Back in 2014, California Governor Jerry Brown declared a statewide emergency in the midst of the “driest year in recorded state history.” This was followed by an executive order imposing mandatory water restrictions on residents, business and farms earlier this year in April.

However, no restrictions have been imposed on water supplies currently dedicated to the environment and fishery habitat.

Conflicting statistics on California’s total developed water supply of 82.5 million acre-feet differ between studies and regions. The Public Policy Institute of California says that statewide water is allocated, on average, 50 percent for environmental uses, 40 percent for agricultural and 10 percent for urban. Stanislaus County, however, cites a study that dedicated 45 percent to environmental purposes, 45 percent to agricultural and 10 percent allocated for urban supply.

In either case, the general consensus is that environmental and agricultural use takes up the lion’s share of the state’s water supply. Despite this, urban and agricultural supplies have been hit the hardest in the state in terms of conservation mandates.

In May, the Fresno Board of Supervisors passed a resolution requesting Gov. Brown to do the following:

• Direct the State Water Board to make changes in Delta water operations to provide more water for urban and agricultural users;
• Meet with U.S. Department of the Interior and Department of Commerce to negotiate greater flexibility under the federal Endangered Species Act;
• Support legislative efforts to enact federal drought legislation that would increase water supplies within the state.

According to agenda documents made available on the Stanislaus County site, the county supervisors are also planning to vote on a similar resolution later this week, requesting that the governor “take even more stringent actions” to reduce state water consumption “by imposing curtailments on water supplies currently dedicated to the environment and fishery habitat that are comparable to those now being mandated and burdening urban and agricultural contractors and users.”

“Especially in Stanislaus County, we are doing our part,” board Chairman Terry Withrow told the Modesto Bee. “We feel like the environmental side has not had to give. We think the environment needs to give, too.”

Proponents of preserving water supplies for environmental uses say this practice provides multiple benefits. According to the PPIC:

“Environmental water use falls into four categories: water in rivers protected as ‘wild and scenic’ under federal and state laws, water required for maintaining habitat within streams, water that supports wetlands within wildlife preserves, and water needed to maintain water quality for agricultural and urban use. Most water allocated to the environment does not affect other water uses. More than half of California’s environmental water use occurs in rivers along the state’s north coast. These waters are largely isolated from major agricultural and urban areas and cannot be used for other purposes. In the rest of California where water is shared by all three sectors, environmental use is not dominant (33 percent, compared to 53 percent agricultural and 14 percent urban).”

Plans offered by the Environmental Water Caucus attempt to provide solutions while also accounting for the current and future effects of global climate change. The Pacific Institute has also released an issue brief on California’s untapped potential water supply based on “improved efficiency in urban and agricultural water use, reuse and recycling of water, and increased capture of local rain water.”

But Central Valley lawmakers urge a reworking of the state’s priorities, especially in respect to the environment.

“In times of extreme drought, we have to prioritize people over fish,” state Assembly Minority Leader Kristin Olsen, R-Modesto, said in an interview in April. “We all have to participate in saving water. But there are higher priorities than others.”

But does Brown’s plan target where the most water can be saved or is it based on media images of water wasters?

Residents of the Palm Springs area, portrayed as water guzzlers enjoying rounds of golf amid lush landscaping, have been hit with the highest mandatory water cutbacks in the state, 36 percent.

The agencies in this area also serve hundreds of thousands of acres in farmland, and many of the golf courses use recycled water.

The Palm Springs desert area does not have a reservoir water shortage as does most of the state even though the weather is hotter. It does not directly tap northern California water reservoirs for its imported water supplies and can only save a sliver of the overall goal of 1.3 million acre-feet.

The Coachella Valley Water Agency and the Desert Water Agency, with 0.71 percent of the state population, have been asked to generate 1.46 percent of the total water reduction mandate.

By contrast, the city of Los Angeles, serving 10.1 percent of the state population — more than 12 times the combined population served by the desert agencies — would produce 2.97 percent of the water savings under Brown’s plan.

Los Angeles must cut 16 percent of its water usage under the plan.

The desert agencies do use more gallons of water per person, as much as 238 gallons per day compared to 73 gallons per day in Los Angeles.

But they also rely less on imported water.

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power relies on 88 percent or 286,664 acre-feet of water per year from imported supplies. Conversely, the five water suppliers in the Coachella Valley Water Management Group rely on about 27 percent or 60,000 acre-feet of water imports per year, not including a 300,000 acre-foot allocation of Colorado River water that has not been subject to cuts.

Farmers have been exempted from Brown’s regulations because the agricultural sector has been subject to 100 percent cuts in state and federal water allocations for the past two years.

However, the Coachella agency also supplies water to 72,800 acres of farmland. It serves 120 golf courses, of which only 28 rely on imported water. The Coachella agency is shifting 43 golf courses from groundwater to recycled water.

Comparison of Water Reduction Mandates

Desert Visitors Boost Consumption

Some water providers, mostly in the southern part of the state, have resisted Brown’s water cutback percentage formula, arguing that it fails to reward prior reduced water use, ignores geographic temperature differences and fails to account for areas that use mostly groundwater instead of imported water. It also does not consider that tourists who bolster the economy account for a significant share of water usage in places like the greater Palm Springs area, which has a population of almost 350,000 but sees 11.5 million visitors each year, mainly for golf tourism.

Heather Engle, director of communications and conservation for the Coachella water agency, said the Palm Springs area is not suffering as much as the rest of the state as it mostly relies on its own groundwater supplies.

“We don’t believe our customers are well served by our arguing with the (water reduction) formula,” Engle said. “We’re focusing our effort on ways to achieve the 36 percent goal.”