[env-trinity] AP: California looks Down Under for drought advice

Tue May 26 16:41:00 PDT 2015

California looks Down Under for drought advice

 <http://www.ap.org/> Associated Press By KRISTEN GELINEAU and ELLEN
KNICKMEYER 

http://news.yahoo.com/california-looks-down-under-drought-advice-134750332.h
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SYDNEY (AP) - California's longest and sharpest drought on record has its
increasingly desperate water stewards looking for solutions in Australia,
the world's driest inhabited continent.

The struggle to survive with little water is a constant thread in the
history of Australia, whose people now view drought as an inevitable feature
of the land poet Dorothea Mackellar dubbed "a sunburnt country."

Four years into a drought forcing mandatory 25 percent water cutbacks this
year, Californians have taken a keen interest in how Australia coped with
its "Big Dry," a torturous drought that stretched across the millennium,
from the late 1990s through 2012. Australia's city dwellers had to accept
tough water restrictions as cattle collapsed and died in barren fields,
monstrous wildfires killed 173 people, and scores of farms went under.

But by the time the rains returned, Australia had fundamentally changed how
it handles water, following landmark reforms to more carefully mete out
allocations and cutbacks. Today, Australia treats water as a commodity to be
conserved and traded. The system also better measures what water is
available, and efficiency programs have cut average daily water use to 55
gallons, compared with 105 gallons per day for each Californian.

The hard-earned lesson is that long droughts are here to stay, says
drought-policy expert Linda Botterill of the University of Canberra.

"We can expect longer, deeper and more severe droughts in Australia, and I
believe the same applies in the U.S.," Botterill says. "As a result, we need
to develop strategies that are not knee-jerk responses, but that are planned
risk-management strategies."

That's why California water officials routinely cite Australia's experience
and invite Australian water ministers to come speak. It's also why Felicia
Marcus, who runs California's Water Resources Control Board, can talk in
minute detail about the stormwater-capture system watering soccer fields in
Perth.

But Californians may find Australia's medicine tough to swallow. Australians
are accustomed to living in a dry land, expect government intervention in a
crisis and largely support making sacrifices for the common good. For much
of their history, many Californians have enjoyed abundant water, or were
able to divert enough of it to turn deserts green, and highly paid lawyers
ensure that property rights remain paramount.

"The outstanding feature of the California drought is the way in which it's
been allowed to become incredibly serious, with - from an Australian
perspective - an absolutely pathetic and nominal sort of response," said
Daniel Connell, an environmental policy expert at The Australian National
University. "The main difference between California and Australia is they're
dominated by a legalistic approach and dominated by rights, and we've got a
much more public-policy approach."

Australia hardly has all the answers. Some of its drought responses faced
sharp criticism, and some experts believe Australia already is losing some
of its gains. Still, Americans suffering their own "Big Dry" may benefit
from some comparisons:

WHOSE WATER IS IT?

AUSTRALIA: Too many water entitlements had been allocated for Australia's
main river system, which winds thousands of miles across four states that
produce a third of the nation's food. Overuse and drought so depleted the
Murray-Darling Basin that by 2002, the mouth of the Murray had to be dredged
to keep it flowing into the sea.

Australia responded by capping entitlements, canceling inactive licenses and
buying back hundreds of billions of gallons from irrigators to restore the
rivers and sell to other users when rain is plentiful. Water use is strictly
metered to ensure license holders use only what they are allocated. Precise
measurements also track the availability of water, which affects its price
as shares are bought and sold on a water trading market worth $1.2 billion a
year in U.S. dollars.

The amount of water represented in entitlements doled out to farms,
industries and towns depends on what's in the river; in drought, it can
dwindle to virtually nothing. This is where water trading becomes critical.
License holders can buy or sell their entitlements to others, keeping
agriculture afloat. A farmer of a thirsty crop like cotton might not profit
when both the share of water and the price of cotton is low. But if an
orchard grower in desperate need buys that water, the cotton farmer can live
off the sale while the orchard owner reaps a profitable harvest.

CALIFORNIA: Gov. Jerry Brown calls the state's system of divvying up water
rights, which dates to the Gold Rush of the mid-1800s, "somewhat archaic."
The largest state economy in the U.S. still follows the maxim "first in
time, first in right," which gives overarching priority to nearly 4,000
so-called senior water rights holders who staked claims before 1914 or own
acreage abutting a river or stream. In drought, authorities must completely
deny water to most other claimants before they touch the water of senior
water-rights holders. San Francisco, for example, has stronger water rights
than many other cities because in 1902, Mayor James Phelan hiked up the
Sierra Nevada and tacked a water claim to an oak tree along the bank of the
Tuolumne River.

"Revising the water-rights system is a thermo-nuclear issue in California,"
John Laird, California's secretary for natural resources, said last month.
If the state's water shortages go on long enough, however, at some point
"almost everything has to be on the table."

___

WATCHING THE FLOW

AUSTRALIA: Marcus says California should follow Australia's example in
measuring and publicly declaring how water is used. Thousands of gauges
across Australia measure rainfall, authorities in each state and territory
measure surface water at stream gauging stations, and underground water is
monitored through a complex process involving the drilling of bores and
controlled pumping tests. Water data collection agencies report to the
federal Bureau of Meteorology, which makes the data available online.

CALIFORNIA: California has been one of the most lax U.S. states in tracking
water use, but the drought is changing this. Legislation enacted last year
requires the state to gradually phase in monitoring, for the first time, of
how much groundwater Californians are pumping. Meanwhile, roughly a
quarter-million California households and businesses still lack water
meters; state requirements to have them don't apply until 2025. The state
has relied on an honor system, with rights holders self-reporting what water
they have withdrawn from rivers and streams every three years. Gov. Brown's
budget proposed last week would require rights holders to install monitors
and report water usage to the state annually.

___

TIGHTENING THE TAP

AUSTRALIA: During the Millennium Drought, all major cities imposed limits or
bans on watering lawns and washing cars, and inspectors fined people who
broke the rules. The restrictions, public-service campaigns and installation
of water-saving appliances reduced Australians' household water use from 85
gallons per person per day in 2000 to 55 gallons today.

CALIFORNIA: After some regions all but ignored calls for voluntary cutbacks,
Brown's administration mandated a statewide 25 percent cut in water use by
cities and towns, and ordered more farmers to stop pumping from rivers and
streams. Marcus said the one piece of advice that seemed universal in both
Australia and California "was conserve, conserve, conserve, as early as you
can, because it's the cheapest, most economical way to buy time" while
tougher water-saving measures are phased in. California still is struggling
with enforcement, however.

___

DO MORE WITH LESS

AUSTRALIA: Years before the Big Dry, Australians were encouraged to use less
water. In 1995, Sydney's water authority was ordered to slash per-capita
demand by 35 percent by 2011, and it met that target by reducing pressure
and leaks in pipes, boosting businesses' water efficiency, and offering
low-cost, water-saving technologies in homes, such as dual-flush toilets,
low-flow showerheads and rainwater tanks for gardens, toilets and laundry.
When the drought struck, government rebates became so widespread that such
devices are now common in many Australian homes.

Such efficiency measures can be implemented quickly, economically and
easily, says Stuart White, an Australian sustainability expert who has
advised Californians on drought response. "The water efficiency program is
the unsung hero of this whole thing," says White, director of the Institute
for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology, Sydney. "In some
cities, it's quite possible we would have reached death's door if it hadn't
been in place."

CALIFORNIA: Communities across California offer rebates on drought-friendly
plumbing and appliances. But the rooftop-rain collectors, stormwater
cisterns and bathwater-recycling for gardens, all commonplace in parts of
Australia, are rarities here. Increasing numbers of communities are
rewriting ordinances to allow families to recycle water from rains and from
showers.

___

MIRACLES OF TECHNOLOGY

AUSTRALIA: Billions were spent on desalination plants in major cities - a
decision that remains hugely divisive. Many of the plants are not currently
operating because cheaper water is available for now in Australia, prompting
critics to dismiss them as expensive and power-hungry flops that will create
greenhouse gases and worsen the continent's climate-change woes. Supporters
say the plants will protect the country from the next inevitable drought.

CALIFORNIA: While calling for conservation, Brown has pinned his drought
focus on an ambitious infrastructure project - a $17 billion plan, opposed
by environmental groups, to build 39 miles of tunnel to take Northern
California water to Southern California's bigger farmers. Desalination
plants in the works include one, for San Diego, that will be the biggest
such operation in the Western Hemisphere.

___

Knickmeyer reported from San Francisco

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