For the first time, California regulators have warmed to the idea of directly serving up treated sewer water to residents, underscoring the difficulty officials have had in uniting around alternative means of setting the state’s water policy on stable foundations.

Direct use

“A new report released by the State Water Resources Control Board last week outlines what needs to happen before drinking treated wastewater, also known as ‘direct potable reuse,’ becomes a reality,” Southern California Public Radio reported. In sum, a battery of new regulations, focused on ensuring that filtration processes meet a number of rigorous criteria, would be required — a goal the board opted not to suggest a timeline for.

“But in Southern California, many of us already are drinking treated wastewater — at least, indirectly,” the station added. “Places like Orange County, the Chino Basin and coastal Los Angeles have been blending treated wastewater with groundwater for years. But the difference is, the treated sewer water has been sitting in a reservoir or underground aquifer before it gets delivered to our tap. That means the water is diluted, and it also gives water managers time to wait for lab results from the wastewater treatment plant, and make last minute changes if something goes awry.” 

Fish or foul

At the same time as it has warmed up to sewer water, however, the board has unsettled the water debate still further by pushing for more aquatic protections for fish. According to its new plans, “the amount of water in the San Joaquin River and its major tributaries that would remain available for fish during certain times of the year would more than double to a suggested starting point of 40 percent of the river water from nearly 20 percent,” according to the Wall Street Journal.

“Right now, around 80 percent of the river water is diverted for use by farms and cities,” the paper noted. “The diversions have helped sustain some communities through the state’s five-year drought, but have left fish vulnerable. Officials of the regulatory agency said the increases were needed to help restore endangered salmon and steelhead, populations of which have plummeted. Some tributaries fall to as low as a trickle in places.”

The eyebrow-raising news deepened rifts with farmers and others desperate to return as close to pre-drought levels of use as possible. Merced County supervisor Deidre Kelsey, describing herself as “kind of aghast,” told BuzzFeed News the plan was “so preposterous” that it “can’t work. Unless everybody picks and moves out of the valley.”

Tunnel trouble

The fish issue has not created the only impasse in California’s long-term plans for protecting and managing its water resources. In a disappointment for supporters of an ambitious plan to send Delta water underground toward Southern California consumers, a financially discouraging report requested by Sacramento recently came to light. “Giant tunnels that Gov. Jerry Brown wants to build to haul water across California are economically feasible only if the federal government bears a third of the nearly $16 billion cost because local water districts may not benefit as expected,” the Associated Press reported, citing the unreleased analysis, which was commissioned last year.

“Further, no local water districts have agreed to pay their slated share for the tunnels because of uncertainty over regulatory approval and whether it would be worth the expense for them. Spending on the project has become the subject of an ongoing state audit and federal financial review. With districts balking, the state for the first time is dipping into public funds — fees paid by users of existing state water projects — to get the project through the planning phase, state spokeswoman Nancy Vogel told The Associated Press last month.”

Stepping up water collection has emerged as a priority in Southern California, drawing much of its water from outside sources, including Northern California and the Colorado River, as the Washington Post observed. “The State Water Resources Control Board plans to allocate $200 million for such projects,” the paper noted. “And Los Angeles plans to capture 20 billion more gallons than the 10 billion it collects during normal years.”

“In Los Angeles, the city gutted a 16-foot-wide concrete street median and replaced it with vegetation that captures rain over 111 acres. The $3.4 million project is designed to collect enough water to fill more than 27 Olympic-size swimming pools a year.”

More than one drought

But the larger picture regarding El Niño has become much more complex. California’s vast size, varying climates and competing consumption needs have conspired with the imprecise definition of drought to leave many communities unsure of how much more rain they’ll need to turn the corner.

“Ask water managers in different parts of California when they expect they might shake free of the worst drought in a generation — and whether a wet El Niño winter could be their savior — and you’re likely to get a lot of answers,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle. “Those answers depend on where people live and what source of precious water they’re tapping.” Analysts told the Chronicle much will hinge on the remaining two to three months of the state’s rainy season, which could keep snowpack levels high enough for many areas to begin banking on lasting relief.

A stark turnaround recently witnessed at Folsom Lake, fed by river water swelled by the snows, has fueled those hopes. Folsom, the state’s ninth-largest reservoir and the Sacramento area’s primary source of drinking water, had shriveled down “to a mere 135,561 acre feet” early this December, as the Chronicle noted in a separate report. Then came El Niño. “With the recent rains, Folsom’s water level has risen 28.5 feet and the reservoir is now holding 246,497 acre feet of water,” the paper added.

Still, according to the U.S Drought Monitor, the Golden State has remained parched. “In California, moderate drought covers 97 percent of the state, with 87 percent in severe, 69 percent in extreme and nearly 45 percent in exceptional drought,” Capital Public Radio reported. Because of the cutoff date for the data it used to tally those numbers, however, that harsh analysis “does not include the recent storms that have brought rain and snow to the state.”

Tapping the desert

Experts have long acknowledged the limits of rainwater in resolving California’s drought challenges. But one ambitious workaround — tapping into groundwater locked below the Mojave Desert — has finally picked up steam. Two years ago, the Cadiz company, led by Scott Slater, sought to “tap an aquifer beneath 34,000 acres of the eastern Mojave and sell the water to suburbs and subdivisions in the Los Angeles Basin,” as Bloomberg Business then reported. “Several politicians, ranchers and environmentalists call Cadiz’s proposal ludicrous,” the site noted. But Slater, it went on, had already obtained “the necessary permit to pump from San Bernardino County, where the aquifer is located. He also has six utilities in the Los Angeles area eager to buy the desert water.”

Cadiz hit a major roadblock when the Bureau of Land Management finally weighed in on its schemes last October. “In a long-awaited decision, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management says Cadiz cannot use an existing railroad right-of-way for a new water pipeline that would carry supplies from the project’s proposed well field to the Colorado River Aqueduct,” as the Times reported. “By using the railroad right-of-way, Cadiz had hoped to escape federal environmental review of the 43-mile pipeline, one of the project’s most expensive components.”

But Slater’s support in and around the Southland has not ebbed, and he has redoubled his efforts this year. “Cadiz will have to seek federal approval for the pipeline, which will trigger a long and expensive environmental impact review,” according to the Guardian. “If we can’t get them to follow the law, we’ll do what we need to do, pursue administrative and judicial remedies,” he told the paper.

New Melones Dam (Wikimedia)

Demonstrating the simple power of reducing daily water usage, Californians have impressed regulators and policymakers by taking a huge bite out of statewide consumption. “The numbers reflect broad conservation success at a crucial time,” the Sacramento Bee reported. “Last year, Californians used more water in July than any other month, mostly because of lawn watering in the summer heat. This year’s urban conservation efforts resulted in a savings of more than 74 billion gallons in July compared with 2013, more than double the amount of water that the entire city of Sacramento will use in a year.”

Changing minds

The data lent some unexpected credence to what seemed like an outlandish prospect just a year ago. While many analysts presumed that huge new infrastructure projects would have to be undertaken to respond effectively to the drought, now some have begun to suggest that mere saving may be enough.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the sheer quantity of water saved — 414,800 acre-feet — measured favorably against some of the biggest and most expensive water storage facilities proposed to date. Both the expansion of Shasta Dam and a new Temperance Flat Dam on the San Joaquin River would open up around half that amount annually, the Times noted. Newsha Ajami, director of urban water policy for Stanford’s Water in the West initiative, told the Times “there are so many soft paths that we can take that might have a lot less environmental impact and be a lot less expensive, and still meet our future demand. This is probably a smarter tack than building more infrastructure, and moving more water around long distances.”

A massive new Delta tunnels project, promoted by Gov. Jerry Brown and set to cost at least $17 billion, has recently become the center of one of the Golden State’s several water-driven controversies. Meanwhile, predictions of a powerful El Nino storm season have done little to reduce ongoing jockeying between Northern and Southern California over water sources, water rights and water costs. And economists have begun to question whether California’s more limited access to water will begin to take a toll on the state’s pace of expansion, including many new housing developments authorized before the cutbacks began in earnest, according to the New York Times.

Unintended costs

The big savings have come with significant unanticipated costs, however — not always measurable in monetary terms. In what the Los Angeles Times called “a paradox of conservation, water agencies say the unprecedented savings — 31 percent in July over July 2013 — are causing or compounding a slew of problems.”

“Sanitation districts are yanking tree roots out of manholes and stepping up maintenance on their pipes to prevent corrosion and the spread of odors. And when people use less potable water, officials say, there’s less wastewater available to recycle. Water suppliers, meanwhile, say the dramatic decrease in consumption has created multimillion-dollar revenue shortfalls.”

At the same time, California’s smaller cities have been thrown back on their heels by the stringent new regulations keeping consumption low. “State officials are starting to realize that some water mandates have the potential to cause serious economic problems for smaller communities such as Lemoore, Sanger, Hanford and Livingston,” the Fresno Bee reported.

The problem suggested a Catch-22, with the choice coming down to businesses in those areas making water cuts that result in cuts to jobs, or residents making up the difference by scaling back their consumption well in excess of the new mandates. “The cities are at or near the top of the state’s priority watch list to reduce water consumption, according to state Water Resources Control Board documents. All are missing the state’s reduction mandate by 10 percent or more.”

The figures eclipsed earlier embarrassments faced by water districts where consumption actually spiked, sometimes for unknown reasons. “California’s urban water districts cut consumption by 27.3% in June,” the Wall Street Journal observed, “exceeding a tough new state mandate to reduce their combined use by 25% amid a prolonged drought. The savings compared with the same month in 2013 came despite June being the hottest month on record in the Golden State, officials from the State Water Resources Control Board reported Thursday.”

Partisan jockeying

In a statement, Feinstein tried to tempter expectations behind her renewed push for relief. Some analysts expect Republican opposition over its high cost and environmental protections. “I’ve introduced a lot of bills over the years, and this one may be the most difficult, and a warming climate will only make things worse,” she said. “I’m hopeful the bill we’re introducing today will serve as a template for the kinds of short-term and long-term solutions California needs to address this devastating drought.”

But some Democrats have become concerned that Feinstein’s effort cedes excessive ground on environmental regulations, hewing too closely to previous relief plans that wound up losing Boxer’s support. Feinstein had determined that the drought crisis was severe enough to justify negotiating with House Republicans — a maneuver that undermined her support within her own party, causing her to abandon the push.

This time around, revealing Boxer’s support for the rejiggered bill “surprised some stakeholders who saw the negotiations fall apart late last year over proposed changes to endangered species protections,” according to E&E Daily. Although Boxer said she was “pleased to be sponsoring” Feinstein’s new bill “because of the enormity of this crisis,” other Democrats, such as Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Calif., warned they were “very concerned about some provisions included in the bill that are similar to the House Republican water legislation” that drove Boxer away to begin with.

A long road

That legislation was H.R. 2898, introduced by Rep. David Valadao, R-Calif. As the Sacramento Bee recounted, the bill would have supplied farmers south of the Delta with more water and sped up the federal approvals process, where stringent environmental rules can sometimes grind water and infrastructure plans to a virtual halt. Hurried along late last year during the lame-duck session of Congress, it sailed through the House with staunch Republican support, but provoked president Obama to threaten a veto, and drew strong criticism from California’s delegation of Democrats in both houses of Congress.

Feinstein herself finally caved. “There are several other provisions that would waive environmental protections that need to be changed before I could support them,” she explained, according to the Bee. “I have said all along that I will not support a bill that would waive these protections, and that remains true today.”

“The action by the State Water Resources Control Board, after weeks of warnings, affects 114 different water-rights holders in the Sacramento and San Joaquin river watersheds, as well as the Delta region,” the Sacramento Bee reported. Not since 1977 have restrictions dug so deep into the state’s so-called riparian rights system.

Only the beginning

State officials told the New York Times that further restrictions are all but a foregone conclusion, with reassessments to be conducted on a weekly basis.

“The reductions announced Friday apply to more than 100 water right holders in the San Joaquin and Sacramento watersheds and delta whose claims to water came after 1903,” reported the Times. “While the cuts will fall primarily on farmers, some will affect small city and municipal agencies, as well as state agencies that supply water for agricultural and environmental use. Water can still be used for hydropower production, as long as the water is returned to rivers.”

Despite the blanket expansion of cuts, some rights holders fared better than others. San Francisco, where rights date to 1901, avoided the strictures for now. Meanwhile, in the state’s agricultural heartland, the pain was sharply felt. According to the Bee, residents drawing water from the federal Central Valley Project and the State Water Project “have lost about one-third of their water this year. The University of California, Davis, estimates that more than 560,000 acres of farmland will sit idle.”

A different future

Deep into the most serious and protracted challenge of his time in office, Gov. Jerry Brown has tightened the taps with a methodical urgency and a quintessentially Californian sort of spirituality. In recent remarks for the Los Angeles Times, Brown took a cosmic view of California’s future, weaving conservationism and futurism together in an extended metaphor of “spaceship Earth.”

“We are altering this planet with this incredible power of science, technology and economic advance. If California is going to have 50 million people, they’re not going to live the same way the native people lived, much less the way people do today,” said Brown. “You have to find a more elegant way of relating to material things. You have to use them with greater sensitivity and sophistication.”

But Brown affirmed that residents will have to pay for their enlightened approach to growth. “A lot of heavy lifting will be done by local water districts, and that will show up in your water bill,” he told the Times.

To the courts

Not all Californians, of course, share Brown’s vision, or that of the Water Resources Control Board. The result, analysts predicted, would be a flood of litigation. “Within hours of the board’s announcement,” the Los Angeles Times recounted, “officials of the Oakdale Irrigation District in the San Joaquin Valley issued a statement saying that they were ready to seek a court injunction to put a hold on the curtailment.”

Their case appeared to hinge on claims that the WRCB used inadequate information on water use to overstep its regulatory authority. Oakdale Irrigation District chief Steve Knell suggested to the Times that California “doesn’t have the authority to manage pre-1914 rights, nor does the board have accurate data on diversions by junior rights holders.”

But the board blamed the cuts’ rough consequences on the state’s inflexible rights regime. “Those ordered to stop diverting from rivers and streams have other options, including tapping groundwater, buying water at rising costs, using previously stored water or leaving fields unplanted,” officials said, according to the Associated Press. WRCB executive director Thomas Howard was blunt: “It’s going to be different story for each one of them, and a struggle for all of them.”