TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER? - Homes fill the curves of the Los Angeles
Aqueduct off Barrel Springs Road east of Sierra Highway on July 1 in Palmdale.
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Water needs pit north vs. south
Valley faces 80% reduction by next year
This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press
Sunday, July 27, 2008.
By LINDA LEE
Valley Press Staff Writer
When Realtors were marketing California City in the 1960s, they were not allowed to use the word "desert."
"We were the Antelope Valley," Public Works Director Michael Bevins said.
"We also have this wonderful lake, this beautiful golf course, and people would come and just be totally amazed with it." Trouble is, the marketing strategy was not based in reality.
"It was a fraud in the years of '65 and '70 and it's not changed at all."
Bevins wants to stop referring to the area as the Antelope Valley: "This is the desert; water doesn't exist here."
While Bevins' version may seem extreme, the reality for California is that two-thirds of its water originates in Northern California, while 80% of the demand is in the southern two-thirds of the state.
Farmers compete for water with residents, businesses and industry, while environmentalists keep new storage and distribution systems in check to protect sensitive environments.
Next year, local water experts are predicting that the half of the Valley water supply coming through the California Aqueduct will be reduced by 80%.
Kern County Supervisor Don Maben is so worried about how the cuts will affect the economy, he called a water summit nine days ago to discuss strategies with local city and water officials. Palmdale Water District has called its own water briefing for this week.
"You remember what happened in 1990? The housing market collapsed, the savings and loans failed … the economy here in the Valley, in the high desert in general, suffered greatly from those results, and, as Yogi Berra said, it's déj**** vu all over again: We have a state budget that's in the tank, the housing market is gone, financial institutions are failing," Maben said.
In addition, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proclaimed a statewide drought. Court-ordered restrictions on pumping water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta into the California Aqueduct are reducing the amount of water that is coming to the Valley.
Water from the California Aqueduct has allowed California, the eighth-largest economy in the world, to flourish into the most populous state in the country. It is also the nation's leading supplier of food.
State and federal water projects supply water to 25 million Californians and 7 million acres of farmland. The Colorado River basin, which is in its eighth year of drought, supplies up to one-third of Southern California's water supply.
In 1960, voters approved financing for construction of the State Water Project, which includes 22 dams and reservoirs, and a Delta pumping plant.
The State Water Project, which is controlled by the state Department of Water Resources, began to deliver water from Northern California through the California Aqueduct in the 1970s.
Twenty-seven water agencies contract for state water supplies, including the Antelope Valley-East Kern Water Agency, Palmdale Water District and Littlerock Creek Irrigation District, which all serve customers in the Antelope Valley.
In addition to water from the aqueduct, the Antelope Valley gets water pumped from wells.
Most of the well water originates in the mountains around the Antelope Valley. Runoff from the snowpack flows down Littlerock Creek, Big Rock Creek and other creeks and washes to percolate into the underground basin.
It is from that groundwater basin that public and private water agencies pump water for homes, businesses, agriculture and other uses.
Residents in rural areas not served by a water district or private water company pump water from individual wells.
In addition to pumping groundwater, Palmdale Water District and Littlerock Creek Irrigation District also have access to water from Littlerock Reservoir, which may be one of the few reservoirs in the state to be full this year.
Although water agencies contract with the state for a specific amount of imported water annually, the amount they are allowed to take from the California Aqueduct varies each year according to the density of the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada mountains in Northern California.
Snowmelt flows into the northern portion of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, the largest estuary on the West Coast, which is then pumped out and sent to Southern California.
Man-made levees along the Delta protect it from saltwater intrusion, which keeps the water more drinkable and also protects surrounding farmland. But the levees, built during the Gold Rush days, are in danger of failing.
"Do you know what would happen if we lose a levee?" Lancaster Vice Mayor Ron Smith asked. "The inundation of salt water would destroy our water supply completely."
"We rely on imported water from the State Water Project and as we've seen, the amount of water we can get from the aqueduct can go up and down at the stroke of a judge's pen, let alone the rainfall and snowfall," Lancaster City Councilman Ed Sileo said.
"This is not a city of Lancaster problem, it's not a Los Angeles County problem, it's not even a state of California problem. It's the southwestern United States and now we're seeing other parts of the country are suffering drought," Sileo said.
Global warming, the aging levees and increasing environmental challenges surrounding the fragile Delta ecosystem are affecting the state's water reliability.
After California's driest spring on record, Lake Shasta, the state's largest reservoir, is at 48% capacity; Lake Oroville, the second-largest reservoir, is at 40% capacity, the lowest amount in more than 30 years.
"The likely allotments for state and federal water are going to be very, very low next year because storage will be at historic low levels," said Timothy Quinn, executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies.
"Next year, the water agencies that have got water stored south of the Delta are going to have to watch how much they use it, because they don't know for sure when this is going to end," Quinn said.
California Aqueduct
The State Water Project begins at Oroville Dam on the Feather River and sends water 444 miles through the state to Lake Perris near Riverside.
In the Tehachapi Mountains near Gorman, water is pumped 2,000 feet over the mountains, continuing its journey through 10 miles of tunnels and siphons that cross the mountain range into Southern California.
The aqueduct divides into east and west branches east of Gorman, and the Antelope Valley is served by the east branch.
The State Water Project, operated by the state Department of Water Resources, is a major source of water for Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego and other parts of Southern California. It also provides water to farms in the San Joaquin Valley.
Other California communities are delivered water through the North Bay Aqueduct, Coastal Aqueduct and South Bay Aqueduct. Much of Southern California gets water from the Colorado Aqueduct, which crosses the state's southern deserts from the Colorado River.
Competition is expected to increase among water users for any additional water supplies.
"There's a lot of folks in Northern California that want to see the water even more severely cut to Southern California," said Russ Fuller, general manager of the Antelope Valley-East Kern Water Agency.
AVEK, a water wholesaler, purifies and sells water to more than 20 municipal users as well as Edwards Air Force Base and U.S. Borax. It also supplies water directly to about 20 farmers.
With boundaries extending more than 2,400 miles, AVEK is the third-largest contractor of the State Water Project, behind the Metropolitan Water District and the Kern County Water Agency.
AVEK treats aqueduct water at plants in Acton, Rosamond, Quartz Hill and southeast of the Valley between Littlerock and Pearblossom. The treatment plants are capable of providing water to a combined 401,000 consumers.
The agency has more than 100 miles of pipelines. It has four 8 million-gallon water storage reservoirs near Mojave, and one 3 million-gallon reservoir at Vincent Hill Summit near Acton.
Fuller is expecting water agencies to be cut back next year to 10% of the water they are allowed to receive from the aqueduct, compared to a typical figure of 60% to 70%.
AVEK is shopping for more water, but given all the other competitors that are looking for that water as well, Fuller said he doesn't expect much success.
"It's going to be very, very expensive, but you know when you don't have water, price is always relative," Fuller said.
A 10% allocation for AVEK is 14,500 acre-feet, enough water for about that many families in Antelope Valley for one year.
"If we're able to buy enough supplemental water, maybe to double that figure, or maybe even better than double, we'll feel pretty good for next year, but that's still a drastic cut from what people are used to," Fuller said.
Los Angeles County Waterworks District 40, which supplies water to most of Lancaster and west Palmdale, is one of AVEK's biggest buyers, but also pumps water from wells.
The district has relied on water from AVEK for the past 10 years, when it's available, conserving its groundwater supplies.
"We use water conservation aggressively, then when the time comes to rely on groundwater supply, we reverse this process," said Adam Ariki, assistant division chief for Los Angeles County Waterworks.
The Waterworks District has over the last several years supplied its customers about 60,000 acre-feet a year, of which two-thirds comes from AVEK, Lancaster Public Works Director Randy Williams said.
"If we experience a cutback in AVEK supplies to 10% of their contract value, Waterworks District will get 8,000, maybe 8,500 acre-feet," enough to serve about 8,500 homes, Williams said.
"That's a far cry from the 40,000 acre-feet they normally get. ... They're not going to be restricted only to the 8,500 acre-feet, but they are going to be restricted to about 50% of what they had been serving for the past number of years," he said.
Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich has asked the governor's staff to treat the water crisis as an emergency similar to the 1994 Northridge earthquake that wrecked freeways around Southern California.
A Metrolink system was up and running within four months in the Antelope Valley and collapsed freeways were rebuilt within 10 months.
"We rebuilt those in record time and I don't think anybody suffered from that," said Norm Hickling, field deputy to Antonovich.
Antonovich has asked the governor's office to review environmental requirements "so we can build these structures in a much more expedited and more cost-effective manner instead of waiting years and years and spending hundreds of millions of dollars to try to put these conveyance systems in place," Hickling said.
Quinn, the executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies, said water officials across the state realize "we have not had a crisis this severe in any of our careers, nothing since the big systems were built back in the middle of the 20th century."
"Our water management tools have been compromised by the inadequate system to deal with fishery issues. Some parts of California will have ample supplies, but it will be more difficult than it used to be to go up and acquire some of that to move it across the Delta where people are short," he said.
In the meantime, Quinn said, Californians will need to conserve more than they realize. "The only way to balance demand and supply is to knock those demand numbers down."
Across the state, communities will implement much stronger conservation measures, and many are likely to adopt mandatory rationing, he said.
But as a long-term solution to ensuring reliable water supplies, Quinn said it will be important to put a bond before California voters to pay for new water facilities. One of those solutions may involve building a new canal, usually called the peripheral canal, around the Delta to move water from Northern California to the Southland, he said.
"In the end, we only escape the high level of conflict we're dealing with today by fixing the system that's broken," he said.
"Our infrastructure pits our economy and the environment against one another and it demands to be fixed."
Across socio-demographic and geographic lines, polls indicate 80% of Californians believe there is a serious water crisis, he said. When asked if the bonds should be put on hold because the economy is bad and the state is in too much debt, 60% responded "no," recognizing that it's a crisis that requires immediate action, Quinn said.
"Even Republicans are saying that they would strongly vote for a water bond," he said.
Quinn said he expects discussion of a peripheral canal to be controversial; it was rejected by voters in 1982.
"But in 1982, when the people voted on a peripheral canal, that was a canal about moving lots more water south into Southern California swimming pools. This time around virtually everyone recognizes that an investment in a canal is an investment in environmental sustainability," he said.
Claude Seal, assistant manager of the Rosamond Community Services District, cited three major elements to resolving the water supply problem: "Finding the water volume that you need and being willing to pay the price for it; being able to transport the water from Northern California to your usage area, and the storage of that water for usage in the future."
"Water is available if you're willing to pay upwards of $500 to $1,000 per acre-foot to buy the water and that's just for this year," Seal said.
"In all probability you're looking at multiple thousands of dollars in the not-to-distant future for water when it's available," Seal said. "Even though the State Water Contractors are trying to put something of a control on the purchase price of water quantities, you still have too many independent entities out there who say, 'I'll bid higher for that water.' "
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