[env-trinity] LA Times Editorial: A watershed ruling

[Tom Stokely]

water infrastructure:

Editorial: A watershed ruling

Los Angeles Times - 11/19/05

 

FOR DECADES, WHENEVER California began running short of water to meet population projections, water engineers - "visionaries," they were called - brought in new supplies from hundreds of miles away. Los Angeles went to the Owens Valley and then the Colorado River and far Northern California. San Francisco had the audacity to build a dam and reservoir right in Yosemite National Park.

The days of building big dams and canals are long past. But even today, water managers are calling for pumping greater volumes from the stressed Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to meet projected growth in Southern California. Their axiom is that people will come whether there's enough water or not.

 

Now , finally, a court has challenged that mantra. The 3rd District Court of Appeal in Sacramento has ruled that managers of the delta should balance the demands of water users with the demands of the environment. "Population growth is not an immutable fact of life," the court said in rejecting parts of an environmental impact study on the operations of CalFed, the joint state-federal program for managing the delta.

A key finding was that the impact study was insufficient because it explored various ways of increasing exports from Northern to Southern California, but it never considered reducing exports. Cutting exports would be one way to lessen the environmental degradation of the delta. In recent years, fish life has suffered an alarming decline in the delta as exports have reached record levels. Experts disagree about whether those two things are connected.

The state is seeking a rehearing of the case and may appeal to the state Supreme Court. A better course would be to revise the environmental impact study.

The court ruling comes at a time when many in government and the water industry are considering whether major changes are needed in the CalFed program. At the request of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Little Hoover Commission conducted a detailed study of CalFed, which on Thursday recommended an overhaul of the program's management structure. Water users have asked the governor to create a blue-ribbon commission to recommend changes. If he does so, it should be a small body put on a tight deadline.

State water experts recognize that California is moving into a new era. The periodic revision of the state water plan now being drafted by the Department of Water Resources forecasts a future in which new demands will be met by innovative supply mechanisms, including more sophisticated conservation programs, expanded programs to reclaim used water, increased water trades from farmers to urban areas and more "banking" of water in aquifers rather than surface reservoirs. The department also predicts water problems increasingly will need to be solved on a regional basis rather than with grand, statewide transfers.

The court ruling may be heresy to the water engineers. In fact, it's the new reality.  #

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-water19nov19,0,4085447.story?coll=la-news-comment-editorials
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