Housing construction meets is ultimate adversary – Water
It’s time for the LADWP to suspend issuing ”Will Serve” letters to developers that promise to provide water for new housing projects. Continuing to issue these letters serves to demonstrate that our water utility does not have its current users best interests in mind.
Yesterday, the Department of Water Resources announced its initial allocation of 15 percent for water delivery to State Water Project (SWP) contractors in 2009.. a month early. The unusual early arrival of the contractors notice added to the sense of urgency of California’s water supply.
“This further dramatizes the urgent need for additional investments in water storage and conveyance infrastructure to assure an adequate and reliable water supply,” said DWR Director Lester Snow. “The uncertainly of precipitation patterns due to global warming and deteriorating conditions in the Delta, California’s main water hub, demand immediate action to enhance our ecosystem and keep our economy productive in the 21st century. The Governor has sounded the wakeup call, and the clock is ticking.”
The allocation is the second lowest in the history of the SWP. It reflects the low carryover storage levels in the state’s major reservoirs, ongoing drought conditions and court ordered restrictions on water deliveries from the Delta.
The MWD’s initial allocation from the state will be cut water supplies from 1,911,500 acre feet (AF) to only 286,725 AF. That’s an 85% cut in supplies to all MWD customers including LADWP. The MWD then divides up the supplies allocated to them and distributes it to its various customers throughout the Southland.
Looking at this in another context, LADWP received more water last year from MWD than what MWD is going to get this year for the 26 cities and water agencies it serves in southern California. While all of this does not include supplies from the Colorado River Aqueduct, it to is being consumed faster than the river can supply it.
Reading Lester Snows comments above I can’t help get the feeling that they don’t get it or that they are political appointees parroting what their bosses want them to say.
We cannot even fill the lakes we have (Diamond, Folsom, etc.) so what’s with the comment that “additional investments in water storage” are needed? Furthermore, he goes on to say there needs to be additional investments in a “conveyance infrastructure” yet there is not enough water to fill those pipes such as “Inland feeder” and convey it somewhere.
Our city and state leadership both need to come to grips with the problem and recognize that their policies have contributed significantly to it.
Regardless of desktop assessments that tell the city it needs need ten’s of thousands of new housing units, the reality is that there are not enough water resources to fulfill that fantasy. Ignoring the practical limits of supply, cities have built-out so significantly that they have finally reached the point where consumption exceeds supplies.
The problem is their fantasy that we as a region continue to build new housing to meet projected population growth which is expected to grow to 26 million in Southern California by 2035, and 30 million by 2050.
The City of Los Angeles has been contributing to the problem by its insistence to build 13,000 housing units per year. Other counties have been doing the same. One city planning official was heard saying “if a city doesn’t grow, it dies.” This philosophy is absurd.
Now we’ve come to this. Not even the Villaraigosa’s recently rolled out “Securing L.A.’s Water Supply” plan will be able to overcome a water supply that may drop to below 500,000 AF levels. Recycled or not!
This reminds me of the famous phrase “If you build it, he will come.” Both the State and local Government agencies seem to have adopted a similar twist to that “If you build it, they will come.” However if you don’t build it they will look for greener locations elsewhere.
If Judge Wanger can order Delta pumps shut off to protect the Delta Smelt, then the LADWP can withhold ”Will Serve” letters to new housing projects to protect residents in the City of Los Angeles.
Great article. “The City of Los Angeles has been contributing to the problem by its insistence to build 13,000 housing units per year. Other counties have been doing the same. One city planning official was heard saying “if a city doesn’t grow, it dies.” This philosophy is absurd.”
I hear this growth = prosperity parroted constantly. If that was true I guess LA would be the richest city in California.
As far as the water issue, I’ve been attending LA Sanitation meetings and when they talk about “conveyance infrastructure” they mean pipelines, advanced treatment plants, etc.
Santa Clarita has a proposal on the table for estimated $500,000 million to treat chlorides and recycle wastewater just for two plants.
Expensive advanced treatment technologies are being pushed to “create” new water supply by “recycling” wastewater. Toilet to tap is the future and the state is behind it 100%. The problem is it’s too costly.
1920 LOS ANGELES SUNDAY TIMES. This is the LA Times front page, on January 25, 1920. If you zoom in, you can see the creeks and rivers that once ran wild through our town.
Massive and reoccurring floods had plagued the region since the first Europeans arrived; and in fact back to prehistoric days. The area we now call Playa Del Rey, for instance, was mostly under water; except for the Bluff areas. It was an ancient embayment that flowed about 7 miles from the ocean to the Baldwin Hills. It was fed by water running off the hills through the former Los Angeles River; now called Ballona Creek. When the explorer Juan Cabrillo arrived in October 1542, there was so much fresh water flowing in to the Pacific, that his crew could haul the water onboard with buckets, as the sweet water floated on-top of the sea water.
The point of this? As the map demonstrates, no one in LA was worried about water reclamation in 1920. They worried about the devastating floods. Their solution, not having the technology that we have today, was to channelize the creeks and rivers, and send the water out to sea. Although some of it of course runs into great underground aquifers, and thereby replenishes long term supply, well over 90% simply runs into the ocean.
There are millions of gallons of fresh water that can be reclaimed for drinking water and general use. We have the technology to purify this water, and make a huge dent in the ongoing water crisis. We could also remove the many toxic harmful pollutants that enter the ocean unchecked.
If ALL we did was to reclaim this resource to water our many golf courses and public lands, the results would be staggering, and would forever change the area we call, Our Town.
The golf courses in Los Angeles already use reclaimed water, so don’t blame them for the water shortages.
Yep. The golf courses are doing the right thing.