A
Water-use Ethic: Striving to Ensure
Southern California's Water Supply
by Phillip J. Pace*
The San Diego Union Tribune, March 19, 1999
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*PACE is chairman of the Metropolitan Water District of
Southern California.
With all of
the changes taking place in California's water industry, the
one persistent question is "What's happening with the
Colorado River?" The good news is we are close to an
agreement that will keep the Colorado River Aqueduct full
and will help maintain Southern California's economy. The
major stumbling block is the inclusion of a water-use
efficiency ethic in the California Plan for Colorado
River use.A commitment to water-use efficiency is at the
heart of Western water policy. Just take a look at the
CALFED Bay-Delta Program. The one directive that has come
from policy-makers as well as many public stakeholders
isconserve first. In CALFED, as elsewhere in the West, the
response to increasing scarcity and competition for water is
a new water-use ethic that commits every stakeholder to
maximizing their existing resources.
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In Southern California, we have put our money where
our mouth is. We've invested nearly $2 billion in conservation, water
recycling and ground water storage programs. The region has reduced
its need for imported water by more than 700,000 acre-feet each year.
Without this decrease in demand, the Bay-Delta system would not have
been able to meet its demands. Southern California's water supply
reliability would have been in jeopardy. Moreover, the Bay-Delta
ecosystem -- instead of moving toward recovery -- would have suffered
irreparable harm.
Urban Southern California is not alone in its
efforts to reduce demands for imported water. Wherever water supplies
are limited in California, the first line of defense has been to
implement water-use efficiency standards. During the past decade,
deliveries from the State Water Project have been reduced by about 10
percent in dry years.
All state project contractors in the Central
Valley and Bay Area have learned to make do with less. And because of
increased competition for water supplies and increasing environmental
protections, deliveries from the Central Valley Project have been
reduced by as much as 35 percent, even during normal water
years.
In the Central Valley, agricultural water users
have had to improve irrigation efficiencies, reduce tailwater runoff
and turn to more expensive alternative supply sources to meet their
water demands.
water-use efficiency must become the foundation on
which we build all of our water supply systems. Unfortunately, this
essential first step was not incorporated into the Memorandum of
Understanding between Imperial Irrigation District, Coachella Valley
Water District and the Department of the Interior.
The proposed agreement was intended to lay the
groundwork for the California Plan by helping to define how
agricultural water usage in the Imperial and Coachella valleys should
be quantified. But while everyone else who manages water in
California was learning to live with less, IID was using more. Based
on studies conducted for the Interior Department, there has been a
dramatic increase in IID's water-use during the past 10
years.
This 400,000-acre-foot increase annually is
particularly disturbing since Metropolitan has paid, to date, $160
million to help IID conserve more than 100,000 acre-feet annually.
The simple fact is that Imperial -- a district that uses more water
than any other state on the Colorado River -- is out of step with a
new water-use ethic in California that is essential to solving our
state's water problems.
Logic tells us that the Interior Department should
incorporate water-use efficiency as a foundation for its agreement
with IID and Coachella. Instead of requiring conservation before
quantification, Interior's proposed agreement, rewards IID with a
water allocation equal to their current usage of 3.1 million
acre-feet.
To understand the inequities of this arrangement,
it is important to remember that the intent of the proposed agreement
is to solve Coachella's water supply problems by increasing their
water deliveries from 330,000 to about 468,000 acre-feet annually.
But the numbers in the proposed agreement don't add up.
If and when California's water-use is limited to
4.4 million acre-feet, 3.85 million acre-feet will first be available
to four agricultural agencies and 550,000 acre-feet to Metropolitan.
Palo Verde Irrigation District and Yuma Project Reservation Division
have the first two priorities. Together, they take about 420,000
acre-feet.
If IID were to take 3.1 million acre-feet as
proposed, that would only leave 330,000 acre-feet for Coachella -- an
amount equal to its current water-use. Where is Coachella going to
get the additional supplies the proposed agreement has promised them?
From Southern California, that's where!
Rather than develop an aggressive water-use
efficiency program, the proposed agreement will solve problems in the
agricultural sector by taking water from the people of Southern
California. And that is why it's patently unfair. Urban Southern
California should not be responsible for meeting the water-supply
needs of agriculture.
Let me emphasize, Metropolitan is not advocating a
reallocation of water under the 1931 Seven-Party Agreement. The
imperative that improved water-use efficiency be practiced statewide
in no way undermines IID's water rights. Metropolitan has simply
asked for clarification of how water-use efficiency should be
included in the California Plan to preserve the public's
interest.
Our recommendation to the Secretary of the
Interior is straightforward: Conserve first, then
quantify.
If we include in the California Plan a program to
promote efficient water-use comparable to those required elsewhere,
then it will be possible to allocate agriculture's 3.85 million
acre-feet in a manner that is fair to everyone. Metropolitan is
committed to making the California Plan a reality.
As a key element of this plan, the MWD Board fully
supports the water transfer agreement between San Diego and IID. But
Metropolitan is convinced that a California Plan that is equitable
for urban and agricultural users as well as the environment must also
include consistent standards for water-use efficiency.
As our population grows and competition for water
supplies increases, we must all accept responsibility for the
reasonable and beneficial use of our water.
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