Water policy in California is missing a north star. Think of the last time you started on a difficult journey without a plan for where you wanted to end up. Seems silly right, how could you possibly succeed if you don’t know where you are headed?
California water experts and environmental justice advocates are calling for state leaders to mandate that new levees be built with double the federal required protection to withstand the increasingly severe storms caused, in part, by human-caused climate change.
California’s levee protection regulations are not uniform; the state’s seemingly endless dikes and causeways are overseen by a patchwork of widely varying rules. Some communities like Pajaro in Monterey County, which was swamped by floodwaters this year, are protected only against smaller storms that happen every eight years, while levees protecting urban areas of the Central Valley are bolstered against much more powerful storms.
Gov. Gavin Newsom may be piloting a lifeboat that will rescue the sinking California Delta. Or he may be in water over his head on a doomed mission.
The governor gets angry with skeptics who say he’s being delusional. But history sides with the doubters.
“I love reading all that, ‘Hey, he’s naive. He’s being misled,'” Newsom recently told a forum sponsored by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California, his voice rising with a touch of sarcasm.
“It means we’re doing something a little different.”
How will climate change affect California water management, and what steps should the state take to prepare for these changes? The PPIC Water Policy Center was asked by the Newsom administration to submit formal comments outlining key water policy priorities for the state—and ways to integrate actions across state agencies to implement these priorities. Our recommendations will inform the administration’s preparation of a water resilience portfolio. We address two key areas where the state can play a leading role—modernizing the water grid and protecting freshwater ecosystems.
The Colorado River has experienced decades of over-allocation of its waters, making it harder to address the added challenges that climate change is bringing. The recently adopted Drought Contingency Plan (DCP) was an important step toward addressing the basin’s chronic water shortages, but more work is needed to prepare for a hotter, drier future. We talked to Doug Kenney—director of the Western Water Policy Program at the University of Colorado and a member of the PPIC Water Policy Center research network―about managing the basin for long-term water sustainability. Kenney organized a conference in June that covered these issues in depth.
Governor Newsom’s first proposed state budget, released earlier this month, addresses several critical water and natural resource management challenges. Here are highlights from his plans to mitigate problems with safe drinking water, improve forest health and reduce the risk of wildfires, and encourage healthy soils to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase drought resilience. The governor’s budget proposal revives last year’s failed legislative proposal to tap urban water customers, agricultural fertilizer users, and dairies to pay for safe drinking water projects in small, disadvantaged communities with water quality challenges.
As Hurricane Florence ground its way through the Carolinas this past weekend, climate watchers couldn’t help but notice that the size and behavior of the storm have been eerily reminiscent of Hurricane Harvey, which devastated Houston last year. What made these two hurricanes so destructive was their slow pace and the fact that they were supercharged with moisture from bathtub-warm oceans. It’s a deadly combination that leads to epic, record-setting amounts of rainfall and unprecedented flooding, amplifying damage from the high winds and storm surge typically associated with hurricanes.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
