Aerial view shows low water levels at Folsom Lake in Granite Bay, Calif., on May 10, 2021.
California’s
Water Mismanagement
_____________________________ Edward Ring _ 27/07/2022
As Californians cope with another blistering summer during what is their third consecutive year of drought, the state legislature has still done nothing of substance to upgrade California’s water supply infrastructure. From the Klamath Basin on the Oregon border to the Imperial Valley on the Mexican border, farmers can’t irrigate their crops, and in every major city, residents are having their access to water rationed.
Not only is California’s state legislature and various state and federal agencies failing to invest in new water infrastructure, but they are actively undermining attempts to deliver more water to the state’s residents. In May, the California Coastal Commission denied a permit to Poseidon Water to build a desalination plant that would have produced 60,000 acre feet of water per year.
If desalination is the irredeemable problem child of water infrastructure, according to environmentalists, surface reservoirs are its evil cousin. Hence the proposed Sites Reservoir, which would provide another 1.5 million acre feet of badly needed storage capacity, still faces what may be insurmountable odds: The requirement to allocate half of its yield to ecosystems means the remaining water the Sites Project Authority will be permitted to sell to cites and farmers may not be sufficient to qualify the project for construction loan guarantees.
The environmentalist assault on California’s water enabled civilization, unchallenged by the state legislature, is full spectrum. On the Klamath River, with an urgency that is entirely missing with respect to constructing the Sites Reservoir, or any other reservoirs, plans to remove four hydroelectric dams are moving quickly towards realization. Similar plans to demolish two dams on the Eel River are also moving forward.
The Iron Gate Dam, scheduled for demolition,
on the lower Klamath River near Hornbrook, Calif., on March 3, 2020.
There remains only one politically acceptable solution to water scarcity in California, and that’s rationing. But the cause of scarcity isn’t merely the worsening droughts we’re experiencing. It’s the active demolition of existing water infrastructure assets, an active and very effective institutional hostility towards constructing new water infrastructure, combined with relentlessly escalating prohibitions on how much water can be withdrawn from rivers and groundwater basins.
Water is life. If the planet is getting hotter and dryer, the last thing we should be trying to do is turn our cities into heat islands with desert landscaping, and taking our farmland out of production. We should be producing more water than ever, using every innovative infrastructure solution possible. We should be greening our cities and protecting our agricultural economy. We should be adapting, creating water surpluses to mitigate the hotter, drier seasons, not retreating into a parched, micromanaged, and rationed dystopia.
If environmentalist objections aren’t enough to stop water projects, the tremendous cost of these projects becomes the justification for inaction. But California’s state general fund, per capita and adjusting for inflation, has doubled in just the past decade. What have Californians gotten for all that spending? More crime, failing schools, mismanaged forests, outmigration of people and businesses, and water rationing? State funding of water supply infrastructure is necessary so amortization of the capital cost doesn’t impose an unsustainable financial burden on ratepayers. With so much growth in spending, no state politician can honestly claim there aren’t billions available to invest in water.
The clincher for opponents of water supply projects is the energy cost. But this, too, is inaccurate. Even the most energy intensive way of supplying water, though desalination, would require only a small fraction of the electricity Californians are planning to generate to usher in the electric age. If California’s grid eventually averages a 100 gigawatt load—and that is the absolute minimum necessary if the state legislature is serious about going all-electric—desalinating 2.5 million acre feet of seawater per year would only use one percent of that load.
The area of a planned desalination plant that was canceled in Huntington Beach, Calif., on Aug. 5, 2020.
Even the massive California aqueduct, with six pumping stations to transport water 450 miles from northern rivers into the Los Angeles Basin, only requires a net energy cost per unit of water delivered of about two-thirds that of desalination. As for wastewater recycling, millions of acre feet can be recovered at an energy cost equal to only one-third that of desalination. There is plenty of energy available to eliminate water scarcity in California.
The message the state legislature clearly has not even bothered to acknowledge, much less promulgate, much less act upon, is the value of abundance. In a world of worsening water and food scarcity, it is the obligation of a place as wealthy and innovative as California to set an example not of austerity and rationing, but of abundance and resiliency. This is a pragmatic and a moral choice that will offer hope to everyone in the world.
Who will challenge politicians, media, corrupt bureaucrats, opportunistic oligarchs, and environmentalists, with a message of abundance and hope? Who will unswervingly assert that we do not have to succumb to rationing and impoverishing our lives in order to protect ourselves and the planet, that we can adapt, we can thrive, we can prosper, and we can set an inspiring example for the world to emulate?
Californians can produce surplus water. It is technically feasible, it is economically feasible, and it is environmentally sustainable. If the state legislature will not act, voters can accomplish these goals with citizen ballot initiatives, and by doing so can rapidly overcome decades of accumulated gridlock. We can change the conventional wisdom—and in the process return California’s culture to its essence of freedom, prosperity, trend setting creativity, and abundance in all things, starting with water.
Edward Ring is a contributing editor and senior fellow with the California Policy Center, which he co-founded in 2013 and served as its first president. He is also a senior fellow with the Center for American Greatness. Ring is the author of two books: “Fixing California: Abundance, Pragmatism, Optimism” (2021) and “The Abundance Choice: Our Fight for More Water in California” (2022).
davidngaiser
42 mins ago−
CA has been filled with insanity for far too long.
Vermont has had the same thing happen to it over the last 40 years as well.
Communist takeovers destroying states one at a time
Lynn Micucci
44 mins ago−
Those environmentalists are working with the Governor of that state to destroy it, just like the guy in the White House is depriving people of food and gas. If people get desperate they will do almost anything to have those luxury s again. They are trying to turn all of us into slaves of the elite.
Javajoe5
6 hours ago−
Environmentalists more and more seem to be really anti-humanists. Its quite apparent here in crazyfornia.
MRV
7 hours ago−
Enviro nazis and liberal lunatics ruined a once great state that I long ago was proud to live in but left around 30 years ago due to libs and enviro nazis. What a disaster CA is now.
Craig Otto
7 hours ago−
They’ve already written about this several weeks ago Kathie. someone mentioned the Desalination plants? If they build 4 of them going up the coast it would make a “BIG DIFFERENCE”!! But @$$HOLE NEWSOM would start CRYING like BABY because SOME OF HIS HORRIBLE WASTEFUL PROJECTS wouldn’t come to FRUITION!! Like the TRAIN TO NOWHERE? Cost $500 Billion Dollars? Desalination Plants 2 Billion EACH! Which one would YOU RATHER HAVE? The one you COULDN’T afford to RIDE or the ONE THAT SOLVES A PROBLEM? HYYYMMMMM? He’s to F-ing STUPID to figure that one out!!!!! He proved it everyday since HE’S BEEN IN OFFICE!!!!
Lyle Williams
8 hours ago−
We could learn a lot from Israel about how to make water go further with intensive drip irrigation and other water enhancing and conservation technologies. Israel is in a much worse position regarding fresh water and relies on desalination a lot. Fresh water is a precious commodity to the Middle East.
Their partnership with Jordan to build the Red Sea Canal project, which will bring ocean water in from the Red Sea and drop it into the Dead Sea 1200 feet below sea level will create a lot of new eternal fresh water, while re-filling the Dead Sea back up and all the while mining more minerals and fertilizers from the brine. Israel is the country to emulate when it comes to fresh water technologies.
Kathie Johnson
8 hours ago−
Wait, isn’t California on the coast of the Pacific Ocean. If the oceans are rising like the climate changers are claiming why not refine that water????? With all the technology can no one figure this out??? Why are they not doing what some others are doing an refining waste water????
Mequonic
8 hours ago−
Californians HAVE acted to produce surplus water. Check out Prop 1, The Water Quality, Supply and Infrastructure Improvement Act of 2014. Approved overwhelmingly by over 70% of voters 8 years ago now, the Prop provided for over $7 billion in bond funds to overhaul and increase the state’s water supply.
So what’s happened…virtually nothing. Unelected bureaucrats under the guise of “environmentalism” have stalled all efforts. Our dear and mighty elected bureaucrats have dutifully sat on their hands and not lifted a finger to help their constituents ensure they have a life-saving water supply.
Refer to a research expose from The Sacramento Bee dated July 21, 2021 for an update on the whole fiasco.
It’s not like any of us didn’t know we live in a desert climate, yet the political class forces every community to update and plan for housing increases every 10 years.
Really?
They want more people here but don’t think about the need for an increased water supply to serve them??
The latest edict from our Masters of the Universe force us to water our lawns just once a week.
“Don’t even bother,” they say, the grass won’t make it. God help us when fire season starts.
Candice Hardin
10 hours ago−
Its a purposeful water poverty. Newsome was the leader in water infrastructure spending as a candidate, it was his only feature that seemed promising. He has eliminated water infrastructure and created no new infrastructure proving politicians can actively campaign on a platform and drop it as a concern or missive entirely once elected.
Never have a seen the pace at which California declined reach such a fever pitch. Brown was a corrupt black hole who passed countless legislation destroying california prosperity, Schwarzenegger limped along doing little to reverse decades of awful policies and managed very little progress in some regions. But Newsome had the energy of an athlete in politically, financially and legally hamstringing any procession of the inadequate status quo and actively pursued every initiative to destroy the state. He reinforced his communist dictatorship when he locked down the state indefinitely, held no responsibility for spending billions on undelivered or defective masks with a Chinese electric car company, and declared universal mail in ballots forever following his miraculous survival of the recall among other actions.
California is the place to escape. I was born, raised and lived in the beautiful and amazing state, I just moved my family out as the predatory laws seek to destroy my children’s education and childhoods. The visceral imagery of seeing naked homeless rigorously clean their genitalia while we drive our family to church Sunday morning will never leave our minds. Finding uncapped heroin needles in the playground peripheral or not being able to take our kids to the same park bathroom due to prostitution and drug use was soul crushing. Daily counting of encamped homeless en route to school and nearly running over high and angry transients as they launch at your car from the curb are highlights of our exodus. Goodbye troubled California.
linkster18
10 hours ago−
Liberal stupidity reigns supreme.
Lynn Micucci
39 mins ago
−
It’s not stupidity,
its intentional.
WEF graduates are following orders.
Edward Lackey
18 hours ago−
How can they allow new housing to be built and New Buildings, these all need water? This is going on at an unprecedented amount!
Lynn Micucci
39 mins ago
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New housing for all those who will own nothing and be happy..
Taomega
19 hours ago−
The direct result of 20 million illegals allowed to land and stay in the state. The demographics over the last 20 years proves this out.
Then add in that each year CA releases water in hopes of rain filling the tank.
sisleymichael
20 hours ago−
JFK proposed Century 21. It was a plan to pump the spring floods on the upper Mississippi out west and fill up reservoirs and lakes and increase agriculture over 6 times as much. What has California ever done to provide solutions for their water needs? Nothing except demand water from other states. Folks, every single western state needs more reservoirs. Why not put water where it is needed?
R. Sherman
20 hours ago−
I see little discussion of ‘Grey Water”.
This is the use of water from sinks and washing clothes.
KilkennyKid
21 hours ago−
Kill babies in the womb and allow your children to transition to another gender, but we must save the fish. Environmentalists should be incarcerated.
Carol
21 hours ago−
How can CA be out of water when the whole state is surrounded by water???
Joseph Giardino
21 hours ago−
Once again, it’s indicative of a one party system that prohibits open debate and opportunity for new ideas. It is no longer what is in the best interest of the citizens, but power and corruption!
F.J.B.
Samuel Bess
23 hours ago−
It is clear, inaction on any efficient water recovery system by California legislature is driven by influences that do not give a damn for conservation, and better water supply….Just look at all the swimming pools full in California. Mamon is he god of
greed at the expense of the people and their resources or the development of resources.
I am not sympathetic for Californians, or for that matter folks who develop in the desert or farm in the sand….when the dust bowl hit…those people had to git…no one brought them water….Bite the bullet California…you brought this upon yourselves…even after 20 years of warnings. Learn to live with what you have. Stop coveting others resources.
Leslie
23 hours ago−
Gov. Newsom’s Climate Resiliency plan just released provides for 142 steps for water resilency. Like “secure voluntary agreements in key watersheds to improve flows and conditions for fish, address air quality (what does air quality have to do with water?) and habitat challenges around the Salton Sea and protect the long-term functionality of the State Water Project and other conveyance infrastructure”.( like the high speed train to nowhere?) Translation: scheduled demolition of existing dams to create flood plains, Salton Sea lithium mining destroying that area with 2 biggest investors Bershire Hathaway and Gen. Motors.
The basic steps are clear but the Gov and Legislature do not want to solve the problem, just make it worse.
Samuel Bess
23 hours ago
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Water resiliency…a new buzz word for drought and political resiliency….verbal BS from the Governor will not solve this problem….California sat on these warnings for twenty years. You can just hear the California wealthy corporate owners saying, i will not help if I have to sacrifice.
Rational Guy
1 day ago−
Cancel the idiotic Bullet Train! Instead, use the funds to build 30-50 desalinization plants up and down the State. They could easily be powered by any of the very small and very, very safe nuclear reactor designs readily available. Earthquakes and tsunamis don’t bother them in the least. They essentially can’t be melted down. We get plenty of water, and any extra energy can be sold back into the grid.
gail
1 day ago−
I agree that it is absolutely unacceptable what California’s progressive leadership have done, and allowed to be done, to our beautiful state. But it is totally unfair of you California-haters to paint all California residents with the same brush. I have lived here since college, starting in 1968, and for most of those years it has been a great place to live. Please remember that many Californians as not leftists, never have been, never would dream of being. Your comments tend to be a little insulting when you describe us all in the same way. I’d leave if I could, but I can’t. So I will just have to work from within to right the system. The same applies to the entire country, by the way.
cmbucher
1 day ago−
Imperial Valley uses only Colorado River water, a lot, but not for Imperial Valley’s 150, 000 residents only. Farm produce from here is sent all over the U.S. to millions.
“What have Californian’s got for all that spending”, the writer should say “What have democrats got for all that spending”.
computr8tr
1 day ago−
Couldn’t happen to a more deserving toilet of a state. The citizens can thank the democrats they continue to vote in. Welcome to communist California.
Mark Lancaster
1 day ago−
California is hell-bent on their own destruction. I say let them have it, and deny them any federal aid.
No Upside
1 day ago−
It seems practically criminal for CA to use so much Colorado River water and then allow their own watersheds to drain into the Pacific Ocean. There must be some way to mediate all the concerns and capture the water.
ST
23 hours ago
−
CA is doing that because they are hell bent on saving some kind of tiny fish at the expense of their citizens.
Grumpy Old Woman
1 day ago−
The goal of the enviro-tards is to rid the earth of human life.
I wish they would set the example and remove themselves from the planet.
Elliott Scott
1 day ago−
We live in the desert, let’s save the smelt and steal the water from the midwest.
But I’m the redneck idiot.
goldee11
1 day ago−
They have spent years wasting water. Everyone has huge pools and Vegas has been equally wasteful. Make some tough decisions, close some casinos and no pools allowed. They are so wasteful its just sad.
Mary McHugh
1 day ago
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No that is not going to help anyone…people use 10% of the the water, Ag uses 40% and Environmental uses over 50% because the State Water Board has not allotted water to those with water rights so farmers sell the rights…no water no crop but they still have bills…people have wrung out all the conservation they can…the real issue is stop sending all the water to the ocean for a fish that does not exist anymore…the reservoirs are not filling even though we had big rain & snow events this year…we had plenty of water..the control freaks want to control it all and give it to the environmentalist!
Leslie
1 day ago
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Exactly.
The Calfiornia Water Board runs off millions of gallons of water from our reservoirs that were designed to hold 5 years or so of water to bridge the drier years. Running that off for another salmon, and they then tell us we are in a drought. This is stupidity. All to please fringe, far out there liberal environmental groups who all grift off the money.
Katy Grimes has written a lot about this over the years – try this to get started http://www.flashreport.org/blog/2016/03 ... s-heat-up/
Michele Yendall
1 day ago−
Six states besides California depend upon the Colorado River. Yet California is the number one consumer and has more regulation to limit the river’s use. All the while, increasing use in California 40%+ each year.
Rebe Moo
1 day ago−
They’ve all sold their souls to the devil.
The minions following the orders of the ones who created and paid for this mess will be the ones crying about it in the end, because they will see they WILL not be given preferential treatment, but instead be corralled like the rest of the useless eaters.
kreisenauer
1 day ago−
Love it!
c10jim
1 day ago−
Go dems go! California is circling the drain and they keep voting for the same stupidity. Go dems!
destroy, destroy, destroy!
Joe SD
1 day ago−
This is what happens when you have a donkey for governor… Newsom = donkey
craigchaney97
1 day ago−
Wake up western states.
You don’t have water!
What are you going to do to get it?
Money will NOT buy water!
Wake up!
Eve Saint
1 day ago−
Do people realize the obvious? It’s right under our noses.
They’re dismantling agriculture.
They’re dismantling energy systems.
They’re dismantling logistical infrastructure, and so much more.
They’re deconstructing civilization.
Worldwide!
Perhaps they don’t expect to need to provide energy, food, water and services to 8 or 9 billion people in the future?
Regina Mecco
1 day ago
−
They expect the population to be reduced by 90%. They think they will win. God has other plans.
J. D.
1 day ago−
Maybe Bi-dung will give all our grain to China?
Anne M Erskine
1 day ago−
LARRY ELDER would have been a terrific governor but the California idiots let Gruesome Newsom REIGN TERROR again – SO…?
TL
1 day ago−
Don’t forget big ag and all the nut trees planted in the desert of western san joaquin valley and everywhere else in the state high dollar export crops.
No Upside
1 day ago−
Almost nothing is insurmountable if the government WANTS to do something. They are just screwing with people as always.
Anne M Erskine
1 day ago
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Exactly right. Whenever McConnell said: “WE Can’t do that,” he meant WE WON’T DO THAT.
mdiannemc
1 day ago−
They need to control the underbrush also.
They never do the reasonable thing.
Californians should take neither laying down.
jon brough
1 day ago−
Oregon is taking lesions from the water managers from the Colorado River and California. Oregon Water Relaxation Board. That is truly what they should be called for OWRD has thorn away Oregon water law by only enforcing OWRD policy. And the is a HUGE difference between the two.
michelle anderson
1 day ago−
California’s government is committing suicide.
Marda Kaiser
1 day ago
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I wish!
NavyVet
1 day ago
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No, they are murdering the people.
RH
1 day ago−
I am convinced that deep down, many of these “environmentalists” just want to see the world burn down.
AZPat
1 day ago−
Funny how green policies result in desertification.
J.P.M.
1 day ago−
Carlsbad, California purchased a desalination plant for under $ 1 billion and it’s producing 50 MILLION gallons of water a day. Does not have any negative effects on the marine life.
Yet instead of building 10 desalination plants they are building a train to nowhere at over $$$10 billion dollars.
rdwisecarver
1 day ago
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They have to clear the train right of way by burning everything in its path first.
craigchaney97
1 day ago
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You are aware that it takes electricity to desalinate water?
Where is the electricity coming from to do this.
Everything is connected.
ST
22 hours ago
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I think Piglosi secured federal funds (EVERY Americans’ tax dollars) to partially fund the train. I wonder how much she made in kickbacks off that deal.
J.P.M.
1 day ago−
California’s mismanagement on everything.
donkey
donkey