Plan for dams dries up
Officials no longer scouting sites
San Joaquin Record - 7/7/03
By Audrey Cooper, staff writer

A top state water official said last week that his department no longer is scouting new dam sites. Environmentalists and farmers have known for years that building new dams in California would cost lots of money and generate lots of controversy.
But the halt to scouting dam sites is the most-forceful acknowledgment to date that the era of major dam building is over.

A plan being drafted to meet California's water needs until 2030 will not include consideration of new government-built dams and reservoirs, said Jonas Minton, deputy director of the Department of Water Resources.

The only water-storage sites that will be part of the California water plan are relatively small storage projects already being studied by the CALFED Bay-Delta Program.

"It doesn't make sense to spend taxpayer money looking at less-feasible alternatives until we first test these out. And even those options would be difficult to construct," Minton said.

"We are not looking at any others as part of the state water plan," he said.

Instead of drawing from new mountain reservoirs, the state hopes to get extra water primarily by promoting conservation, desalination of ocean water, water recycling and storing any extra water in aquifers.

In the end, that means that by 2030, California will have 50 percent more people but only 10 percent more usable water.

"Both the urban areas in Southern California and the Bay Area use about the same amount of water now as they did 10 years ago, despite all the growth there," Minton said.

"We're becoming more efficient all the time. It's definitely possible," he said.

Although the water plan won't be released for six months, some farmers are already afraid that agriculture will be sucked dry under the plan.

Increasingly, parched cities are buying water from farmers, who have discovered that their water often is worth more than the food they can grow.

State policy-makers "don't want to do anything inconvenient to the urban areas, and they don't want to make the environmentalists mad," said Alex Hildebrand, a Manteca farmer and member of the water-plan advisory committee.

"It's easier to take water from agriculture, disregarding the fact that it takes a lot of water to grow food. Fifty percent more people will need 50 percent more food," Hildebrand said.

Implicit in the state's water planning, Hildebrand said, is a prioritization of water needs that places urban and environmental uses over agriculture uses.

Furthermore, the state is all but ignoring the Legislature's order that planners examine how much water will be needed to grow more food, he said.

Minton and other water planners said farmers won't be left dry. More-efficient use of irrigation water could mean farmers plant more crops, Minton said.

"It may be in the end that the water-plan update recommends that urban areas invest in comparatively more-expensive (conservation) strategies, even though buying ag water would be cheaper," Minton said.

"The reason for that is California needs to retain its viable ag economy and community," he said.

Possibly as little as 5 percent of farm water would be transferred to urban uses by 2030, Minton said.

It's not always the urban takeover of water that worries farmers. Often, it's just getting what they've been promised.

Jim Snow, deputy general manager of the Fresno-based Westlands Water District, said his district rarely receives its share of water from various government agencies. At times, Westlands has fallowed land or bought water from other regions.

The few storage projects examined by CALFED and conservation efforts may not be enough to get Westlands a complete water allocation, Snow said.

CALFED is a state and federal effort to restore the Bay-Delta ecosystem while ensuring reliable water deliveries.

"We may need to bring some (storage) projects back and look at them again. Maybe we shouldn't limit it to what CALFED has on the table," Snow said.

He added that the 2030 water plan isn't the final word. The plan, also known as Bulletin 160, is rewritten every five years.

"We wouldn't necessarily say that this is the end of the story," Snow said.

Environmental groups involved in the water plan acknowledge there has been a shift in how the state views its water needs.

"In the past, there was the supply and there was the demand. When there was a gap, they would say, 'Let's build dams,' " said Spreck Rosekrans with Environmental Defense.

"Now we're looking at what the gap actually means. Usually, it just meant that someone wanted more water, not that they were willing to pay for more than was available."

Betsy Reifsnider, executive director of the conservation group Friends of the River, said the water-planning process finally has recognized that building dams isn't the only way to find water.

"It has meant looking at the whole issue of California's water in a more integrated and intelligent way," she said.

The first complete draft of the California water plan is expected in late December. For information on the planning effort, go to www.waterplan.water.ca.gov.