Planning for "smart growth" must include planning for water—demand, supply, infrastructure, competing uses. This topic was discussed by speakers at a January forum on "Smart Growth: What's Water Got to Do With It?", sponsored by the League of Women Voters of the Bay Area, and at a February conference of the California Studies Association, "Outgrowing California: Where is the Boom Taking Us?"
The background for these discussions is summarized well in the Critical Water Shortage Contingency Plan recently issued by the Governor's Advisory Drought Planning Panel. The plan describes changes in water management conditions in California since the 1987-92 drought, challenges to water management during water shortages, and the panel's recommendations for reducing impacts of future "critical water shortages".
Many of the challenges to effective water management are present to some degree at all times. Factors such as population growth may move the state toward critical water shortages even without the adverse weather conditions that result in a drought. New development brings new demand for water for domestic uses, industrial processes, services, landscaping, and firefighting.
One important aspect of growth in California is that it is taking place in areas which are hotter and drier than previously urbanized areas. For the state, this is the Central Valley; for the region, it is eastern Solano, Contra Costa and Alameda Counties, and the areas south of San Jose. Contra Costa Supervisor John Gioia told the League audience that "smart growth" land use decisions which re-direct growth to under-utilized land in the inner Bay Area communities can save on water use, because many of these communities have weather patterns which allow them to use less water for landscaping and recreational use. Infill development also makes better use of existing water infrastructure, he noted.
Coupled with the increase in population and the shift to development in drier areas is a decrease in the historically available water supply for urban and agricultural water users during normal rainfall years, due to regulatory and statutory requirements at both the state and federal level. Most have been enacted to create greater environmental protections for fish and wildlife or to improve water quality in the Delta. While the changes affect primarily Central Valley agriculture and southern California water users, they include the 1998 agreement which reduced the East Bay Municipal Utility District's (EBMUD) available water supply from the Mokelumne River to provide for increased instream flows.
Larry Kolb, Principal Engineer and Assistant Executive Officer of the San Francisco Regional Water Quality Control Board, told the League forum that the majority of the water in the state is allocated to agriculture, although the value of crops grown with this water is a relatively small percentage of the state's total economy. While Kolb feels that the state probably has enough water to meet its needs in the next decade, he predicts that difficulties will arise if those currently entitled to water, mainly agricultural interests, must share with those who don't have enough, such as environmental interests. According to Kolb, issues such as loss of fisheries and Delta subsidence are likely to reach a crisis point in the next 20 years, requiring new water use policies to address them.
For the Bay Area, these changes in supply and demand increase the need to incorporate water into "smart growth" planning. Keith Whitman, from the Santa Clara Valley Water District (SCVWD), described his agency's balancing act for the League forum. The SCVWD was formed to prevent further overdrafting of groundwater for agriculture, which had resulted in significant subsidence in the South Bay. Now, as agricultural uses decline in the county, water must be allocated to environmental needs, such as instream flows for salmon, while population and job growth are also increasing demand.
Changes in water planning already being considered include greater conservation, increased surface and groundwater storage, and water recycling. Cindy Darling of CALFED told the California Studies Association panel audience that CALFED is currently developing strategies on a regional basis throughout the state, including San Francisco Bay and the Delta. The initial emphasis is on water use efficiency and ecosystem restoration, although expanded storage facilities will be considered later.
Dana Haasz described the Pacific Institute's Sustainable Vision plan for the CSA panel. The plan recommends reducing agricultural use by changing cropping patterns, creating a groundwater plan to eliminate overdrafting, and improving irrigation efficiency. She noted that rice and cotton are high water users but produce low revenue, while fruit and nut crops, which produce high revenue, use relatively little water. (However, the state drought panel report is concerned that in some areas fruit and nut crops could pose a problem during a drought, because growers who would formerly forego planting rice or cotton might hesitate to lose a permanent planting of trees or vines.)
Haasz discussed other possible conservation measures, and using new technology to reduce urban water use, for example, by adapting a program used to automate and control agricultural irrigation based on weather conditions to use by individual households in a neighborhood.
Many of these ideas are already being implemented by local water districts, and are reflected in the water plans that large districts must prepare every five years for the state. The Urban Water Management Plan 2000 recently prepared by EBMUD describes that district's water supply planning. Storing Mokelumne River water in San Joaquin County groundwater aquifers for later use has proven technically feasible, but is dependent on county water export policies. The district has successfully tested a similar injection process near San Lorenzo and is proposing to construct a larger permanent groundwater storage facility to offset impacts of a drought.
Water conservation by EBMUD is currently planned to produce savings of 34 million gallons per day by 2020. Conservation programs proposed for FY2001 include joining a multi-agency study on individual meters for residents of multi-family housing, a follow-up study on water-saving hardware such as low-flow toilets, and a market penetration study to determine the extent to which this water-saving hardware is being used in the EBMUD service area. This study will address "demand hardening", referring to the fact that once water users have implemented certain conservation measures such as installing low-flow toilets, it is more difficult to find additional water savings in a future drought. EBMUD may also participate in a clotheswasher rebate program if there is an opportunity to partner with other water utilities in the state.
EBMUD anticipates a steady increase in the use of recycled water for industrial and commercial applications, and for landscape irrigation. The district is looking for opportunities to use recycled water for wetlands and wildlife enhancement, particularly in the East Bayshore Recycled Water Project proposed for Alameda, Albany, Berkeley, Emeryville and Oakland.
Although EBMUD does not anticipate injecting recycled water into the groundwater supply, or using groundwater as a source of potable water, other districts in the region have explored the potential for stretching water resources by adding reclaimed water to underground drinking water reserves. Larry Kolb told the League audience that, while reverse osmosis is technically capable of making reclaimed water safe for drinking, an associated issue which needs to be addressed is, "Why are we putting Sierra water on alfalfa and then using recycled wastewater for drinking?" One answer may be water exchanges or transfers between agencies, such as the Bay Area blending project (October/November 2000).
Rather than consider what water has to do with "smart growth", it might be just as reasonable to consider what "smart growth" has to do with water. For example, as urban growth moves into formerly agricultural areas, the average water use per acre remains approximately the same. However, during a drought, an area which could formerly save water by fallowing crops will now need to institute other water conservation programs which may save less water.
While water agencies such as EBMUD and SCVWD may be working on their own "smart" answers to the growth in their areas, without bridging the gap between water planning and land-use planning, their best efforts may fall short, with disastrous results in a drought year. Supervisor Gioia discussed the need to integrate information about potential water supply into decisions on major new development, and praised recent attempts to address this in the state legislature. Dana Haasz stressed that a major problem with water planning is lack of data. For example, how much water does a particular industry need? What will changes in a landscaping ordinance mean to local water use?
At the League forum, Will Travis, Executive Director of the Bay Conservation and Development Commission, noted that San Francisco Bay is now larger than it was when the agency was formed. However, he asked, "Why save the Bay and lose the region?" Planning for truly "smart growth" will develop and incorporate information about water along with other issues, such as social justice and regional equity, which have been omitted from the traditional planning process.
Leslie Stewart
For more information:
Critical Water Shortage Contingency Plan: copies are available from the Dept. of Water Resources, PO Box 942836, Sacramento, CA 94236-0001
EBMUD Urban Water Management Plan: Leo O'Brien, EBMUD, 510-287-1143, obrien@ebmud.com (similar plans are available from other large districts)
Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security, 510-251-1600, www.pacinst.org