Posted on 09/06/2007 12:29:05 PM PDT by BurbankKarl
Southern California water officials are drawing up plans that could force rationing in some cities as early as next year, officials said Wednesday.
For now, residents are being asked to voluntarily use less water, but the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California warned that mandatory rationing could become necessary for the first time since 1991.
The immediate trigger for concern arose from U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger's ruling last week that to protect the delta smelt, a small fish threatened with extinction, water imports from Northern California must be cut by up to 30 percent.
Officials said the threat of earthquakes and flooding, saltwater intrusion and aging levees in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta compound the problem.
"We have further evidence that the delta is in crisis, if there was any doubt about it," said Lester Snow, director of the state Department of Water Resources.
Officials said Wednesday that they are still trying to sift through Wanger's ruling to determine how much water they will be able to move through the delta and into Southern California.
Wanger did not specify how much less water could be pumped from the delta. Instead, he focused on protecting the smelt by slowing the water that flows into the pumps. Tim Quinn, president of the Association of California Water Agencies, said that in a dry year there could be a 25 percent reduction in the amount of water pumped from the delta.
The MWD is preparing an allocation plan that would spell out how much water it might be able to provide the 26 cities and water agencies that it serves in six counties, including Los Angeles and Ventura counties, said Roger Patterson, the district's assistant general manager.
If the district tells its members it has less water to provide them, it would be up to them to decide how to ask residents to cut back.
"The question is how soon do we need to go into that kind of decision-making. Do we have to do that in 2008, or do we rely on our reserve account - or (banked water) savings - to not do that in 2008? Those are the policy decisions that will be made."
The district imports about 50 percent of the water used by member agencies. About two-thirds of the water comes from the delta and the rest from the Colorado River.
The amount of water the district stands to lose from the court decision amounts to more than 10 percent of all the water its members use in a typical year.
In the city of Los Angeles, which relies on the district for nearly 70 percent of its water, officials already are asking residents to use 10 percent less water this year. But it's a voluntary program.
"If we have rationing in Los Angeles, it won't be the first time that that has happened," said David Nahai, president of the board of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power Commissioners. "If that is what will be needed in order to safeguard our water supplies, well, so be it. But we'll have to see just what this plan is that Metropolitan Water District will be putting forward."
The MWD plans to present its allocation plan to the board in the fall. But Patterson said officials will hope for plenty of rainfall this winter and voluntary conservation before they seek mandatory cuts.
What you say is entirely correct, which is why I’m for eliminating all but very specific immigration. We cannot “conserve” our way forward in oil, electrical capacity, water, etc as long as we’re adding 1.something million new people every year to the US population.
Water rights in Idaho haven’t put a big crimp on construction; what has happened is that the water rights battle royal upstream (ie, between the farmers upstream on the Snake and the downstream users) have effectively pulled away a LOT of previous water rights in the Twin Falls and then Boise/Nampa areas. That’s what has kept development down, IMO.
The second key reason why Idaho, Northern Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, et al are sparsely populated is that many of their towns/cities are land-scarce as well as water scarce. The BLM/USFS controls so much land that buildable land is in short supply.
BTW — senior water rights always come ahead of junior water rights. That’s the very definition of the term in the law - when there is enough water to go around, then everyone gets their full allocation. When there isn’t enough water to go around, the irrigation masters are charged by the state with cutting off the junior irrigators first, then working their way up the seniority. Most all water law in the west is based on “first in use, first in right.”
Yes and no. There were lovely lakes in the Owens Valley. It wouldn’t grow what they grow in the central valley, because the Owens Valley is higher in elevation, therefore cooler at night and has a real winter, unlike the central valley.
But it was a thriving ag area before Mulholland stole the water by buying up ranches through cut-out buyers and diverting the water. They could grow tree fruit, plenty of hay and pasture, but not things like cotton and rice there.
Sounds like you could grow apples, maybe pears, potatoes. Since I’m no farmer I can only guess. It’s pretty crappy that Mulholland’s son or grandson is still influential in Dem politics.
Certainly one could do all of that at the lower end of the valley. At the northern end, eh, you’re pushing close to the sort of climate we have here in the high desert in Nevada, where we can get a killing frost any day of the year.
I’ve had our alfalfa fields frosted as late as June 18th, and we’ve seen snow on the mountaintops in the middle of July. It doesn’t stick around, but it is snow.
The uncertain frosts are the biggest crapshoot on fruit trees - not because you lose the fruit, but because you often lose the blossoms on the tree early in the season. We have a plum tree in our yard here at 6,000 feet elevation and we’ve gotten fruit on it one year in eight. The other seven years out of eight, we get frost sometime before the flowers are pollinated.
At all ends, there were most certainly productive ranches there. The natural meadows up and down the Owens Valley are easily seen in pictures. It was a very pretty valley and just about perfect for cow/calf ranching: winters not too ferocious, summers not too hot, plenty of natural meadows and pasture.
Thanks Karl!
I have pics of the Owens Valley in my Webshots screensaver, but I’ve never been there. I’ve always wanted to visit Bishop. Too bad the road doesn’t go from where I live (in the foothills above Sanger, just a mile from Pine Flat Lake) to where you are. It would be a gorgeous drive, I’m sure.
There is
No Cal
So Cal
and
Lo Cal
That river looks like a nice place to visit. and the number 1 reason is that no one knows its there, unlike all the you know whos polluting up the you know wheres with their 20 year astro vans and throwing trash on the highway every 20 feet.
We are lucky enough to get our water from a well under this property, well above any runoff from farmland or city effluents. The houseplants seem to love it, too. Maybe it’s Kings River water flowing into an aquifer. I love it up here.
“ruling last week that to protect the delta smelt, a small fish threatened with extinction, water imports from Northern California must be cut by up to 30 percent.”
Poetic justice...
Ain’t Karma a bitch for leftists/Liberals and Democrats?
“Mule trains to comply with existing ecological concerns.”
Mules produce more CO2 than trains do...
CONUNDRUM:
Die of thirst, leave Southern California, or pollute...
What’s a liberal environmentalist to do?
“it’s time for the leftie politicians to tell the environmentalist wackos to get bent, and build a number of large DESALINAZATION plants along the coast.”
They can’t...
The FALLING sea levels caused by this would interfere with the EnviroNazi/Socialist agenda for World Control...
i lived in los angeles, orange county, riverside county and san diego county
and socal was in frequent use when i arrived in 1985,
and still is.
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