We Can Solve the Water “Crisis” in 3 Easy Steps

We Can Solve the Water “Crisis” in 3 Easy Steps
California has enough water. Surprised?

by Tony Bogar, Friends of the River

We hear endlessly about the “water crisis.” Politicians like Gov. Schwarzenegger and Sen. Feinstein are pushing to build more dams, at a cost of several billions dollars each. Even the Peripheral Canal has resurfaced as a solution to our crisis. But do we really need to pile on to the state’s debt and wait decades for these “solutions” to be built? Isn’t there a quicker, cheaper, smarter answer to our problems?

Let’s be clear. California certainly faces major water challenges like global warming and increased demand. So some people are rushing to build dams – expensive 19th century solutions to 21st century problems. We don’t need solutions that are expensive, destructive, and useless. A little common sense shows us that the real answers to our problems are easy, efficient, and smart.

Why Dams Don’t Work

Dams are expensive. Dams today are the most expensive option for water, costing billions of dollars each to build and maintain. Taxpayers could end up paying a bill that’s almost 50 times – yes, 50 times! – the cost of smarter solutions.

Dams are destructive. California already has lost 90% of our river environment. We have lost 95% of our salmon and steelhead habitat. Our commercial fisheries – and the communities they once supported – are barely hanging on as it is. Building more dams will only destroy more rivers and more fisheries.

Dams are useless. California already has 1400 dams on our rivers. As a practical matter, there is very little water to collect behind new dams anymore. According to the state, new dams would provide even less reliable water than cloud seeding!

Why Common Sense Does Work

Saving water is easy. Conservation really does work. California has cut its per capita water use by 50% over the past 40 years, even as the state has boomed. Simply using the tools we already have – like new appliances and drip irrigation – we can easily cut our water use another 20% and still support a growing population and even bigger economy.

Recycling water is efficient. Why spray clean, clear drinking water on our golf courses and median strips? We can use the rainwater than runs into our storm drains and recycle our wastewater. Through reclamation and recycling statewide we can save enough drinking water each year for 1.5 million households – roughly all of Los Angeles.

Storing water is smart. Every year enough water for almost 3 million households – one-quarter of all the households in California – disappears into thin air behind our existing dams. It’s much smarter to store our water underground, by allowing it to seep into the water table. In fact, we already store enough water underground to fill Hetch Hetchy 15 times over – and there’s room for much, much more.

These 3 Easy Steps easily beat billion-dollar dams and canals.

Tony Bogar works with Friends of the River, California’s statewide river conservation group (http://www.friendsoftheriver.org).





REFERENCE NOTES

· Dams cost as almost 50 times that of others comes from State Water Plan 2005.
· Conservation figures taken from Pacific Institute
· Population and households figures taken from U.S. Census Bureau State & County Quick Facts. · Usage is based on a generous one acre foot per household per year. The Water Education Foundation says an average household uses between one-half and one acre foot per year. An acre foot equals 326,000 gallons, about enough to cover a football field with one foot of water.
· Recycling capacity taken from “Recycling Water 2030: Recommendations of California’s Water Recycling Task Force,” 2003.
· Hetch Hetchy capacity of 360,000 acre feet taken from California Department of Water Resources.