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Conflict over water allocations from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is the most intractable water management problem in California.The sources of contention are many, but three interrelated issues dominate the debate: whether to build two tunnels that divert water from the Sacramento River, how much water to allocate to endangered fish species, and what to do about the 1,100 miles of Delta levees that are essential to the local economy. All of these issues need to be addressed to reduce unproductive conflict and litigation and resolve our water problems.

 

A temporary truce has been called today in an ongoing dispute between Kern County, Bakersfield and the Kern Delta Water District. Six months ago, the city and KDWD announced that they were forming the Kern River Groundwater Sustainability Agency. Afterwards the county filed its own GSA application with the state in order to protect its policing and land use powers. California law says that if competing GSA organizations fail to resolve their differences, the state may come in and take over the use and management of ground water resources.

California officials crafting a new conservation plan for the state’s dry future drew criticism from environmentalists on Thursday for failing to require more cutbacks of farmers, who use 80 percent of the water consumed by people. Gov. Jerry Brown ordered up the state plans for improving long-term conservation in May, when he lifted a statewide mandate put in place at the height of California’s drought for 25-percent water conservation by cities and towns. Ben Chou, a water-policy analyst with the Natural Resources Defense Council, criticized state planners for not mandating any new water-savings by farm water districts.

California is finally embracing its rivers. But it may be a choking embrace. We Californians have long celebrated our coastal splendor and toasted the height and beauty of our mountains. But our rivers? For most of us, they have been a mere utility, the plumbing that moved water around the state.. Today the Golden State, its regions and its people are at long last taking the advice of the late environmentalist David Brower, who counseled his fellow Californians to “begin thinking like a river,” and fulfilling the eternal Christmas dream of Joni Mitchell, “I wish I had a river.”