Water is the driving force of all nature. ~ Leonardo da Vinci
Californians hopefully now know Governor
Jerry Brown mandated on April Fool's day that the state's urban water users
reduce their water consumption by 25%. His mandate has produced a fair amount
of media attention, which is a good thing, since most of us are blithely
unaware of how much freshwater we actually use or why we should care,
especially the multitudes of customers whose usage isn't metered at all.
But the governor's new water
policy is fundamentally flawed; dammed to failure. It mandates a 25% reduction
in urban water usage without requiring increases in the all too low price of
water or creating incentives for water-efficiency. The governor's mandate
completely sidesteps imposing any limitations for the state's biggest water
users – farmers, agricultural (ag) growers and irrigators. And we are not
conserving much water at all, despite the governor's recommendations and
mandate. On Apr 7, state officials announced that California’s water
conservation efforts slowed markedly in February, with water use declining by a
miniscule 2.8%, which they
correctly called "dismal."
I urge the governor to immediately
amend his Apr 1 mandate so it's more comprehensive and far more effective. He
can do this by adding 4 important actions:
1.
The state
will create a "conservation fee" administered through water districts
for all users' water consumption, including ag irrigators that will supplement
the customer's local water district prices. The more water you use, the higher
the fee will be. Virtually all water rates now don't change no matter how much
water is consumed. The conservation fee will employ a 3-part "inverted
block" structure. There will be no fee on the "baseline" amount
of water consumed. This baseline amount will equal 75% of the state's average customer
monthly usage in 2013. Average customer usage will be separately calculated for
each group of customers (e.g., residential, commercial, ag). The second block
of the fee will be charged on water used – between 75% and 135% of average
monthly usage in 2013 will be charged at 140% of the baseline price. Any water
usage greater than 135% of 2013 average monthly usage will be charged at 175%
of the baseline price. These new water conservation fees should be put into
effect by year-end.[1]
2.
The state
will provide rebates of up to 30% for residential, non-residential and ag
customers who purchase approved water-conservation equipment during the next 12
months, starting on Jul 1. The rebate will be reduced to 20% for purchases of
such equipment that occur for 12 months, starting Jul 1, 2016. Examples would
include low-water use washers, "grey water" systems and low-pressure,
drip irrigation systems.
3.
The more
than 250,000 California water users who are not now metered – a dispiritingly
large number, reflecting those bygone days of "too cheap to meter" –
will have meters installed by their water district/provider within the next 9
months and be subject to the above supplemental conservation fees.
4.
Water
districts will be required to reduce water losses due to leaks by at least 50%
over the next 12 months, and by 90% over the next 24 months. Customers who use
wells for their water will be subject to groundwater withdrawal
The water conservation fees will
incent water users to reduce their consumption. With the fees farmers will
curtail growing crops like low-value, water-thirsty alfalfa and cotton. With
these higher fees and incentives, ag and other customers will finally have a
clear economic incentive to switch from water-inefficient irrigation techniques
like flooding and high-pressure sprinklers to those that reduce water usage,
like low-pressure and drip technologies.
The New York Times has provided an
informative, interactive map
, based on work by the Pacific Institute, that shows what the average
residential customer's winter and summary use is for many water districts in
the state. The map states that an average residential customer uses 57 gallons
per customer per day (gpcd) in the winter and 110 gpcd in the summer at the East
Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) my provider and one of the largest
non-agricultural water distributors in the state. EBMUD's residential customers
reduced their water consumption between 2014 and 2015 by only 3%. Clearly, even
in the SF Bay Area – one of California's more "water aware" areas –
there's a lot more water conservation that is both possible and needed.
The 4 above-mentioned actions are
needed because even if ALL residential, commercial and industrial water
consumers drop their usage by the mandated 25% (as the governor stated), how
much water will be "saved" in California? Very little, at most only 6%. Because Gov. Brown's
conservation mandate says absolutely nothing about agricultural irrigators, who
consume 75% to 80% of the state's freshwater. Ag users are the giant,
water-leaden elephant in the room of California water users that the governor
somehow didn't mention in last week's announcement.
Should we be surprised at this egregious
omission? No. Ag water users – which include virtually every farmer and grower
in the state – have always exercised disproportionate power in California,
including when Gov. Brown's father, Pat Brown, was governor. The first Gov.
Brown approved the construction of the State Water Project (SWP) in 1960, a
massive series of dams, aqueducts and power plants that principally move water
from Northern California to farmers and to people in parched Southern
California. The SWP's construction cost over $2.2 billion in the 1960s and
early 1970s.
In 2013, California's ag sector
produced $46.4 billion in sales, which although larger than any
other state's ag output represents only 2.3% of this state's GDP. Think about
this; 80% of our water usage accounts for just 2.3% of economic output. A sterling
example of how water power has flowed uphill from the Central Valley to the
state capitol in Sacramento.
It's true, a number of ag users
have recently been cut off from state and federal water allocations, but as
these cuts have occurred, growers have deeply expanded the overdrawing-depletion
of the state's groundwater aquifers, at a rate far greater than they have for
decades. This switch to groundwater has allowed farmers to idle only 5% of
irrigated ag land because of the drought. At this point, well water heights in
the southern San Joaquin Valley have dropped more than 100ft, mainly due to huge withdrawals for irrigation. The governor's
plan for regulating and limiting groundwater usage so it's
"sustainable" won't be finalized until the 2040s. Come on!
The only real solution to our
latest (but not likely to be last) drought is to align water's cost with its true
value, for all users, including farmers and growers, as I've mentioned above.
Stop providing huge subsidies to ag irrigators that allow them to grow and
export low-value "surplus crops" like alfalfa to Chinese feedlots.
Holy cow!
For more than half a century,
through intense ag sector lobbying and significant government subsidies,
federal and state water policy has been established in California to keep
irrigators' water prices very, very low. As Marc Reisner states in Cadillac Desert, his classic book about
water policies in the mostly arid West,
''What federal water development has amounted to, in the end, is a uniquely
productive, creative vandalism." This vandalism references the large
difference between what irrigators and other large-scale water users have paid
for using water (the private, regulated price) compared to its social value
(which, as a common resource, is much higher).
Here's a prime example of
preposterously low ag water prices, taken from Reisner's book. Through the
1980s the Westlands Water District, one of the largest in California and
therefore in the US[2],
charged its ag customers between $7.50 and $11.80 per acre-foot of water.
Economists estimated the actual cost of delivering this water at the time was
$97 per acre-foot. Thus, these customers were paying only 8% to 12% of the cost
of providing this resource. This degree of public financial support is at the very deep end of the subsidy pool. Who
paid (and continues to pay) the remaining 90% of the cost? Us taxpayers. Adding
more water to this vandalism conflagration caused by super-low prices, the
dominant planted crop at the time in Westlands was cotton – a very
water-thirsty, "surplus crop" whose price is itself heavily
subsidized by the federal government. Talk about going from worse to terrible.
With its all too slight cost,
California ag irrigators (and virtually every other water user) have had no
economic incentive to conserve or efficiently use water. They have continued to
greedily guzzle as the rivers, reservoirs and wells are drying up during this
latest drought. Unsurprisingly, this unsustainable water gluttony itself has
also created significant environmental damage in the
Central Valley.
California's appropriate use of
our water supply requires that all 38.8 million Californians face water costs
that actually reflect its true value. These conservation fees, together with
incentives to induce customers to install more water-efficient techniques and repair
water pipe leaks, will reduce wasteful usage and hopefully allow us to live sustainably
with our available and limited water supply.
[1] These conservation fees are
necessary to comply with Calif. Prop
218, which states that water districts cannot charge prices that cross-subsidize
water customers' prices. Some readers will recognize the first 2 actions as
consistent with how California electric utilities – under considerable pressure
from the CPUC and other parties – changed their electricity rates to encourage
customers to use less kWh and install more energy-efficient appliances and
equipment. These price changes and rebate programs have been very successful in
promoting energy efficiency. The same will happen for water users with my
recommendations.
[2] Reisner states that in the 1980s, just 1/4th
of Westlands Water District's annual available water would completely accommodate New York City's total annual water needs.
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