Comparative Water Use Efficiency of Growing Almonds in Kern County and in Butte County
Even though almond yields may be larger per acre in Kern County, when using “crop per drop” as a criterion, Kern County orchards are only 39% as water use efficient as orchards in Butte County.
Click here to read our full report on the inefficiency of transferring water from north to south to grow almonds in Kern County.
Landmark Lawsuit Settlement Between Environmentalists and State Water Boards Strengthens Delta Protections
Enforceable transparency and analysis to replace years of failure to comply with existing water quality and flow standards.
SACRAMENTO, California — Three California environmental nonprofits secured a landmark settlement agreement with the California State Water Resources Control Board to uphold the common law Public Trust Doctrine and other legal protections for imperiled fish species in the Sacramento River and San Francisco Bay/Sacramento – San Joaquin Delta Estuary.
The lawsuit, filed in 2015 by the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (“CSPA”), the California Water Impact Network (“CWIN”), and AquAlliance, brought sweeping claims against the State Water Board. It alleged that the agency’s management of the Sacramento River and San Francisco Bay-Delta displayed an overarching pattern and practice of:
Among other things, the settlement terms protecting the Sacramento and Bay-Delta include:
Click link to view:
On August 4, 2015, AquAlliance joined a lawsuit that could alter the water transfers that are planned from the Sacramento Valley to desert agriculture this year and into the future. For almost a year and a half, we and our colleagues tried to sway the State Water Resources Control Board to adhere to the laws that slow water exports, to no avail. They have bent over backwards to allow the Bureau of Reclamation and the California Department of Water Resources to export more water from the Sacramento Valley to south of the Delta during these drought years using Temporary Urgency Change Petitions. To do so in 2014, the SWRCB allowed violations of laws governing water quality in the Delta and water held in Shasta and Oroville that hammered salmon from the Sacramento River. So far they are doing the same thing in 2015.
As many NorthState residents know, this valley’s present and future are tied to the laws that protect the environment. Without those laws, we have no mechanism to fight the hydrologic evacuation of this region, since we don’t have the political or economic clout to sway decision makers. The Owens Valley had its river diverted and groundwater evacuated before there were such laws. The valiant efforts of the Owens Valley Committee in 30+ years of litigation succeeded in only minimal restoration after using environmental laws enacted in the 1970s. And they still are suffering from the depletion of the surface and ground water in the Owens Valley. AquAlliance is trying to prevent damage in the Sacramento Valley from external forces before major damage is done.
AquAlliance now has two lawsuits going in 2015 to try to stop the repetition of the Owens and San Joaquin Valleys’ nightmares. The federal lawsuit over the 10-Year Water Transfer Program should alter transfers in future years and it is our belief that the new water quality lawsuit will slow or stop the water transfers this year.
Thank you for supporting our work on behalf of the communities, farms, and environment in the Sacramento Valley!
Background Material
1) The State Water Resources Control Board hasn’t always approved Temporary Urgency Change Petitions from the Bureau of Reclamation and the Department of Water Resources. In a 2005 denial of a TUCP, the SWRCB also made it clear that water quality standards in the Delta were started to protect agriculture. “The objective for salinity at the three stations in the interior southern Delta was first established in the 1978 Delta Plan for the protection of agricultural beneficial uses in the southern Delta.” [emphasis added] As it has turned out, helping agriculture in the Delta also helps fish and the reverse is equally true.
2) Plaintiff’s lawsuit alleges violations of:
Click link to view:
“Treading Water” is a film created by Jesse Dizard at CSU, Chico in 2013. It reveals disturbing history from the Sacramento Valley where trends in local water use and escalating attempts to transfer water are causing streams and wells to run dry. It provides a landscape view with interviews with local farmers, tribal members, fishermen, environmental activists, resource managers, and politicians.
The film was posted by KIVE, PBS in Sacramento and may be viewed on YouTube.
As California and other areas of the country grapple with drought, the reuse of water is less a technological challenge than a marketing one.
To view New York Times article (May 8, 2015), please visit http://tinyurl.com/nyt-drinkingwater.
NPR’s Fresh Air interview with Terry Gross, 4.30.15: Fresno native Mark Arax has written about the war over water in his state for decades. Mr. Arax’s interview provides some valuable background on California’s water conflicts. However, AquAlliance has different views on some of his presentation.
TERRY GROSS: California’s drought and water crisis is creating a water war as corporate farms and orchards, small farmers, suburbs, cities and new real estate developments compete for water. My guest, Mark Arax, is writing a book about the water war. He covered the Central Valley for the LA Times and is the author of the books “West Of The West” and “The King Of California.”
Click here to listen to the interview or read the script.
Chico Enterprise-Record, 4.23.15 – The little delta smelt is nearly extinct. You can almost hear the celebrations in the San Joaquin Valley from here.
Not so fast though.
As the drought worsens, the people vs. fish argument heats up south of the delta, whipped up by pandering valley politicians who say people shouldn’t suffer because of a little fish.
In the midst of this, the news about the delta smelt couldn’t have come at a more unfortunate time.
The state Department of Fish and Wildlife throws out nets in the delta in an attempt to count the endangered smelt, which are the size of a child’s pinkie. There weren’t many to count in the monthly trawling survey earlier this month.
The final tally: one.
Yes, one little fish.
As the San Jose Mercury News noted last week, the delta smelt were once the most plentiful fish in the delta. Now they are close to extinction in the wild, and are only thriving in hatcheries.
Good riddance, say farmers in the San Joaquin Valley.
The Farm Press Blog scoffs that farmers are suffering “based on the science of four buckets of minnows.” An attorney for the California Farm Bureau Federation laments that 20 million Californians have an unreliable water supply because of “one small little population of fish.”
Congressman Tom McClintock, a Southern Californian who once represented southern Butte County and now represents a district that stretches into the San Joaquin Valley, has never been a fan of fish or ecosystems. He’d still like to see Auburn Dam get built and just last month introduced in Congress the Save Our Water Act, which we believe has absolutely no chance of getting by the president or the courts. McClintock said the bill’s aim was to “stop the appalling practice of sacrificing tens of thousands of acre-feet of water for the comfort of fish when the human population is in immense peril.”
We’re sure some of his valley constituents eat up that hyperbole. To many of them, especially during the drought, the Sacramento River is merely a canal that delivers north state water to them.
It’s not the lifeblood of a region. It’s not a river system that supplies recreation, aquifer recharge and is teeming with fish, deer, turkeys, waterfowl and other riparian wonders.
The delta is the same way. It’s a place, not a thing.
Though some San Joaquin farmers lament the fact that water flows into the Pacific Ocean, the fact remains that the San Joaquin’s hope for a reliable water supply cannot include whatever they want from the delta.
Environmental laws and judges keep them from sucking the delta dry and ruining it like the San Joaquin River was ruined. Thank goodness.
Even if the delta smelt go extinct, that’s not the end of their worries. The smelt are disappearing because the delta is in peril. If the delta smelt go, other species will be next. It’s not just about one little, unglamorous fish. The problem of sucking too much water out of the Sacramento River and the delta won’t disappear just because the delta smelt do.
See also: Editorial, “Little fish could be savior for overtapped delta” – 1.13.15
WHAT: The California Water Commission is holding a series of Public Meetings to provide information on the Water Storage Investment Program.The first public meeting will be held in at the Chico Elks Lodge. Monday, April 13, 2015. Public comments are scheduled for 7:15 pm. Click here for agenda.
WHO: California Water Commission
WHERE: Chico Elks Lodge, 1705 Manzanita Place
WHEN: Monday, April 13, 2014 – 5:30-8:30pm
In November 2014, California voters passed Proposition 1: a $7.5 billion water bond that funnels money into the State’s water supply systems. AquAlliance was opposed to Prop 1 because of provisions that were likely to fund “groundwater storage” via groundwater substitution water transfers. Our North Valley farms will have to compete for water as it flows out of the Sacramento Valley through the Delta and onto the desert farms served by Westlands Water District. Integrating Sacramento Valley aquifers into the state water supply would replace existing groundwater user rights with District ownership. Intentionally dropping aquifer levels to create “groundwater storage space” would dewater streams, strand existing wells and kill heritage valley oak trees.AquAlliance encourages you to attend this meeting to let the California Water Commission know there is overwhelming opposition to groundwater substitution water sales out of the North State.Talking points:
|
When compared with urban water efficiency, the water storage projects that would be half-funded by the November water bond have very high per-project costs, low yield, and immensely high costs per acre-foot of water. Increasing urban water efficiency only costs about $112 per acre-foot while raising Shasta dam is over $23,000 per acre-foot and building Sites reservoir is almost $6,000 an acre-foot. (An acre-foot is 325,851 gallons of water, enough to last two average California households a year for outdoor and indoor uses.)
Sources for AquAlliance’s Bar Graph: Shasta: Bureau of Reclamation, Plan Formulation Appendices, 2013; Temperance Flat: DWR, Temperance Flat Reservoir FAQ, 2007; Sites: DWR, Sites Reservoir FAQ, 2007; Urban Water Efficiency: CalFed Bay Delta Program, Water Use Efficiency Element, 2006 (pp. 126, 130)
On May 1, 2015, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation approved the Environmental Impact Statement on the 10-Year Water Transfer Program that could send up to 600,000 acre-feet of Sacramento Valley water south of the Delta – each year. When combined with additional state approved transfers, the total could be over 800,000 acre-feet. If history is any guide, half of the transfer water may come from groundwater substitution. [1] There will also be limited accounting of impacts to surface and ground waters because the “willing sellers” are allowed to produce their own “monitoring and mitigation programs” – window dressing for legal requirements.
AquAlliance’s 2014 lawsuit forced the agencies to consolidate their so-called “temporary” one-year transfers in 12 of the last 14 years into a project that compelled analysis of all the impacts. As we expected, the 10-Year Water Transfer Program’s EIS/EIR revealed massive gaps in basic facts and evaluation and we exposed this in our 73-page comment letter with 36 technical appendices (see below).
Now we must build the Water Defense Fund to prepare for the inevitable legal battle to stop the transfers.
[1] Groundwater substitution transfers take place when a water district sells its river water that is normally used to irrigate rice and instead continues growing rice by pumping well water. The grower makes money on both the water sale and the rice that is grown
Click links for:
Butte County’s Groundwater
– 2015 Update –
On March 12, 2015, Butte County, the City of Chico, and AquAlliance will host a forum to provide the public with an update on local groundwater issues and the challenges and opportunities to sustain our water resources. The main features of the program will be the current groundwater conditions compiled from over 100 wells, updates on state and local efforts to better understand and protect groundwater, a new film about the Owens Valley from CSU Chico entitled Never Enough, and an update on federal and state water transfers from the Sacramento Valley.
Speakers include:
“With very dry conditions for the third straight year, we want our residents to have information on the status of Butte County groundwater and how our communities, economy, and the environment may be impacted,” stated Butte County Supervisor Maureen Kirk.
What: Butte County Groundwater Forum
When: Thursday, March 12, 2015, 6pm to 8:30pm
Where: Chico City Council Chambers, 411 Main Street in Chico
Who: Butte County, City of Chico, AquAlliance
Background Information
Information about Butte County’s Groundwater Monitoring: http://www.buttecounty.net/waterresourceconservation/GroundwaterLevels.aspx
Information on the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act:
The film, Never Enough
This is a cautionary tale about where some of Los Angeles’ water comes from. The stark landscape of the Eastern Sierras, Mono Lake and Owens Dry Lake illustrate the consequences of efforts in the early 20th century to move water from the Owens Valley to Los Angeles. Emphasis is on the results of 100 years of water transfers from this region averaging 5-7 inches of rain per annum – by contrast, the LA basin receives approximately 10-15 inches – and the abiding sense of loss felt by the Paiute-Shoshone people whose ancestors first settled what is now the Owens Valley. Viewers are introduced to locals with unique insight into the grass roots impacts of decisions taken far, far away. Tribal elders speak about how reverence for the ecosystem has been replaced by market economies. Biologists share frank assessments of the economic consequences of mismanaged water resources. Discussions with environmentalists demonstrate that beyond the passionate rhetoric, long-range priorities are essentially consistent with those of other interest groups, e.g., farmers, municipalities and even some industries dependent upon natural resources such as timber, tourism and commercial fisheries. In short, what is presented are oral histories from keen observers who are part of key transformations that illustrate the relationships between people and water in rural and urban communities.
Water Transfers
The Bureau of Reclamation and San Luis/Delta Mendota’s 10-Year Water Transfer Program
Other transfers
Social Widgets powered by AB-WebLog.com.