Suzanne Potter, producer/reporter, California News Service, a bureau of Public News Service.
President Donald Trump’s new executive order on California water policy is drawing criticism from many water conservation advocates.
The order directs the feds to study ways to override state environmental protections and send more water from northern California down south.
Water shortage not the problem
Bruce Reznik, executive director of the nonprofit L.A. Waterkeeper, said the devastating fires can be blamed on extreme winds, dry brush, and local infrastructure issues, not on a lack of water. He said Trump is taking advantage of a disaster to benefit corporate farms.
“To the extent that they’re going to deliver more water, a lot of that is going to big agriculture in the Central Valley,” Reznik observed. “Folks that have supported Trump.”
Groups such as Restore the Delta said Trump’s policies could harm the San Francisco Bay-Delta ecosystems and devastate the salmon fishery. They also oppose Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Delta Conveyance Project, which the state said is intended to capture more water from large but infrequent storm events.
Other ways to increase CA water supply
Reznik argued that if the state and federal governments really want to make an impact, they should invest a lot more money into existing projects to clean up contaminated groundwater, improve conservation, and recycle more wastewater.
“In L.A. County, we import about 700 million gallons of water a day, of the 1.2 billion gallons we use,” Reznik noted. “Importing that water requires a lot of energy and expense. Right now, we treat it, flush it, treat it again, and then we dump about 450 million to 500 million gallons of that back into the ocean. The Metropolitan Water District, the county and the city have plans that we could be reclaiming 330 million gallons a day. That would reduce our regional demand for imported water and save the energy it takes to move it here from faraway places.”
