ENVR California: Counties say too much water goes to environmental supply

[kittyluvr]

Although water consumption has been on the decline in the state of California, county officials believe these rates can be lowered by cutting supplies to the environment and fisheries.

Back in 2014, California Governor Jerry Brown declared a statewide emergency in the midst of the “driest year in recorded state history.” This was followed by an executive order imposing mandatory water restrictions on residents, business and farms earlier this year in April.

However, no restrictions have been imposed on water supplies currently dedicated to the environment and fishery habitat.

Conflicting statistics on California’s total developed water supply of 82.5 million acre-feet differ between studies and regions. The Public Policy Institute of California says that statewide water is allocated, on average, 50 percent for environmental uses, 40 percent for agricultural and 10 percent for urban. Stanislaus County, however, cites a study that dedicated 45 percent to environmental purposes, 45 percent to agricultural and 10 percent allocated for urban supply.

In either case, the general consensus is that environmental and agricultural use takes up the lion’s share of the state’s water supply. Despite this, urban and agricultural supplies have been hit the hardest in the state in terms of conservation mandates.

In May, the Fresno Board of Supervisors passed a resolution requesting Gov. Brown to do the following:

• Direct the State Water Board to make changes in Delta water operations to provide more water for urban and agricultural users;
• Meet with U.S. Department of the Interior and Department of Commerce to negotiate greater flexibility under the federal Endangered Species Act;
• Support legislative efforts to enact federal drought legislation that would increase water supplies within the state.

According to agenda documents made available on the Stanislaus County site, the county supervisors are also planning to vote on a similar resolution later this week, requesting that the governor “take even more stringent actions” to reduce state water consumption “by imposing curtailments on water supplies currently dedicated to the environment and fishery habitat that are comparable to those now being mandated and burdening urban and agricultural contractors and users.”

“Especially in Stanislaus County, we are doing our part,” board Chairman Terry Withrow told the Modesto Bee. “We feel like the environmental side has not had to give. We think the environment needs to give, too.”

Proponents of preserving water supplies for environmental uses say this practice provides multiple benefits. According to the PPIC:

“Environmental water use falls into four categories: water in rivers protected as ‘wild and scenic’ under federal and state laws, water required for maintaining habitat within streams, water that supports wetlands within wildlife preserves, and water needed to maintain water quality for agricultural and urban use. Most water allocated to the environment does not affect other water uses. More than half of California’s environmental water use occurs in rivers along the state’s north coast. These waters are largely isolated from major agricultural and urban areas and cannot be used for other purposes. In the rest of California where water is shared by all three sectors, environmental use is not dominant (33 percent, compared to 53 percent agricultural and 14 percent urban).”

Plans offered by the Environmental Water Caucus attempt to provide solutions while also accounting for the current and future effects of global climate change. The Pacific Institute has also released an issue brief on California’s untapped potential water supply based on “improved efficiency in urban and agricultural water use, reuse and recycling of water, and increased capture of local rain water.”

But Central Valley lawmakers urge a reworking of the state’s priorities, especially in respect to the environment.

“In times of extreme drought, we have to prioritize people over fish,” state Assembly Minority Leader Kristin Olsen, R-Modesto, said in an interview in April. “We all have to participate in saving water. But there are higher priorities than others.”

http://calwatchdog.com/2015/06/16/counties-say-too-much-water-goes-to-environmental-supply/


16 Jun, 2015 Josephine Djuhana

 

[kittyluvr]

California Water Cuts Leave City Days Away From Running Out Of Water

MOUNTAIN HOUSE (CBS13) — The community of Mountain House is days away from having no water at all after the state cut off its only water source.

Anthony Gordon saves drinking water just in case, even though he never thought it would come to this.

“My wife thinks I’m nuts. I have like 500 gallons of drinking water stored in my home,” he said.

The upscale community of Mountain House, west of Tracy, is days away from having no water. It’s not just about lawns—there may not be a drop for the 15,000 residents to drink.

“We’re out there looking for water supplies as we speak,” said Mountain House general manager Ed Pattison. “We have storage tanks, but those are basically just to ensure the correct pressurization of the distribution system. No more than 2 days are in those storage tanks.”

The community’s sole source of water, the Byron-Bethany Irrigation District, was one of 114 senior water rights holders cut off by a curtailment notice from the state on Friday.

That means Mountain House leaders must find someone to sell them water, hopefully, the GM says, to have enough until the end of the year.

“We don’t want this town to become a ghost town, it was a beautiful master-planned community,” he said.

A number of water districts plan to sue the state on the grounds the State Water Resources Control Board has no legal authority to cut off some of California’s oldest and most protected water rights.

The decision has Mountain House in uncharted territory, and the clock is ticking before the water runs out. Pattison is confident he’ll be able to buy some water to avoid catastrophe, but says that’s a short-term fix. He’s planning to diversify the water supply for long-term stability.

http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2015...ave-city-days-away-from-running-out-of-water/

 

[summerthyme]

“We don’t want this town to become a ghost town, it was a beautiful master-planned community,” he said.

Apparently, the "planners" didn't look into the history of the area, which is very prone to long lasting droughts!

Summerthyme

 

[kittyluvr]

Apparently, the "planners" didn't look into the history of the area, which is very prone to long lasting droughts!

Summerthyme

Summerthyme, the problem is the State is stealing water from communities to give to a non native bait fish (delta smelt). Mountain House was a "Senior" water right holder. I believe that this taking is illegal, as these senior water rights only can be taken via eminent domain and compensation given to the owners of these water rights.

 

[Richard]

Apparently, the "planners" didn't look into the history of the area, which is very prone to long lasting droughts!

Summerthyme

Drought years in CA

1917–21
1922–26
1928–37
1943–51
1959–62
1976–77
1987–92
2007–09
2012–15

Circa 50% of the time, the water system has to be robust enough to survive future droughts on this scale for the increasing population, this means a massive boosting up. If anything the situation has got better over the years.

 

[Richard]

The Pacific Institute has also released an issue brief on California’s untapped potential water supply based on “improved efficiency in urban and agricultural water use, reuse and recycling of water, and increased capture of local rain water.”

This is good but limited in its outlook.

Climate change is not relevant as drought has been prevalent for hundreds if not thousands/millions of years.

“In times of extreme drought, we have to prioritize people over fish,” state Assembly Minority Leader Kristin Olsen, R-Modesto, said in an interview in April. “We all have to participate in saving water. But there are higher priorities than others.”

So when will it happen, after it's too late?

 

[marsh]

I hadn't heard about Mountain House. I will have to check with my son-in-law. He was the project manager there. They just split off from Shea. These are really upscale houses and they are still developing the area. You can't get permits in CA without showing a water supply. Bet it wasn't anticipated that they were going to cut off senior water rights holders. Drinking water trumps fish as a use of water. This should be reinstated quickly.

 

[Vegas321]

So, how long before someone gets shot over water in Cali?

 

[kittyluvr]

Broken Sprinklers At State Capitol Raise Concerns Of Water Waste During Drought

More of do as I say not as I do from the CA government.

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — As Gov. Jerry Brown and state water officials say residents need to cut back on water use, sprinklers at the state Capitol were found spraying water into the street over the weekend.

A CBS13 viewer sent in images of a sprinkler watering a bench while another set of sprinklers water a sidewalk, as well as broken sprinklers squirting water onto seemingly nothing at all.

This isn’t happening at someone’s home or business, but at the epicenter of where all the drought rules and regulations are coming from.

“It’s frustrating becuase we’re making cutbacks on a personal level,” said Sacramento resident Michelle Coughlin, who watched video of the broken sprinkler spewing what she described as a “geyser” onto the pavement.

The water waste is against the law, handed down by the very people inside the building where this is happening. It’s a tough pill to swallow, especially when experts say farmers have lost billions of dollars after water cuts and some people don’t have a reliable source of water.

Residents in Mountain House are running out of water after the community’s sole source of water, the Byron-Bethany Irrigation District, was one of 114 senior water rights holders cut off by a curtailment notice from the state on Friday.

Seeing the video makes Folsom resident Tom Scott mad. His grass is almost dead, and he wonders if his large redwoods are next.

“The governor is pushing this football, and if this is what’s going on at the capitol late at night, he needs to get a crew out here to fix it,” he said.

The Department of General Services, which handles the landscaping around the Capitol, refused to do an on-camera interview, but sent a statement saying “Sometimes government facilities have a broken sprinkler or are watering the concrete instead of greenery without being aware of the problem. In these rare instances it is our goal to address the problem as quickly as possible.”

DGS has reduced water use by 40 percent recently, and crews only water areas near old grown trees. Many spots around the Capitol are dusty and show their efforts.

For some, image is everything, and what’s happening at the Capitol is unacceptable. “Certainly cutting back on the flowers, cutting back on the lawn, OK good. But when you look at that video, it’s a mess,” said Ford.

After CBS13 called about the problem, a DGS spokesman says they quickly got to work fixing the problem.

http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2015...raise-concerns-of-water-waste-during-drought/

 

[Sleeping Cobra]

When are they physically going to fight back - for their very survival?

 

[kittyluvr]

When are they physically going to fight back - for their very survival?

Sleeping Cobra, Conservative and thinking Californians are outnumbered by illegals and progressives of both parties. The newest scheme by the California legislature is to automatically register people to vote with driver licenses and automatically mail out ballots. One little problem is CA lets illegals get drivers licenses. I am sure they will have another "technical glitch" if this is passed and accidentally register the illegals to vote. To remain sane in such an environment, I just follow the laws just as the governor and the president do; the ones I like I follow, the ones that I don't I ignore. Unlike the governor or the president, I will not do anything which would cause harm to another person.

PEOPLE NOT FISH!!!!

 

[marsh]

They had a town hall meeting at Mtn. House last night. The water is going to, indeed, be cut off. They are trying to buy water from other sources. The community tanks have a two day capacity. I cannot believe that our government would cut off water to 12,000 homes. That is outrageous.

 

[Melodi]

They had a town hall meeting at Mtn. House last night. The water is going to, indeed, be cut off. They are trying to buy water from other sources. The community tanks have a two day capacity. I cannot believe that our government would cut off water to 12,000 homes. That is outrageous.

They are simply the first town...
California Has Never Experienced A Water Crisis Of This Magnitude – And The Worst Is Yet To Come
Tyler Durden's picture
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 06/18/2015 23:15 -0400

Carbon Emissions China France India None



inShare11


Submitted by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

Things have never been this dry for this long in the recorded history of the state of California, and this has created an unprecedented water crisis. At this point, 1,900 wells have already gone completely dry in California, and some communities are not receiving any more water at all. As you read this article, 100 percent of the state is in some stage of drought, and there has been so little precipitation this year that some young children have never actually seen rain.

This is already the worst multi-year drought in the history of the state of California, but this may only be just the beginning. Scientists tell us that the amount of rain that California received during the 20th century was highly unusual. In fact, they tell us that it was the wettest century for the state in at least 1000 years.

Now that things are returning to “normal”, the state is completely and total unprepared for it. California has never experienced a water crisis of this magnitude, and other states in the western half of the nation are starting to really suffer as well. In the end, we could very well be headed for the worst water crisis this country has ever seen.

When I said that some communities in California are not receiving any more water, I was not exaggerating. Just consider the following excerpt from one recent news report…

The community of Mountain House is days away from having no water at all after the state cut off its only water source.



Anthony Gordon saves drinking water just in case, even though he never thought it would come to this.



“My wife thinks I’m nuts. I have like 500 gallons of drinking water stored in my home,” he said.



The upscale community of Mountain House, west of Tracy, is days away from having no water. It’s not just about lawns—there may not be a drop for the 15,000 residents to drink.

So what are those people going to do?

And what is this going to do to the property values in that area?

Who in the world is going to want to buy a home that does not have running water coming to it?

Other communities throughout the state are pumping groundwater like crazy in a desperate attempt to continue with business as usual. In fact, it is being projected that groundwater will account for almost all water used in the entire state by the end of this year…

Underground aquifers supply 35 percent of the water used by humans worldwide. Demand is even greater in times of drought. Rain-starved California is currently tapping aquifers for 60 percent of its water use as its rivers and above-ground reservoirs dry up, a steep increase from the usual 40 percent. Some expect water from aquifers will account for virtually every drop of the state’s fresh water supply by year end.

But of course this creates a huge problem. When the groundwater is gone, it is gone for good. Those aquifers took centuries to fill up, and now they are being drained at a staggering rate. In some parts of the state, aquifers are being drained so fast that it is causing thousands of square miles of land to sink…

Californians have been draining water so rapidly from underground aquifers that tens of thousands of square miles of land reportedly are sinking — so drastically that the shifting surface is starting to destroy bridges and crack highways across the state, according to a recent report by the Center for Investigative Reporting.

So what is the solution?

Some of my readers have suggested that desalination is the answer. But the truth is that desalination is very expensive and it is really bad for the environment. The following comes from a recent Natural News article…

For those who are saying, “There’s no water problem in California! It has the entire Pacific Ocean right next door!”, you need to look into the catastrophic environmental destruction tied to ocean water desalination.



Not only does desalination use fossil fuels which emit the very same carbon emissions that the California government insists caused the drought in the first place, the desalination process itself pollutes the ocean with high concentration salt brine that kills marine ecosystems and destroys ocean life along the California coastline.



And that’s on top of all the Fukushima radiation that’s already causing a marine ecosystem collapse in many areas of the coast. Add more salt brine to the mix and you get a state where rich, self-entitled Hollywood celebrities demand their lush, green lawns at the expense of ocean life, climate change and the global ecosystem. If that happens, California will lose all credibility as a “green” state, and its wealthiest residents will be living an ecological lie.

Others have suggested that California can solve their water problems using “toilet to tap” technology…

Potable water reuse – or converting sewage effluent to heavily-treated, purified drinking water – is receiving renewed attention in California in the midst of the state’s four-year drought.



According to a report by the Los Angeles Times, “California water managers and environmentalists” are pushing the idea of recycled sewage water. Yet past efforts in the state to employ similar systems have stalled, as opponents have dubbed the concept “toilet to tap.”

How would you feel about that?

Would you be willing to have your family drink water that came from the toilets of your neighbors?

I don’t think that I could do that.

But something has to be done. It is not just the state of California that is experiencing a major water crisis. All over the world, underground aquifers are being drained rapidly. In fact, according to the Washington Post, 21 out of the 37 largest aquifers in the world “have passed their sustainability tipping points”…

The world’s largest underground aquifers – a source of fresh water for hundreds of millions of people — are being depleted at alarming rates, according to new NASA satellite data that provides the most detailed picture yet of vital water reserves hidden under the Earth’s surface.



Twenty-one of the world’s 37 largest aquifers — in locations from India and China to the United States and France — have passed their sustainability tipping points, meaning more water was removed than replaced during the decade-long study period, researchers announced Tuesday. Thirteen aquifers declined at rates that put them into the most troubled category. The researchers said this indicated a long-term problem that’s likely to worsen as reliance on aquifers grows.

Sadly, this is just the beginning. There is a reason why experts refer to fresh water as “the new oil”. Without fresh water, none of us can survive. But we are very quickly getting to the point where there simply won’t be enough of it for everyone on the planet.

As for the state of California, it was once a desert and now it is turning back into a desert. As I mentioned earlier, the 20th century was the wettest century that part of North America had seen in at least 1000 years. During that time, we built enormous cities all over the Southwest that currently support millions upon millions of people. But now we are learning that those cities are not sustainable.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-...d-water-crisis-magnitude-–-and-worst-yet-come

 

[vestige]

More of do as I say not as I do from the CA government.

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — As Gov. Jerry Brown and state water officials say residents need to cut back on water use, sprinklers at the state Capitol were found spraying water into the street over the weekend.

A CBS13 viewer sent in images of a sprinkler watering a bench while another set of sprinklers water a sidewalk, as well as broken sprinklers squirting water onto seemingly nothing at all.

This isn’t happening at someone’s home or business, but at the epicenter of where all the drought rules and regulations are coming from.

“It’s frustrating becuase we’re making cutbacks on a personal level,” said Sacramento resident Michelle Coughlin, who watched video of the broken sprinkler spewing what she described as a “geyser” onto the pavement.

The water waste is against the law, handed down by the very people inside the building where this is happening. It’s a tough pill to swallow, especially when experts say farmers have lost billions of dollars after water cuts and some people don’t have a reliable source of water.

Residents in Mountain House are running out of water after the community’s sole source of water, the Byron-Bethany Irrigation District, was one of 114 senior water rights holders cut off by a curtailment notice from the state on Friday.

Seeing the video makes Folsom resident Tom Scott mad. His grass is almost dead, and he wonders if his large redwoods are next.

“The governor is pushing this football, and if this is what’s going on at the capitol late at night, he needs to get a crew out here to fix it,” he said.

The Department of General Services, which handles the landscaping around the Capitol, refused to do an on-camera interview, but sent a statement saying “Sometimes government facilities have a broken sprinkler or are watering the concrete instead of greenery without being aware of the problem. In these rare instances it is our goal to address the problem as quickly as possible.”

DGS has reduced water use by 40 percent recently, and crews only water areas near old grown trees. Many spots around the Capitol are dusty and show their efforts.

For some, image is everything, and what’s happening at the Capitol is unacceptable. “Certainly cutting back on the flowers, cutting back on the lawn, OK good. But when you look at that video, it’s a mess,” said Ford.

After CBS13 called about the problem, a DGS spokesman says they quickly got to work fixing the problem.

http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2015...raise-concerns-of-water-waste-during-drought/

During a water shortage, much less, an extreme drought, what stupid ***holes,
public or private, would be watering ANY lawn or washing ANY car?

The damned stupidity is amazing.

 

[kittyluvr]

CA Water Board prioritizes fish

As severe drought conditions in California continue to worsen, state officials have started to roll out with new regulations to prioritize various water interests.

On Wednesday, the State Water Resources Control Board adopted new emergency regulations to protect endangered and threatened fish. Low flows in four tributaries of the Russian River cause “high temperatures, low oxygen levels and isolated pools of water that can kill fish,” such as the coho salmon and steelhead trout.

Starting July 3, roughly 13,000 properties in the watersheds of Dutch Bill Creek, Green Valley Creek, Mark West Creek and Mill Creek will be subject to “enhanced conservation measures” in addition to the existing statewide water restrictions. As reported by the Press Democrat, residents are subject to the following rural water rules:

• “No watering lawns, washing driveways and sidewalks, washing motor vehicles, filling or refilling decorative ponds and fountains, and no use of water in a fountain or water feature not part of a recirculating system.
• “No watering of landscapes (trees and plants, including edible plants) that causes runoff onto adjacent property or non-irrigated areas or within 48 hours after measurable rainfall.
• “Limits landscape watering to two days per week and only from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m.
• “Sets no limit on use of graywater — from bathtubs, showers, bathroom washbasins, clothes washing machines and laundry tubs as well as captured rainwater — for lawn and landscape irrigation, washing motor vehicles and use in decorative ponds, fountains and other water features, except for prohibition of irrigation runoff or application within 48 hours after measurable rainfall.”

“This is a very extreme situation,” said Corinne Gray, a senior environmental scientist with the state Department of Fish and Wildlife. “There are already fish dying in the streams.” Gray told the SWRCB that the fish merely required a “trickle of water” between pools on the four creeks.

Farm representatives attending the meeting claimed parts of the measure were regulatory overreach. Text in the emergency measure enforces these new regulations “regardless of water seniority.”

This kind of enforcement has led to lawsuits against SWRCB. Just this week, the Banta-Carbona Irrigation District challenged water restrictions imposed by the state board, the first of potentially many more suits to come.

It remains to be seen whether the state board has the right to overrule century-old rights to water.

http://calwatchdog.com/2015/06/20/ca-water-board-prioritizes-fish/

 

[marsh]

The problem with steelhead trout and coho salmon is that they spend one year in the streams as juveniles before leaving for the ocean. Chinook go out the same year they hatch. California coho was always a coastal species and this is the extreme southern extent of its range in N. America. (You can buy coho in the supermarket from Chile and Peru yet it is listed as an endangered species in CA and a threatened species federally.)

Coho and steelhead need deep cool pools with overhanging forest and low gradients. Trouble is that they took coho from hatcheries in Washington state and on the coast and outplanted them in inland rivers during the 1800s and early 1900s.The habitat there is not friendly with ambient temperatures in the 90s-100s in summer and the orientation of rivers more exposed to sun. Coho, in particular, is a hit or miss species that is dying out as forest cover reduces from fires and snowpack becomes non-existent. Native steelhead (and likely coho) had a natural immunity to local disease like C-Shasta and parvacapsula minibicornis. Now the "disease"/parasite is killing 80-09% of juveniles because the interbreeding with non-native stocks weakened genetics.

Now they are trying to save them by flooding rivers to try and change temperatures. You just can't do this in a drought. Steelhead is worth saving in areas, coho is not. Try creating cool refugia with cover for the steelehead, not flood the entire river. In a preEuropean drought cycle,coho likely would have died out in CA and remained in Oregon and Washington to reseed CA in better climate cycles. They can trap and rescue the remaining fish to stupid to move toward the cooler deeper refugia of large rivers, but they won't. It is not "natural." They would rather cut off the water to 12,000 people than face facts that their water management for the fish is not natural either.

 

[Richard]

One little problem is CA lets illegals get drivers licenses.

As a matter of interest can illegals buy auto insurance, do they?

 

[Richard]

The problem with steelhead trout and coho salmon is that they spend one year in the streams as juveniles before leaving for the ocean. Chinook go out the same year they hatch. California coho was always a coastal species and this is the extreme southern extent of its range in N. America. (You can buy coho in the supermarket from Chile and Peru yet it is listed as an endangered species in CA and a threatened species federally.)

Coho and steelhead need deep cool pools with overhanging forest and low gradients. Trouble is that they took coho from hatcheries in Washington state and on the coast and outplanted them in inland rivers during the 1800s and early 1900s.The habitat there is not friendly with ambient temperatures in the 90s-100s in summer and the orientation of rivers more exposed to sun. Coho, in particular, is a hit or miss species that is dying out as forest cover reduces from fires and snowpack becomes non-existent. Native steelhead (and likely coho) had a natural immunity to local disease like C-Shasta and parvacapsula minibicornis. Now the "disease"/parasite is killing 80-09% of juveniles because the interbreeding with non-native stocks weakened genetics.

Now they are trying to save them by flooding rivers to try and change temperatures. You just can't do this in a drought. Steelhead is worth saving in areas, coho is not. Try creating cool refugia with cover for the steelehead, not flood the entire river. In a preEuropean drought cycle,coho likely would have died out in CA and remained in Oregon and Washington to reseed CA in better climate cycles. They can trap and rescue the remaining fish to stupid to move toward the cooler deeper refugia of large rivers, but they won't. It is not "natural." They would rather cut off the water to 12,000 people than face facts that their water management for the fish is not natural either.

In the UK I can't remember any political party including Labour giving a toss about fish populations in rivers or any legislation on the subject or at least any that adversely affected the human population. The only issue about animals brought up by Labour was the banning of fox hunting and that was done for political class reasons.