California Expected to Set Mandatory Water Curbs
Reservoirs’ Water Levels Have Fallen to Less Than Half Their Capacities
By JIM CARLTON and JOEL MILLMAN CONNECT
Updated July 14, 2014 7:13 p.m. ET
California is poised to institute mandatory statewide water restrictions for the first time, as the impacts of a three-year drought continue to spread across the Golden State. WSJ’s Jim Carlton reports.
SAN FRANCISCO—California is poised to institute mandatory statewide water restrictions for the first time, as the impact of a three-year drought continues to spread across the Golden State.
The emergency measure expected to be approved Tuesday by the State Water Resources Control Board comes as reservoirs in California and elsewhere in the West have shriveled amid one of the worst droughts on record to hit the region. California’s Lake Oroville, for example, now stands at 39% of capacity, while Nevada’s Lake Mead, which serves as the biggest source of drinking water for the Southwest, has sunk to its lowest level since it began filling in the 1930s behind Hoover Dam.
The unprecedented action expected from California’s water board is possibly just a first step, officials say. It would ban practices such as allowing sprinkler water to run off lawns onto streets and washing cars without hoses equipped with a shut-off nozzle. Maximum penalties for violations by individuals would be $500, enforceable by local water agencies.
State and federal agencies already have sharply reduced water shipments in California, with farmers, ranchers and some cities in the northern part of the state taking the biggest hits.
Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, in January had called on all Californians to conserve voluntarily, with an aim of cutting use by 20%. A May survey of water agencies showed those efforts had yielded savings of only 5% statewide.
“There is a need for people to take more dramatic action,” said Felicia Marcus, chairwoman of the water board. “We are saying: ‘For heaven’s sake, don’t waste water.’ ”
Already, about 58 of the 440 local water districts represented by the Association of California Water Agencies have implemented some forms of mandatory restriction, according to the nonprofit trade group. Other agencies use tiered pricing, which penalizes heavy water users by charging more for excessive use.
The West’s drought has stranded a marina at Nevada’s Lake Mead, where water levels are historically low. Getty Images
The latest action is welcome, said Timothy Quinn, executive director of the association.
“This is a genuine crisis situation,” Mr. Quinn said. “The state board is appropriately trying to grab Californians by the lapels and saying, ‘This is an emergency.’ ”
While the restrictions focus on urban users, California’s $44.7 billion-a-year agriculture industry has already been severely affected by the drought. Reduced water shipments to farmers will result in $800 million in revenue losses this year in the Central Valley and the loss of 14,500 jobs, according to estimates by the Center for Watershed Sciences at the University of California, Davis.
Meanwhile, drought effects are being felt across the West. In Oregon, Gov. John Kitzhaber, a Democrat, has declared a state of emergency due to drought conditions for nine rural counties, starting in February in Klamath County, where dry conditions are contributing to a raging forest fire that since Sunday afternoon has destroyed as many as 20 structures.
Park authorities close a bridge to visitors at the Lake Mead National Recreation Area in Nevada. Last week, Lake Mead reservoir dropped to the lowest level it has been since the Hoover Dam was built. Getty Images
The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported in early June that the snowpack in southern Oregon, in areas that share a water basin with California, had peaked at less than 50% of normal capacity—and in some areas as little as 10%—and that much of that stored-water capacity had melted out weeks before summer’s start.
In Nevada, the dropping level of Lake Mead—at 1,081.8 feet above sea level on Monday, compared to historic levels of as high as 1,200 feet—threaten to render unusable one of two intake locations accessed by the Southern Nevada Water Authority to supply the Las Vegas area with water. The agency is racing to install a third water intake facility at 860 feet to augment the ones at 1,000 and 1,050 feet, but that $817 million project won’t be completed until next summer, said Bronson Mack, an authority spokesman.
Longer term, California and other drought-prone states will have to refocus on expanding their water infrastructure, such as creating more storage, to deal with prolonged dry spells, said Lori Anne Dolqueist, a San Francisco-based attorney who often works on water regulatory matters.
“Conservation by itself won’t be enough,” Ms. Dolquiest said.
http://online.wsj.com/articles/california-expected-to-set-mandatory-water-curbs-1405367707
Tags: drought, policy, water
