Water ideas: Is anyone listening?

I hope no readers have been lulled into mistakenly thinking our water woes are over.  They aren't.  I have taken four months off the topic last addressed here.  That was when they were letting water out of Crystal Springs and warning people who live along the San Mateo creek.  Now a thoughtful piece in the Wall Street Journal by Edward Ring of the California Policy Center merits some mention.

With the nation’s two largest reservoirs, Lake Powell and Lake Mead, drawn down to historic lows, the seven states that use water from the Colorado River have failed to agree on how to adapt to its dwindling flow. The impasse pits California against everyone else. If California’s political leaders had the political will, they could solve the problem for every member of the Colorado River Compact by developing infrastructure to use untapped sources of water. But to do that, the state Legislature would have to stand up to a powerful environmentalist lobby that views humans as parasites and demands rationing as the only acceptable policy.

The Colorado crisis underscores California’s grotesque failure to upgrade its water infrastructure for the 21st century. Since 1980, Californians have endured five droughts, and politicians are predicting worse in the future. With groundwater aquifers dangerously depleted and access to Colorado River water imperiled, rationing won’t be enough.

There are two major projects that could unlock millions of acre-feet of new water for Californians. The first is to eliminate nutrient pollution in the San Francisco Bay, which feeds toxic algae blooms that kill aquatic life. The solution so far has been to dilute the nutrient loads in the bay by requiring massive diversions from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta—a little like flushing a toilet. But upgrading the urban wastewater-treatment facilities surrounding the bay would eliminate nutrient pollution, permitting more delta water to be directed to California’s farms and cities—a lot more water.

Another piece by CalMatters mentions that eliminating nutrient pollution is actually getting harder and more expensive:

As Californians replace their water-guzzling household appliances with more thrifty devices and let the yellow mellow before flushing, the waste stream becomes more concentrated — which could lead to higher treatment costs, more contaminants and less recycled water overall.

Notice the Law of Unintended Consequences at work?  The rest of the CalMatters piece is good for data, but basically rehashes old ideas, so back to the Ring piece:

The second major project, then, would be for Californians to build new ways to extract and store water from the delta during atmospheric river events. A new technique, already demonstrated on the Tuolumne River, creates channels in some of the delta islands so that huge perforated pipes can be installed under a gravel bed. Fish aren’t endangered by such installations. This water could be rapidly transferred to aquifers south of the delta via surface percolation and deep injection. Unused aquifer capacity in the San Joaquin Valley is conservatively estimated at more than 50 million acre feet.

We shall see if any of the "human parasites" that populate Sacramento are listening.  There's more from Edward Ring of the CPC on water here.

Comments

[Ross Bowling]

Joe-
As a long time resident of Burlingame who still has deep roots there, I’d like to comment. I now live in Fresno and have observed a complete lack of a conservation mindset with my friends and neighbors here. The mantra is screw the fish and the Bay, just send us all the water we want while taking a 45 minute shower. Many homes here do not yet have water meters, but just pay a flat rate a month. Let’s get someone to focus on that. When we first moved here, we had a meter but paid a flat rate. Simply nuts

[Joe]

Thanks, Ross. I remember you from the Lions and you are far from the only ex-B'gamer to read the Voice to stay in touch a bit. That is a good insight from first-hand experience, too. Most appreciated. It's hard to believe there are spots in California where there are no water meters and flat rates! Where's Rob Bonta? Where's Gavin? Where's the CPUC? Where's the Water Board? Probably not paying attention until they get the bright idea to base those rates on one's income level.