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Southern Sierran
Saving Water is not Saving California
BY DOUGLAS KENTAs
a resident of thirsty Southern California, it’s a good bet that over
the past 20 years you’ve changed your lifestyle to conserve water, all
with the intention of protecting the environment, saving money, and –
perhaps most importantly – securing a healthy future for your children
and generations to come.
But guess what? You’ve saved water, but
your efforts to save Southern California have failed. The water you’ve
diligently conserved has not been channeled back to its upstream
sources. Instead, it’s been funneled to new development with little
regard for the environment.
Jeff Kightlinger, General Manager of
the Metropolitan Water District (MWD), says “We’re creating the
equivalent of a new river with conservation…” And Bob Muir, MWD’s
senior spokesperson, states “we will capture enough water for 5 million
new Californians in the next 20 years.”
MWD is Southern
California’s water wholesaler and within their service area, which
covers 6 counties and about 18.5 million people, water use per capita
has fallen from 219 gallons a day in 1989 to 183 in 2003. Long Beach
Water Department proudly boasts that they are one of the most frugal
cities in the nation, using a mere 121 gallons per capita. Irvine Ranch
Water District proclaims that “we are doing twice as much (as before)
with the same amount of imported water.”
Most of the water saved
in Southern California flows back to MWD, because importing their water
is more expensive for water retailers than harvesting local supplies.
All told, MWD is expecting to free 900,000 acre feet of water a year,
which is a tremendous amount; one acre foot is enough to meet the needs
of two families of four for a year.
The California Native Plant
Society, Sierra Club and Surfrider Foundation say that water
conservation trims carbon outputs (improving air quality), reduces
runoff, saves money, and importantly, protects those ecologically
diverse environments where our water comes from.
Yet since 1990,
when the new river of conservation began to rise, there have been no
widespread, measurable ecological benefits. Instead, our environment
(ocean, air, land), personal health, and even our pocket books have
been seriously eroded – all due to the surging population buoyed by the
rising tide of conservation.
Southern California has added 3.375
million new residents since 1990, and the California Association of
Governments reports that we grow by about 300,000 people a year. This
urbanization has had a measurable and widespread impact.
The
levels of storm water runoff have increased to a point where it is now
being blamed for thousands of marine mammal deaths and a 54% leap in
respiratory related ailments with ocean swimmers. In May (2007)
Southland air quality officials asked the President and Governor to
declare a state of emergency in response to the 5.400 premature deaths
and 980,000 lost work days due to poor air quality. And according to
the State of California’s Division of Land Resource Protection, between
1992- 2004 MWD’s six counties paved approximately 179,644 acres of
farmland, grazing range, and natural habitat.
And finally, and
most surprisingly, saving water has not saved us money. Wholesale water
costs have soared 256% between 1980 and 2003, while inflation only
increased by 123% and gasoline by 129%. According to Tim Blair, a
spokesperson for MWD, this enormous increase is due, in part, to
developing the infrastructure needed for the swelling population.
The
water Southern Californians save goes to emerging communities and new
development – not the environment. MWD does not voluntarily push the
water back to its natural, upstream source.
Southern Californians
that have saved water for environmental reasons must now demand that
our water truly goes to the environment – that it is used for smarter
and denser growth; that it gets sent to urban ecosystems and public
parks; that it is used to preserve and support urban agriculture; or at
the very least, that our water gets sent back to its natural source.
Water
conservation seems intuitively natural, and maybe it can have all the
benefits promoted by environmentalists, but the direction in which the
savings flow must change. Until that happens, however, saving water is
not saving California’s environment.
If you would like to work on
these water issues, contact Maddalena Serra at Maddalena.Serra@sierraclub.org or at 213-387- 4287, x 210.
Douglas
Kent is an environmental/garden writer and his latest book, CPR:
Creating Gardens and Properties that Breathe Life into the Nation’s
Waterways, will be out in summer 2008.
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