for the governor is to ensure that it leads to good policy that paves the way for a better water future—and stays away from short-term, expedient fixes. While popular in a crisis, these can make it harder to manage water when the rains return . . . and they will return, eventually.

Beyond the Drought: 10 Big Changes Ahead for California Water

These days, all water news in California is focused on the weather. After two successive dry years, this year’s rainy season has yet to make a decent showing. Unless the skies open soon, the state seems firmly headed for a major drought, with serious implications for the farm economy, some water-scarce communities, and the fish and other species that depend on our rivers and streams.

Periodic droughts are inevitable in California, given the state’s highly variable climate, and many scientists expect such extreme events to become more frequent with climate change. An essential part of water management in California is preparing for this inevitability—with multi-pronged strategies that include water marketing, groundwater banking, conservation, and investment in non-traditional supplies like recycled wastewater. Each drought provides an opportunity to get better at stretching scarce supplies and reducing the economic hardship caused by water scarcity, as PPIC’s California Water Myths report points out.

I recently wrote a piece—with Jay Lund, PPIC adjunct fellow and UC Davis professor—for the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences’ California WaterBlog that highlights 10 other inevitable changes in store for California water. These changes range from vulnerable levees and uncertain water supply conditions in the Delta to deteriorating groundwater basins to the shrinking Salton Sea. To minimize hardship and disruption, most of the items on our top 10 list will—like droughts—require significant preparation and planning. This is often hard to do, given the tradeoffs and costs of most water management solutions. But we think that preparation is the best way to reduce the pain and develop a water policy that supports the kind of state Californians want, rather than wishfully thinking that California can avoid change.