OT Just how bad is the drought? Just curious OT

...EXCESSIVE HEAT WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 11 AM PDT /11 AM
MST/ SATURDAY TO 11 PM PDT /11 PM MST/ THURSDAY...

While there has been a great deal of research and debate over the environmental impacts and cost effectiveness of surface water storage projects, there has been little consideration of the more fundamental question of their practical feasibility—in particular, the time required from project initiation to completion. This is critically important, for it will determine when and if these projects actually make a difference to water users. This report fills that gap, detailing the time commitment associated with designing, analyzing, and implementing recent major surface water storage projects.

Our key finding is that most major surface water storage projects seriously considered since 2000 have not been completed and may never be.

Among the eight projects evaluated in California since 2000, only two have been completed. Both of those expanded already existing storage facilities and still required about twelve years for permitting, approvals, and planning, followed by about two years for project construction. Including the other CALFED projects still under consideration, recent major surface storage projects have required almost fifteen years (and counting) for the permitting and analysis phase. No new major surface storage facility has been constructed in the state during this timeframe, despite millions spent on feasibility studies and environmental documentation.

These long project timelines reflect the multiple assessments and permitting requirements necessary to ensure the feasibility, safety, and financial viability of the storage facilities. Many different laws and political/financial concerns contribute to the long timelines, meaning that there is no silver bullet for shortening schedules. And it would be inadvisable for other reasons to remove any of these requirements.

This would be the death of Owens Valley.

They get vast amounts of support from LA.

The shortage of water has been the primary retardant on massive scale development on the Eastside.

How so?

Watching a progressive water platform for the San Joaquin Valley take shape.


I am seeing more local newspaper op-eds opposing the San Joaquin Valley water dogma than I ever have before. Part of it is about replacing Nunes, but it also opens the door for new ways of thinking about water If this is the work of the local resistance, you guys are doing a great job. They are feeling the pressure.

The longstanding water dogma of the San Joaquin Valley has been narrow. The premise is that farmers need more (extracted from the environment), and the only other lens for water policy is farmworker jobs. I don’t pay as much attention to the water quality news stories, but I don’t remember many of them from the Valley before 2011-2016 drought, even during the 2006-2009 drought. Post drought, I’m seeing a few topics emerge:

Drinking water supply in rural Valley towns. (Related: longstanding racism, paying for ongoing O&M for water treatment, nitrates in the groundwater, arsenic standards, special district consolidations). This is getting well-deserved attention, primarily because of the local organizing done over the past several years.

Urban water quality in Fresno, particularly fear of lead poisoning.

SGMA implementation, including the formation of water markets and who will have access when Groundwater Sustainability Plans are being written.

Having living rivers in the region, with access for everybody.

These are all relatively undeveloped issues, from a statewide policy perspective.

I am sure locals have been aware and working on these for decades, but at my remove, I haven’t heard anything on water policy out of the San Joaquin Valley besides the standard clichés.

Further, these issues are tremendously susceptible to the wonder powers of the progressive left: community organizing, developing policy based on science, and throwing money at problems.

Imagine if Nunes and Valdao had spent any effort on these or had brought home any money towards these objectives? The few issues they have harped on for years are deadlocked; the discussion around them played to exhaustion.

I am inspired by the new themes emerge in the Fresno Bee, the Visalia Times-Delta, the Hanford Sentinel. I greatly admire Lois Henry’s work at Bakersfield.com.

The local community organizing on drinking water done during the drought is bearing fruit now.

There are concrete bills and proposals that California can implement (imagine if the State had constructive local Congressmembers to work with). The Resistance to Trump is opening new arenas for progressive work on Valley water. I love to see it. Please let me know if I can help.

Long foreseeable.

Three weeks after the tunnels received a crucial green light from federal environmental regulators, the $17.1 billion project got a cool reception from nearly 100 growers who farm in the powerful Westlands Water District. Provided with detailed financial projections at a Westlands board meeting for the first time, the farmers suggested they aren’t ready to sign onto the plan.

Investment bankers from Goldman Sachs & Co. said debt repayment could balloon farmers’ water costs to as much as $495 an acre-foot under the most expensive scenario, or about triple what Westlands growers currently pay. …

“My initial thought, right off the bat, is no way this will work,” the tomato and almond farmer said in an interview. “Those numbers might work for a city, Metropolitan and them. For a farmer, none of the crops that I grow can support these numbers.”

I am sorry these farmers are only hearing about these estimates now. The cost range for this water has been available knowledge for half a decade now. We’ve known for years that tunnel water wouldn’t be agricultural water.

This is another illustration of how dedication to ideology over reality is penalizing the conservative farmers of the San Joaquin Valley. The rough price range for water out of the Delta tunnels has been known for almost a decade. Wise district managers should have relayed this reality to their farmers. Messrs. Neve and Bourdeau should not be learning about this now.

Instead, the leadership at Westlands continued to pander to the fantasy of additional new low cost water. Over the years they’ve paid millions into the BDCP planning effort. (In the end, that may end up being a subsidy for the cities that can take water from a small tunnel alternative.) I don’t know why Westlands management didn’t explain to their farmers years ago that it was time to cut their losses. One unflattering possibility is that they were more willing to throw their growers’ money at a project that wasn’t going to deliver ag water than they were to challenge the conservative water management philosophy of the region. Another unflattering possibility is that the district managers and lobbyists enjoy the lifestyle that their growers support, and aren’t going to tell them unpleasant truths until they absolutely must. Either would explain bringing in outsiders from Goldman Sachs to explain the real costs of the Delta tunnels. In either explanation, the management and leadership at Westlands aren’t working in their growers’ best interests. Even if their growers demand it, perpetuating the fantasy of additional low cost water will not give them the knowledge they need to plan for their farms in the long term.