DISCOURSE
have these legal rules but they reflect
underlying policies, underlying values
and so when I teach about water and
water rights, I want people to recognize
that the rules themselves aren’t as im-
portant as the choices we’re making. are laudable. We’re also moving in the
direction of better planning around
conservation and efficiency.
How did the historic drought of
2012-14 change the conversation
related to water in California? If I had to pick one, I would say ad-
dressing climate change. Climate
change has a number of implications
— rising temperatures, decreased
snowpack, shorter and more intense
wet seasons, changes in precipitation,
sea-level rise — (that) are already
affecting water management in Cali-
fornia. We have less snow and earlier
snowmelt and higher winter runoff,
essentially warmer and more intense
droughts, so we need to be thinking
differently and planning differently.
But our current water infrastructure is
not … able to accommodate this level
of change. Most of our reservoirs were
built more than 50 years ago, and they
were designed for the past hydrology,
not the hydrology with climate change.
So we need to do a number of things.
One key thing is to increase storage in
our groundwater basin. We also need
to invest strategically in infrastructure
improvements and make better use of
technology. … We also need reliable
sources of funding, and that is going to
require addressing challenges in fund-
ing mechanisms at the local level, and
increasing state funding as well.
I would say there are two other
major issues. One is drought pre-
paredness. One of the conversations
that is occurring right now is around
bills (Assembly Bill 1668 and Senate
Bill 606) that were adopted in 2018 to
increase conservation and efficiency.
These laws directed our state Water
Resources Control Board to adopt
long-term standards for efficient
water use by June of 2022. This overall
framework requires our water supplies
to achieve a standard of indoor water
use of 55 gallons per person per day,
which will drop incrementally to 50
gallons beginning in 2030. One of the
interesting things here is the role that
One of the things we have not done very
well in this state is to talk about water
when we are not in a state of crisis. ... We
need to remember that drought is not an
exceptional occurrence in California.
Because of our Western climate, most of
the current population couldn’t live or
work in most areas of the state without
our reservoir system to store water and
systems that move water. In this state, in
this arid climate, our cycles of drought
and flood are completely normal. It’s ex-
pected that in dry years and dry seasons
you’re just not going to have enough
water coming down from the mountains
as snowmelt, into the rivers and into the
groundwater basins, to serve all of the
needs. But we have so many different
needs in the state — drinking water for
health and safety, economic health,
jobs, housing, food, enviro, recreation,
ecosystems, biodiversity, the list goes
on. We need to understand that we can’t
be reactive just during drought, we need
to be planning for drought during times
of plenty.
Historically, some of the biggest
changes have come during drought
periods because we see it as a crisis
and that brings energy to political
leadership. A couple of examples that
came out of the last drought include
the Sustainable Groundwater Manage-
ment Act of 2014, which was a historic
event to bring a statewide perspective to
groundwater management that had pre-
viously been missing. Another example
is there is more attention on the plight
of disadvantaged communities who lack
the infrastructure and funding needed
to have a safe, reliable, accessible water
supply. So those two accomplishments
22
comstocksmag.com | May 2020
What is the biggest domestic water
law issue we’re facing in California?
rumor and inaccurate portrayals in the
media play in people’s understanding
(of these laws). Some people believe
that people are going to be limited to 55
gallons per day in their home and will
have to dramatically cut — we always
want to encourage conservation and
efficiency in the home; conservation as
a way of life is important. But the fact
is the way this is going to work is the 55
gallons per person per day will be an
average across the water supplier, and
there’s a number of ways to achieve
that, including addressing efficiencies
with outdoor residential water use,
decreasing water loss due to leaks. …
(This) will result in an overall water use
target per supplier, not per household.
… One of the related conversations that
we had in the last drought that we’ll
have to tackle going forward … is how
we regulate water suppliers around the
question of conservation. During the
last drought, conservation standards
were imposed on water suppliers, they
were tiered water conservation targets,
but they weren’t adjusted based on
prior investment of the local water sup-
pliers in water conservation. So one of
the things we’re doing now is hoping to
connect the prior investments in water
conservation to the required conserva-
tion standards going forward.
The other issue … I would highlight
is our challenges to reach agreement
on the amount of flow that should
stay in-stream in river systems to
protect ecosystems and species and
water quality. In-stream flow wasn’t
a substantial consideration in our
initial water allocations in the state.
We now have a better understanding
of how important healthy ecosystems
are to our own health and to support
our economy and our own quality of
life. We need a healthy environment,
dynamic functioning ecosystems, high
water quality — these are economic
investments. They’re business assets
as much as they are about valuing the
idea of environment, which is (also)
important. So the challenge we have
is much of the available water in the