“During an Asian tour last month, Obama invited leaders from the 10-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to the Sunnylands resort in Rancho Mirage,” as The Hill reported, noting that National Security Council spokesman Myles Caggins would only characterize the event’s objective as advancing “important conversations about the Asia-Pacific region.”

“The president is pleased the leaders have accepted his invitation to gather at Sunnylands, in early 2016,” Caggins said.

A favorite destination

Observers have speculated for years that the Obamas may opt for a post-presidency move to the Coachella Valley. In two years, The Desert Sun noted, he has visited the desert five times. “Sunnylands is a sprawling 200-acre estate in‎ Rancho Mirage, just outside Palm Springs. The mid-century mansion situated on the property was built by the Annenberg family and is now used by presidents and other public officials as a desert retreat,” as CNN explained.

But the Palm Springs destination carried some geopolitical significance as well. “The choice of Sunnylands is symbolic as the Rancho Mirage retreat there was the venue of an informal meeting between Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013 that sought to chart a new way forward in U.S.-China relations but did little to ease tensions,” according to Reuters. “Four ASEAN members — Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam — are also part of the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact, which is the key economic plank of Obama’s economic and security pivot to Asia in response to China’s growing power.”

International economic politics

The president’s intended pivot has drawn substantial criticism as events in the Mideast siphoned military and strategic resources away from the Pacific. In a particularly divisive controversy, some Republicans and Democrats assailed the Trans-Pacific Partnership as a secretive, pro-corporate deal brokered more as a bulwark against Chinese political interests than as a guarantor of American economic ones. “Vital Republican backing for the deal is waning,” the Wall Street Journal observed. “The party is divided on trade, and establishment Republicans are having a harder time defending the administration’s Pacific deal against outspoken criticism from a number of Republican presidential candidates, including front-runner Donald Trump.” In recent months, even Republican-aligned industry figures have begun to sour on the deal; “business groups including the Chamber of Commerce and Business Roundtable can’t formally begin the job of building congressional support until they iron out deep differences among their own ranks,” the Journal added.

As a result, White House watchers have anticipated a summit aimed at marshaling the kind of international support that Obama could use to try forcing lawmakers’ hands. “Obama’s push for the Trans-Pacific Partnership […] and China’s military aggression in the South China Sea are expected to be among the main topics at the summit,” according to the Washington Post. Several ASEAN countries, the Post noted, “have clashed with China over the South China Sea, a key international shipping lane, where Beijing has constructed artificial islands that U.S. officials fear could be used as military installations. Obama warned Xi about China’s intentions during a U.S.-China summit at the White House in October, and the Pentagon dispatched a U.S. warship within 12 nautical miles of the artificial islands in a challenge to Beijing’s claim on the waters.” The votes of some wavering Republican legislators could be tilted in the TPP’s favor if southeast Asian allies rally around the president.

In the meantime, speculation continued to swirl around the exact scheduling of the event. “Japan’s Kyodo news agency on Monday quoted an ASEAN official source as saying the summit was expected to be held February 15-16,” Reuters reported. “Diplomats from two ASEAN countries said they understood this to be the timing, but it had yet to be confirmed.”

But perhaps no community has more cause to be upset than the city of Riverside. In the name of preserving limited water supplies in the Bay Delta, a city that gets no water from the Bay Delta and has taken many successful steps to be water-independent has been forced to cut water consumption by 28 percent. The Riverside Press-Enterprise elaborates on why city leaders have chosen to sue the state, seeking a temporary restraining order and injunction:

Riverside has its own groundwater supplies from the Bunker Hill Basin and is independent of imported water, said Kevin Milligan, deputy general manager at Riverside Public Utilities. …

 

The city applied to the state to be included in a special tier requiring only a 4 percent reduction, but was denied. The 4 percent tier requires a reliable water supply, but applies only to surface water, not groundwater, he said. …

 

“The only difference is surface water you can see and groundwater you can’t,” he said. …

 

To make itself water independent, the city has invested in the John W. North Water Treatment Plan, drilled new wells, captures storm water from the Seven Oaks Dam and has spent $10 million dollars on recycled water infrastructure, he said.

 

Thought it has been drawn down in the drought, the Bunker Hill Basin has at least 1.4 million acre feet of storage left and maybe as much as 5.4 million acre feet, Milligan said. One acre-foot of water is enough to serve two families for a year.

State authorities also rejected Riverside’s separate request for a 24 percent reduction instead of a 28 percent cut, disputing the city’s claim that it didn’t count college students in deciding which tier the city would be in.

More water intrigue in Riverside County

The city of Riverside has regional company in being consumed with water issues and concerns about how to respond to the drought.

As CalWatchdog reported in June, officials in Palm Springs and throughout the Coachella Valley are facing criticism over the vast amounts of water it takes to keep their 124 golf courses and dozens of resorts green and attractive. The explanation that the tourist region has plenty of cheap water thanks to plentiful underground aquifers — despite being located in a desert — hasn’t stemmed the criticism.

Meanwhile, the Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District, which serves more than 130,000 people in Lake Elsinore, Murrieta, Wildomar and many unincorporated communities, also has been subject to a mandatory 28 percent cut even though it has “already reduced water use by more than 25 percent since 2007 – surpassing the state’s mandated 20 percent by 2020 per capita goal established in 2009. … [Having] these new restrictions unfairly penalized our customers, who have set one of the best examples in the state over the last five years,” Elsinore Valley board President Phil Williams wrote in the Press-Enterprise.

Brown’s emergency water edict expires in February; under state law, it can only extend a maximum of 270 days. Water officials are expected to begin discussions soon on what rules will replace the existing ones.

A key factor will be whether the winter’s expected winter “Godzilla El Niño” brings the massive amount of rain that some — but not all — scientists expect.

The Palm Springs region and its 400,000 residents and 124 golf courses aren’t gobbling up an extreme chunk of Colorado River supplies, as many assume. It’s blessed with huge underground aquifers that are tapped with an efficient water infrastructure that has drawn admiring looks for decades. Its residents, tourism industry and business community have deeply benefited from state laws that require water rates to be linked to the actual cost of providing water.

This is from a 1991 Los Angeles Times story during the last major California drought:

PALM SPRINGS — Like a mirage lurking in a dip in the highway, Palm Springs shimmers enticingly atop the Sonoran Desert, an impossibly green splotch on a canvas of tawny brown.

 

Outside the city, the flat, sandy landscape is broken only rarely by scraggly tamarisk trees, yucca plants and pathetic shrubs twisted by relentless desert winds.

 

But in town it’s another world, with lush grass and petunias lining the boulevards, fountains gurgling outside local landmarks and shaggy palms swaying soothingly in the breeze. There are even misters on several restaurant patios, which shower diners with a fine, tropical spray.

 

For visitors from drought-stressed corners of California, the dramatic contrast provokes instant suspicion: Is this artificial oasis hogging water while folks in other regions are skipping showers?

 

It does look suspicious, but appearances can be deceiving. The truth is, Palm Springs — which gets just 5 inches of rain annually and sweats out 120-degree temperatures most summers — sits atop a vast sea of ground water, which has been carefully managed and now insulates the city from the effects of drought.

Water rates a fraction of coastal cities

During the current drought, Palm Springs water officials are keeping a lower profile — and for good reason. The state government’s announcement Friday that it will put on hold some of the old rules that governed water apportionment in the Central Valley could foreshadow a full-on attack on labyrinth rules that assign water rights in thousands of communities.

But one still sees stories in the local press that underscore how much different — and better — things are in Palm Springs. Some articles in the Desert Sun talk about city officials stepping up water conservation efforts, but they seem to be more about creating a sympathetic appearance than in response to an actual need for conservation.

Articles such as this 2013 piece raise long-term concerns about overpumping, but they aren’t remotely as daunting as analyses looking at the state’s long-term water-supply picture. That’s because they include facts such as these:

The state Department of Water Resources in 1964 estimated that the aquifer, in the first 1,000 feet below ground, had a total capacity of at least 39.2 million acre-feet. Based on that estimate, the aquifer has lost about 13.5 percent of the total since the 1970s.

That’s not good news. But it’s nothing like the problems facing coastal water agencies and those in the Central Valley.

This hugely favorable status quo is why rates at the Desert Water Agency have barely budged in recent years. With a base rate of from $1.16 to $1.83 per 100 cubic feet of drinking water, depending on the community, Coachella Valley water bills are far less than those in San Diego County, which are based on a rate of over $4 per 100 cubic feet, or San Francisco (over $5).

Will we see water power plays?

Water politics in California have been fraught and ugly for decades. The movie “Chinatown” reflects the cutthroat atmosphere of 80 years ago, but the tactics of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California in the 1990s are also jaw-dropping. When its largest client — the San Diego County Water Authority — began looking for new supplies, the MWD undertook what the Los Angeles Times called a “clandestine effort to discredit San Diego County water leaders.”

So it wouldn’t be surprising to see wealthy communities in Silicon Valley and the MWD agitate for a statewide market in water, disguising a grab for cheaper water supplies as a “for the greater good” policy change. The economic argument for such markets is clean and lean. But the history of California was shaped by the complex water rights system left over from a century ago. There would be no Palm Springs as we now know it if water rates in the region were affected by outside factors.

A change in basic water rights isn’t just an existential threat to the economy of the Coachella Valley. It would imperil Imperial Country, the mini-agricultural juggernaut in the state’s southeastern corner that thrives because of cheap, grandfathered water rights.

Brutal battles loom in coming years. But in the short term, what we’re likely to see is more bureaucratic maneuvers. This is from the L.A. Daily News via the San Jose Mercury-News:

“… as the long hot summer drags on, more curtailments are likely to affect those who hold even older rights,” said Caren Trgovcich, the board’s deputy director.

“We are continuing to evaluate the hydrology in watersheds. There could be additional action” as early as next Friday, she said.

The mayors, city managers and city council members in the Coachella Valley and Imperial County are likely to be paying close attention.