Geography 417
California for Educators

Lesson Six

California’s Water Resources

Why is this important?

• Because we all drink water piped in from elsewhere.

• Because we all eat food irrigated with water piped in from elsewhere.

• Because the demand for water continues upward and pollution is a concern.

• Because conservation works.

• Because water fights are political.

Background: Water Budget

• Before we can understand California water crises, we must fully understand California’s natural water budget.

• The hydrologic cycle demonstrates how water comes into the state and how it goes out.

Hydrologic Cycle (fig.)

Water Resources Video

California’s Water Budget

• 200 acre feet falls on California per year.

• Average household consumption is 1 afy

• Average rainfall in 23 in/yr

• 80% of the rain falls in November-March

• 66% of it the northern 1/3 of the state

• Several other maf are used in the state from out-of-state rivers and from groundwater supplies.

California’s Water Budget

• 75% of the water that falls is lost to evapotranspiration

• Most of the year, California is in a water budget deficit.

• Southern California often has deficits of 70 inches or more.

• The deserts can have deficits of over 120 in/yr.

Ground Water Terms

• Soil Water: used by plants

• Aquifers: layers of permeable rock or sediment that hold lots of water.

• Aquicludes are layers that hold little water and include shale and clay.

• Artesian wells or springs are well heads that lie below the recharge zone where water enters the aquifer, and water is forced up and out.

Soil Water (fig.)

Ground Water Terms (Fig)

Zones of Subsurface Water (fig.)

Overdrafts

• Overdrafts are withdraws from aquifers that exceed the natural ability of the aquifer to refill itself (recharge rate).

• Recharge difficult but not impossible.

• (Recharge - Withdrawal < 0)

• Overdrafts can lead to a depressed water table, dried-up wells, depleted springs, subsidence and saltwater intrusion

• Safe Yields are desirable, difficult to define and enforce.

• Monterey vs. Salinas Valley Farmers (saltwater)

Cone of Depression (fig.)

Depression Cone (fig)

Top 10 on Protecting Groundwater

• 1. Dispose of chemicals properly.
2. Take used motor oil to a recycling center.
3. Limit amounts of fertilizer.
4. Take short showers.
5. Shut water off while brushing teeth.
6. Run full loads of dishes and laundry.
7. Check for leaky faucets and have them fixed.
8. Water outside only when necessary.
9. Keep a pitcher of drinking water in the refrigerator.
10. Be involved in water education.

Runoff

• Runoff is the overland flow of water.

• About 35% of the California’s rainwater flows out to the sea.

• Most of that is where?

• Most of it is when?

• 40% from NoCal streams (Klamath River)

• 31% from the Sacramento System

• 9% from the San Joaquin System

• 1% from So Cal streams

Streams

• Some of the southern rivers have inland drainage

• Intermittent

• Exotics

California Rivers (fig)

California Hydrography (fig)

Lakes

• Tahoe

– largest lake at 191 square miles

– Only 6 feet of surface useable/ year

• Tulare Lake-Buena Vista

• Multiple man-made lakes, reservoirs

• Saline lakes, saline sinks, playas

Saline Lake (fig)

Salt Crust (fig.)

Floods

• California has a history of devastating floods.

• 1938 many rivers at 100x normal peak flow

– Santa Ana@ 100,000 cfs

– LA River @ 67,000 cfs

• El Nino

• Desert flash floods (lag time)

• Peak discharge varies by stream, location

Flood, 1938 Sacramento area (Fig)

Development Impact

• Housing developments, parking lots, yards, etc. all contribute to flooding.

• Expensive to remove water quickly, but then we pay to bring it here from elsewhere.

• Huge variety of solutions, but require short-term investments.

Flooding on the Sacramento (fig)

Flood Control

• How do we prevent catastrophic floods that were common in the past?

• Diversion

• Storage

• Zoning

• Watershed management

Drought Control

• What exactly is a drought?

• What measures are to be taken and when?

• 1975-76-77-78

Water Control Projects

• Agriculture uses over 80% of the diverted water in the state.

• Commericial, industrial, institutional and residential uses account for less than 10%

• How much do you think your household uses per day?

• Most families use less than 100 gpd, in apartments, less than 60gpd, but in suburbs in the valleys 600 gpd or more.

• What do you use all that water for?

• http://www.monolake.org/socalwater/wctips.htm

If it’s yellow..

History

• There’s a long history of water control

• Indians used irrigation

• Spanish needed it for missions, pueblos and presidios

• They had many fights over water rights

• Americans went crazy with water control projects, beginning with the Gold Rush

Hydraulic Mining

• An often repeated story of environmental disaster in California that highlights the “tragedy of the commons”

• Floods of 1902,04,06,07,09

• Navigation

• Siltation

• 1884

• Not fixed until 1927

Prior Appropriation (1st come, first served)

• from Spanish law

• no preference given to those adjoining water course

• water rights based on use; earliest has rights

• use protected as long as it is continuous and “reasonable”

Riparian Rights

• from English Common Law

• applies to surface waters

• owner of waterfront land to use amounts correlated with other riparian owners.

• Works well in areas with water surplus

• Used for a long time in California during the 1800s and early 1900s.

• Pitted the “appropriators” against the “water monopolists”

The California Doctrine

• 1928 amendment to California Constitution

• “Most reasonable beneficial use”

• Blend of riparian and appropriation rights

• Pecking order established with older users and riparian users first and later appropriators getting less.

• Major corporations, private water companies.

California Water Code

• Highest priority for domestic use

• Second priority goes to irrigation

• Applications by municipalities for use of water by residents given priority over most other uses.

• Water Board determines allocation to serve public interest. Board must work within state water plans.

• Still very contentious, politicized

Correlative Rights

• applies to ground water

• about 40% of all California water (not a sustainable withdraw)

• Overlying landowners entitled to “reasonable” use. Rights are correlated with other landowners overlying the aquifer

Critical Thinking

• Why do you think that the Anglo-American system for dividing up water was ultimately doomed to failure in California?

• Think about immigrants homelands

• Think about social-cultural traditions

• Think about prevailing notions of the West and the type of government immigrants sought

• Water colonies and government

California’s Water Projects

• Why was there a need for water control?

• Flooding

• Irrigation, other water uses

• Navigation

Sacramento Flood Control Project

• A response to flooding in the Sac Valley

• US Army Corps of Engineers scoured valley, made Delta navigable

• Island reclamation, subsidence, intrusion, levee construction by 1930s

• Most importantly: it proved the value of large scale government intervention

San Francisco Water

• SF had historically poor water supplies.

• Used barges to bring water until 1860s

• Spring Valley Water Works, privatized delivery.

• Fires and 1906 earthquake

• Hetch Hetchy Valley, in Yosemite National Park, damned. Completed in 1934.

• 175 mile aqueduct and O'Shaughnessy Dam, powerhouse, provide cheap power ($20 m/yr) to the city of San Francisco. Water sales!

• 95 mile Mokelumne aqueduct, starts at Pardee Dam and reservoir.

• Together they provide about 1/3 of Bay Area water.

• John Muir’s Sierra Club, union labor party, other municipalities.

Hetch-Hetchy (fig)

Rivers and Aqueducts (fig)

Los Angeles Aqueduct (DWP)

• Started in 1908 by William Mulholland

• appropriated water feeding Owens Valley

• taps surface flow from Eastern Sierra south

• 250 miles, cost $25,000,000 and took five years

• pipe and flume, tunnel, and trench

• gravity feed, no pumping

• generates hydroelectric power

• L.A. purchased riparian land, used appropriation rights to get away with this. Ranchers in Owens Valley fought back with dynamite and guns - California’s only range war.

• LA County is the largest landowner in Inyo County

Aqueducts Map (fig)

Aqueducts (fig)

Mono Lake

• In 1941, L.A. DWP started diverting Mono Basin streams to add to L.A. Aqueduct.

• Mono Lake’s volume halved while salinity doubled. The simple ecosystem began to fail and threatened migrating birds and nesting gulls, polluting air nearby with saline dust.

• The state and courts now mandate raising the level of the lake 17 feet. It will take about 20 years.

• Similar agreements made to clean up the dry Owens Lake bed, fill with some water.

Mono Lake (fig)

Aral Sea –1960s (fig.)

Aral Sea-1990 (fig.)

Aral Sea Ships (fig.)

Colorado River Supplies

• Recognized early on as a supply source in the driest of regions.

• Land speculators in the regions and their grand schemes.

• By diverting water through the “Alamo River” through Mexico, water could be brought to the “Imperial Valley”.

• Flood in 1905 caused disaster.

The Salton Sea

• Man-made by accident in 1905.

• Irrigation in Imperial Valley had flooded an ancient overflow channel of the Colorado River.

• Unusually heavy spring runoff and lack of control gates caused a two-year flood into the Salton Sink.

• The Southern Pacific Railroad had to move its tracks five times that season to higher ground.

• Eventually the S.P.R.R. took control and put the river back but by then the Salton Sea was created.

• Hoover Dam now controls Colorado and prevents delivery of sediment to Yuma and the delta.

Salton Sea (fig)

Colorado River Aqueduct

• Established 1928 to bring water to L.A. and rest of Southern California

• first delivery in 1940; serves 15 million people

• Lawsuit from Arizona (1953) finally began to be implemented in 1985 - amount will decrease and this amount will be replaced by State Water Project water.

• 5 pumping stations

• diversions for agriculture

Colorado River Aqueduct (fig)

Central Valley Project

• Drought and flood control badly needed for farmers.

• Farmers switching to irrigated crops in early 1900s.

• Much of the water supplied by wells.

• Major battle fought by PG&E to prevent hydro power payment for water control projects, finally approved in 1933. Why then? What else changes at that time?

• Free enterprise or free monopoly??

• Small farmers vs. large farmers and the 160 rule.

• 1950s, PG&E actually buys power from the government and then….

• Multiple dams, including Shasta, Keswick, Folsom.

• Too much water transfer, impeding Salmon, Bass runs.

Shasta Dam (fig)

California Water Project

The California Aqueduct

• Constructed beginning in the 1960s: last project

• About 1/2 for irrigation, about 1/2 for domestic use.

• Domestic use supply helps offset that lost to Arizona in 1985 court case.

• Pumps at Tracy lift water, then it flows by gravity to the Tehachapi Mountains.

• Includes the huge Oroville Dam on Feather River in Sierra foothills.

Policy Issues

• Farmers complain that… Critics charge that…

• Beef production is subsidized at as much as $1000 per acre through water discounts

• Who picks up the bill?

• Who pays the most? How do consumers benefit?

• Agriculture accounts for only 2.5% of state’s economy, but takes 80% of the water.

• Break points used in the city.

California Aqueduct (fig)

Oroville Dam (fig)

Wet Rice Fields in the Sacramento Valley (fig)

Tracy Location (fig)

Upstream Impact of Dams

• Environment

– Loss of terrestrial/riparian habitat and species

– Creation of artificial lacustrine (lakes) system

– exotic species introductions

– Reservoir/storage for contaminants

Upstream Impact of Dams

• Cultural / social

– Loss of cultural resources

– Displacement of families (villages, regions)

– Water quality hazard

• Economic

– Shift in land use / economy

– Water loss via evap.

– Water loss via seepage

• Aesthetic

– landscape inundated

Downstream
Impacts of Dams

• Altered hydrology - no seasonality

• Altered water quality/character

• Modify nutrient cycling

• Reduce sediment supply (fishing)

• Channel adjustments

• Habitat modification (salinization)

• Species impacts

• River fragmentation

Dam Breaks

• Dams are more dangerous in California because?

• St. Francis dam: Saugus (400 deaths)

• Baldwin Hills dam: $50 million damage

• Lower Van Norman Dam, 1971

– San Fernando Valley

Dry Land Irrigation

• Most dry locations derive water from exotic rivers (those with distant headwaters).

• Salinzation, the buildup of salt in the soil may occur.

• Waterlogging may also occur because the water table may rise to the surface.

• Salinization is greatly intensified.

WATER POLLUTION

Anthropogenic:

– Industry: heavy metals (mercury, cadmium, thalium, others), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), mercury - from coal burning harms infants and pregnant women, others

– Agriculture: animal waste encourages toxic bacteria growth, fertilizer causes excess nitrogen/eutrophication, dioxins (from herbicides)

– Sewage: leaks, overflows

Water Quality

• Non-point source:

– Urban Storm Run-Off : Oil Changes, Anti-Freeze, Detergents, Lawn Fertilizers become lodged in river and marsh sediments, endangering wildlife and plants.

Eutrophication (fig)

Other water sources?

• Desalinization

• Water reclamation

Summary of California Water Systems

• Very complicated.

• Politically controversial - Owens Valley, Dams, Habitat changes, reduced flushing of SF Bay Delta.

• California has the most advanced and expensive water delivery system in the world.

• Most of the water (about 80%) is used by agriculture; essential to California’s huge farm industry.