It has been mismanaged for decades and this excellent article from California Globe, reviews the failure.
An excerpt.
“In October, and then again in December 2021, as the third severe drought this century was entering its third year, not one but two atmospheric rivers struck California. Dumping torrents of rain with historic intensity, from just these two storm systems over 100 million acre feet of water poured out of the skies, into the rivers, and out to sea. Almost none of it was captured by reservoirs or diverted into aquifers. Since December, not one big storm has hit the state. After a completely dry winter, a few minor storms in April and May were too little too late. California’s reservoirs are at critical lows, allocations to farmers are in many cases down to zero, and urban water districts are tapping their last reserves. In some areas of Southern California, water agencies are now penalizing residential “water wasters” by coming onto their property and installing flow restrictors.
“Back in 2014, a supermajority of California voters, 67%, approved Proposition 1 to fund water storage projects. As of the spring of 2022 not one project has begun construction, eight years later. Meanwhile, in Southern California, a proposed desalination plant in Huntington Beach that could produce 60,000 acre feet per year of fresh water from the ocean has been held up by a mostly hostile bureaucracy and endless litigation for over twenty years. As you read this, the project faces another major hurdle – on May 12, the California Water Commission Board might defy the recommendation of their own staff and grant “final” approval. But their approval may come with so many conditions that in effect it will be another denial. Or the army of litigants that for years have opposed the plant will find yet another basis for a lawsuit.
“When it comes to water in California, there is a robust political consensus that something has to be done. There is agreement that multi-year droughts will leave Californians with inadequate water supplies; that once a drought enters its third or fourth year, the demands of the environment, agriculture, and urban water consumers are far in excess of what is deliverable. And that’s where we are today.
“Back in the summer of 2021, knowing there was broad agreement as to the problem, I began to canvas the state to build support for a ballot initiative that would fund water projects. I entered into this project with only a basic knowledge of water policy. My goal was to talk with as many experts as I possibly could in order to come up with a comprehensive solution that, if approved by voters, would end water scarcity in California forever. I had no idea what I was getting myself into.
“Water politics in California isn’t what it once was. The water infrastructure that transports water from mountainous northern watersheds to coastal cities mainly in the southern part of the state remains the biggest plumbing system in the world. The first major construction began over a century ago. To supply water to the burgeoning cities of Southern California, the Los Angeles Aqueduct was completed in 1913. The Hetch Hetchy dam and aqueduct, supplying water to the City of San Francisco, was completed in 1934.
“Major water projects in California were ongoing in the decades that followed. The Federal Bureau of Reclamation finished building the Shasta Dam in 1945, creating what remains the biggest reservoir in California. The famed California State Water Project, with its centerpiece the California Aqueduct, completed most of its big projects in the 1960s. These highlights barely begin to describe the scale of the investments that were made or the magnitude of the projects that were built.
“How California built a system of reservoirs and aqueducts that enables a mostly arid state to support a population of 40 million and some of the most productive farmland in the world is an epic story. A detailed accounting can be found in the classic book Cadillac Desert, written by Marc Reisner in 1986. An even more detailed and more recent source is The Great Thirst, written by Norris Hundley, Jr. in 2001. But the historic achievements of earlier generations of Californians to supply this new civilization with enough water to thrive have not been matched in recent years. California’s water infrastructure has been neglected. In the face of epic droughts and soaring demand, these days, the only answer California’s politicians have been able to agree on is water rationing.
“Such is the state of water politics today. There is universal recognition that there is a water supply crisis, but every solution that involves major new construction is hopelessly gridlocked. Around the state, incremental and inadequate steps are taken, but there is no statewide vision to solve the crisis. Water rationing, typically referred to using the less threatening term “conservation,” is the only solution. While some activist groups in California truly believe conservation is all that will ever be necessary, it is mostly imposed on Californians by default.
“The Basics of Water Supply and Demand in California
“After two big storms in the fall of 2021, on January 1, 2022 the San Jose Mercury published an article with an encouraging headline “California has topped last season’s rainfall. Will trend continue in 2022?” Quoting the National Weather Service, the article announced that the “massive October atmospheric river and wet December” delivered 33.9 trillion gallons of rain to the state. This exceeded the 33.6 trillion gallons that fell during the entire previous water year, from October 2020 through September of 2021.
“To express this amount in acre feet helps put this in perspective. 33.9 trillion gallons is 104 million acre feet. According to data compiled by the California Department of Water Resources, over the ten year period from 2011 through 2020, on average, 180 million acre feet of rain fell each year in California. The following table shows how that 180 million acre feet of water is used. Most of it either evaporates, percolates, or eventually makes its way to the ocean. But a significant amount is diverted for either urban, agricultural, or environmental use.
“For the years 2011 through 2015, the data on this chart comes from the 2018 update of the California Water Plan, prepared by the California Dept. of Water Resources. Data for 2016 and 2018 was compiled on request by engineers working for the Dept. of Water Resources; they are still working on the 2017 data. For these most recent seven years for which complete data is available, diversions for urban, agricultural and environmental purposes averaged 75.3 million acre feet per year.”
To read the rest, The Abundance Choice, Part One – California Globe
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