ebmgh.com

Missed this when it came out in 2002, but probably still relevant. From the EPA: Cases in Conservation, How Efficiency Programs Help Water Utilities Save Water and Avoid Costs. 54 pages. (PDF, 560K)

Californians will be hearing a lot more about “the Delta” in the months leading up to the November election, when we’ll be asked to approve borrowing $11 billion for various water projects, including $3 billion to “fix the Delta”. What is this place? Why does it need fixing?

The publishers of Bay Nature magazine recently published The Once and Future Delta which I highly recommend:

About the only thing people agree on about the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta–the subject of countless white papers, editorials, and political debates–is that it’s in a heap of trouble. But this 1,000-square-mile patchwork of islands, sloughs, wetlands, and farmlands is also a rich and complex–if highly altered–ecosystem at the core of the San Francisco Estuary. Here we take a look behind today’s news to understand what the Delta once was, how it has been changed, and what it might become… with a lot of help from its friends.

It is probably the best introduction to the region that I’ve seen. It is thoughtful, well-researched and written, and full of great photos. It also includes a great map, probably the best map of the Delta I’ve seen, made by the folks over at the GreenInfo Network (available as a 5-MB PDF).

I’m going to try to get copies of this publication to give out at my California water talks this summer and fall.

The US Geological Survey is the nation’s premiere earth sciences agency. I’ve long been impressed with their work in the water domain, having relied on data collected at their stream gages for many projects over the years. As I’m getting more interested in the science and policies of groundwater management lately, here is a collection of groundwater resources from the USGS:

• USGS Groundwater Information Pages: http://water.usgs.gov/ogw/
• Ground-Water Availability in the United States (2008). USGS Circular 1323.
• Water Budgets: Foundations for Effective Water-Resources and Environmental Management. (2007). USGS Circular 1308.
• Evolving Issues and Practices in Groundwater Resources Management. (2003). USGS Circular 1247.
• Groundwater Monitoring and the Importance of Long-Term Monitoring Data. (2001). USGS Circular 1217.
• Estimated withdrawals from principal aquifers in the United States, 2000. (2005) USGS Circular 1279, 46 p.
• Sustainability of Groundwater Resources. (1999) USGS Circular 1186.
• Groundwater & Surface Water: A Single Resource. (1998) USGS Circular 1139.
• Basic Groundwater Hydrology. (2005) USGS Water Supply Paper 2220.
• Groundwater Atlas of the United States (1999). Hydrologic Atlas 730.

There are seven months to go before the November elections, and Californian’s will be asked whether or not to we want to borrow $11 billion for a variety of state-financed water projects. In total, we’ll be paying back $800 million per year for the next 30 years. Here is a breakdown of what it will pay for, courtesy of the state’s Department of Water Resources (redrawn because, well, pie charts suck).

Environmental organizations so far are divided on the issue. Here is a list of environmental organizations with stated positions on the 2010 California water bond:

I’ll try to keep this post updated as organizations either endorse or condemn the ballot measure. If you have information to add, leave a comment or email me at mheberger@yahoo.com.

Notably, I have not read anything yet from Environmental Defense or the Natural Resources Defense Council. I specifically mention these two organizations because they endorsed last fall’s package of water bills, which included legislation enabling the water bond. I wonder if they later regretted it; by all accounts the bills got watered down and filled with pork in last-minute wrangling. (The bond was authorized by the state legislature last fall as part of a package of bills SBX 7-1, 7-2, 7-6, 7-7, and 7-8 (links point to the text of the bill and analyses at leginfo.ca.gov) The acronym stands for Senate Bill, Extraordinary Session. How come when I work overtime, nobody calls it extraordinary?)

The Pacific Institute is currently researching and writing a detailed analysis of the water bond with generous funding from the Sausalito-based Panta Rhea foundation. In any public expenditure, the benefits are of course, not shared equally by all, so we will be looking in detail at who is likely to benefit from the bond. This will be enough for many voters to decide to reject the bond. In the words of Wes Strickland, a water lawyer and thoughtful blogger, “I would agree that requiring the beneficiaries of water projects to pay makes economic, as well as environmental and political sense. That is the concept of “full-cost pricing” of water and wastewater services, which was previously incorporated into the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Four Pillars of Sustainable Infrastructure.” He gives more thoughts on the issue of “redistribution” in a previous post:

An incisive criticism of the water bond would focus on whether public benefit is achieved by collecting taxes from all Californians and then distributing the proceeds to specific projects around the state. While the $11.14 billion fund includes earmarks for many specific areas (sometimes called “pork”), it is clear that not all citizens will receive benefits from the bond proceeds. In addition, an intelligent argument could be made that the water bond will distort economic incentives to use water wisely, since the true cost of water will not be captured in utility rates, but will be hidden in unrelated taxes for many years to come. Those are significant policy questions that voters should consider when heading to the polls in November.

Related to this argument, Bay-Area voters may be uneasy about financing projects around the state, as they’ve already been asked to contribute to finance their own water infrastructure. In the last several years, water customers served by either the SFPUC or EBMUD have paid billions to upgrade and improve their water supply systems. We are paying for these improvements in the form of higher rates, now and in the future. In other words, these projects have local benefits, and were paid for locally. Why then, should we be asked to pay again for water projects that benefit other communities? Should they not raise their own funds, as we have?

For an easily-digestible official view of the water reform legislation, including the bond, take a look at this presentation given by Rick Soehren, Assistant Deputy Director of the Department of Water Resources in March at the Water Conservation Showcase organized by the US Green Building Council Northern California Chapter. Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot of information there about the SBX 7-2, the bill authorizing the bond, other than a pie chart from

According to the Mercury News of San Jose, “the proposition “was written largely by lobbyist Joe Caves.” He is characterized as “a key player behind previous water bonds” and someone who is “a master broker who brings together environmentalists, business groups and various parts of the state that often have very different interests.” (via ballotopedia). Interesting. I immediately assumed the worst about him, but according to his website, he represents a lot of environmental organizations that I respect (but don’t always agree with when it comes to water policy).

Sources:

Chisholm, Graham and Mike Sweeney, “Water bond needed to save delta”, Guest editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle. April 16, 2010. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/04/16/ED9C1CVBH8.DTL

“Open Letter to the Delegates of the California Democratic Party Convention,” April 16, 2010. http://www.pcl.org/files/NoWaterBond_DelegatesLetter.pdf

I haven’t seen much media coverage accompanying the release of California’s 2009 Water Plan Update, probably because this document was released with little fanfare, perhaps because it was a year late. California’s Department of Water Resources (DWR), which was created in the 1950s to plan and build the State Water Project, is required by the legislature to publish a “water plan” every 5 years. DWR released the first part of the 2009 Water Plan Update the released on March 31, 2010, and they say the rest will be published sometime this month.

Putting together such a large document, which is meant to include input from the public and other concerns, is no small task, especially when staff are required to take days off without pay to help alleviate the budget crisis. But perhaps it’s well worth waiting for? According to the state, “it is a blueprint for sustainability and forges a new direction for water management in California.”

The document appears to be less than half complete. Of the planned 5 volumes, only the first 2 are complete. Time to get reading and see what made it in here. This figure on page 4-21 shows how much water we’re using where:

Here are the locations of the 19 power plants in the state that are using once-through cooling. (See previous post for more information.) This information is from Table 1 on page 3 of the Proposed Water Quality Control Policy on the Use of Coastal and Estuarine Waters for Power Plant Cooling Substitute Environmental Document, which you can view or download here.

View California Power Plants Using Once-Through Cooling in a larger map

I’ve also made a KML file you can view in Google Earth: ca_otc.kml (6 K).

According to statistics published by the US Geological Survey, the majority of water use in the US is for cooling at power plants:

Thermoelectric-power generation water withdrawals were an estimated 201 billion gallons per day in 2005, about 3 percent more than in 2000. In 2005, thermoelectric freshwater withdrawals accounted for 41 percent of all freshwater withdrawals. Nearly all of the water withdrawn for thermoelectric power was surface water used for once-through cooling at power plants. Twenty-nine percent of thermoelectric-power withdrawals were saline water from oceans and brackish coastal water bodies.

Most of the water use is what hydrologists call a “non-consumptive use,” because the water is withdrawn from lakes, rivers, or the ocean, used in a closed loop in power plants for cooling, and returned to its source, usually a few degrees warmer. In other words, all of it is returned to the source, and none of it is consumed. According to an article in the San Luis Obispo Tribune:

Environmentalists say the practice destroys too much sea life, but utility advocates argue the impact is minimal.

Screens prevent larger animals from entering the plants, but fish can die while trapped against these barriers. Anything smaller than the openings in the screens, including millions of tiny fish larvae, can enter the power plants and also die.

Federal rules ban new operations from drawing in seawater for such cooling systems.

On March 24, California’s State Water Resources Control Board proposed a policy that would force the 19 power plants that use once-through cooling to reduce their use of ocean water by 93%. Together, the state’s plants draw 15 billion gallons per day, a staggeringly large amount. According to an article in the San Diego Union Tribune, one of the affected power plants will switch to air-cooling, and another plant will simply close (as scheduled? Or is this decision accelerating its obsolescence?).

A little conjecture here: if plants were to switch to evaporative cooling, their use of water in absolute terms will decrease significantly, but their consumptive use will increase. Existing systems use huge quantities of water, but it is contained in a closed loop, so all of it is returned to the environment. Evaporators would use smaller absolute quantities of water, but a portion of that water evaporates and is lost. In addition, these systems usually use freshwater rather than salty ocean water.

The water board has prepared a “Substitute Environmental Document“, which apparently can take the place of a full Environmental Impact Review in some circumstances. In Section 4.1.1, beginning on page 96, the authors describe the possible alternatives for cooling the power plants. They believe that most plants will switch to “closed cycle wet cooling” which uses evaporation to cool water. Its advantage is that it uses much smaller quantities of water. However, unlike once-through cooling, it is a consumptive process. The authors state that the plants “would likely continue to use the same source water,” but also recommend the use of recycled water, or wastewater that has been treated to a very high level of purity.

In theory, saltwater can be used for evaporative cooling, but in practice, it has been plagued by problems. Salt in the water causes metal pipes and pumps to corrode, and minerals in the water cause scale buildup that restricts flow. The California Energy Commission completed a study in 2007 that found that saltwater cooling towers are feasible with the right design and technology. The study cites as proof 25 plants around the world where saltwater, or more commonly, brackish water is used in cooling towers.

Here are a few causes for concern:

 

1) Plants may decide that it is more feasible or economical to use freshwater in their cooling towers, which is in much more widespread use and has a much better track record. Water supplies in most coastal regions are already stretched to the breaking point, and this would place further stress on water supplies. If plants were to extract groundwater, it would cause further harm by drawing down coastal aquifers. This is more likely than it may sound, because groundwater in California is essentially a free-for-all; anyone who owns property and has the means to drill a well, is allowed by law to extract as much water as they like, regardless of the impact that it has on their neighbors or on nature.

 

2) Plants would discharge water that is extra salty, perhaps 150% or 200% of the concentration of seawater. That’s because some of the water has evaporated, leaving the salts behind. Managing this stream of hypersaline water posese some challenges, similar to those that arise in the siting and design of desalination plants, which have been opposed by many in California. I tend to think that these impacts are not the most important ones to worry about, and can be mitigated by designing an appropriate outfall or diffuser. However, there is no discussion of this in the water board’s environmental document

 

3) The Water Board expresses the hope that power plants will use recycled water for cooling. In water stressed coastal areas, recycled water may be better used for irrigation, or to recharge groundwater. This is especially important in coastal areas, where overdrafts have caused saltwater intrusion.

 

4) Plants may use chemicals to control scaling or corrosion, which will be discharged to the environment. The Water Board does not discuss the potential impacts of these chemicals, or how these impacts can be mitigated.

 

In summary, I applaud the Water Board for drafting policies that will protect the coastal environment. However, switching to other cooling technologies might lead to other water or environmental impacts, and a more thorough analysis of these is needed.

 

 

I was very fortunate to hear the keynote address at yesterday’s Water Conservation Showcase by David Carle, author and retired park ranger. I loved his books, Water and the California Dream, and consider him the heir apparent to Marc Reisner. When it comes to western water, he is one of the best thinkers and clearest writers we have today. The slides from Mr. Carle’s presentation are available here, mostly containing lots of photos.

During his presentation, he showed a map which I hadn’t seen before, that vividly portrays the loss of salmon habitat from damming and de-watering rivers. It turns out it’s from a 1998 publication from the Bay Institute called Sierra to the Sea: The Ecological History of the San Francisco Bay-Delta Watershed. Shown below is
Map G3: The Transformed Watershed (174K PDF).

From the description of the map in Appendix A of the report:

The transformation of the aquatic environment of the San Francisco Bay-Delta watershed is seen in this watershed view of the lost historical aquatic habitats and the major disconnected reaches. Nearly 5000 square miles of lowland floodplain and estuarine intertidal habitat, including 900 square miles of historical lake, has been lost in the past 150 years. Because of the barriers imposed by dams over a thousand miles of upland river is no longer available as salmon habitat; additional lowland river mileage is lost to salmon because of the dewatering of the San Joaquin River. Not all of the transformed habitat is lost to the system forever. Restoration of natural processes and rehabilitation of degraded habitats can bring some of this habitat back into the aquatic system.

The map could be better. Is the legend really in Comic Sans? The legend for the Pacific Ocean, while not especially necessary, is hard to read due to the blue-on-blue color. In general, the colors are a bit odd. Green says to me, “natural” and “good”, where in this map it seems to represent the area where the salmon can no longer go. On closer look, it is actually the land above an arbitrary elevation cutoff. It flips the usual color scheme for elevations where blues and greens represent bottom lands, and higher elevations are shown in tan or white, which usually corresponds with areas above the treeline with less vegetation, or snow-capped peaks. These wouldn’t be necessary if a hillshade were used to show topography. The historical wetland areas should probably be shown in blue or green. The locator map does not cover much more area than the map itself, and isn’t necessary. Quibbles aside, it’s an extraordinary map that tells an immensely important story.

 

 

This graphic appeared in an op-ed in the New York Times on February 10, 2008 titled, You Are What You Spend.

To understand why consumption is a better guideline of economic prosperity than income, it helps to consider how our lives have changed. Nearly all American families now have refrigerators, stoves, color TVs, telephones and radios. Air-conditioners, cars, VCRs or DVD players, microwave ovens, washing machines, clothes dryers and cellphones have reached more than 80 percent of households.

As the second chart, on the spread of consumption, shows, this wasn’t always so. The conveniences we take for granted today usually began as niche products only a few wealthy families could afford. In time, ownership spread through the levels of income distribution as rising wages and falling prices made them affordable in the currency that matters most — the amount of time one had to put in at work to gain the necessary purchasing power.

At the average wage, a VCR fell from 365 hours in 1972 to a mere two hours today. A cellphone dropped from 456 hours in 1984 to four hours. A personal computer, jazzed up with thousands of times the computing power of the 1984 I.B.M., declined from 435 hours to 25 hours. Even cars are taking a smaller toll on our bank accounts: in the past decade, the work-time price of a mid-size Ford sedan declined by 6 percent.

It is really striking to me how quickly technologies like cell phones are adopted. Within a few short years of their first availability, nearly everyone has one. Why shouldn’t this be so? After all, they are useful, or an economist would say they have high utility. They’re relatively inexpensive, and available nearly everywhere. Lastly: they are heavily marketed.

What does this have to do with water?

I think there are important lessons here for the water business. According to Wikipedia, mobile phones could reach “4.6 billion by the end of 2009.” Time for some quick math here: with a global populationabout 6.8 billion people, that means that 2.2 billion don’t have access to a cell phone.

Recent numbers from UNICEF and the World Health Organization indicate that 2.6 billion don’t have “improved sanitation”. I’ve never liked the “sanitation” euphemism, because it obscures a brutal and disgusting fact: in many places, people don’t have a place to poop where it doesn’t re-contaminate their food or water. This leaves them vulnerable to cholera, dysentery, and other diseases that are virtually unknown in the west. We know that toilets and latrines save lives and provide dignity, but the average global citizen is more likely to have a mobile phone than a clean, safe place to shit. Where have we gone wrong?

G

Georgia is close to signing into law the Georgia Water Stewardship Bill, which mandates a number of water efficiency measures:

• higher efficiency standards for toilets, faucets, urinals and cooling towers
• standardized leak reporting by public water utilities
• metering of multi-family, commercial and industrial construction
• a statewide outdoor watering schedule that prohibits watering during the hottest hours of the day when evaporation and water waste is highest

Of course, many will say that reducing water use is best accomplished through economic means, rather than telling people what type of fixtures they can and should buy, or when to water their lawns. Still, there is convincing proof that national plumbing standards passed into law as part of 1992′s National Energy Policy Act have collectively saved billions of gallons nationwide.

Here’s a congratulatory press release from the environmental group American Rivers. And here’s an editorial from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, with two sides arguing about whether or not it will help solve Georgia’s water problems. Links to the text of the bill here: HB 1094.