The Worst Kind of Thirst

#49, August 23, 2000

My fellow Cub Scouts and I made a mistake. On a long summer hike in Pinnacles National Monument, we forgot to pack water. Parched, we ran the last quarter mile to the spigot at the trailhead. I have never tasted a finer drink.

After air, what's more important to us than water? Physiologically, we are just sacks of water with some well organized minerals. But do our schoolkids even learn where their life-source water comes from, much less get trained and tested in all the techniques for making wise use of it?

As important as water is, we need remarkably little to thrive and prosper. Our "water problem" is that we've grown accustomed to consuming WAY more than we need, and we seek to satisfy this thirst in foolish ways.

But the worst kind of thirst is not measured in mouthfuls, but in watersheds. It's the thirst for power and wealth, the story of the 20^th century American west. It's Los Angeles's draining the Owens Valley to feed their urban growth machine. Closer to home, it's the Sonoma County Water Agency's and Southern California Metropolitan Water District's joint 1960's proposal to convert the Eel River into 3 huge reservoirs, to support development in LA and the North Coast. Happily, that failed. But it didn't stop the SCWA from capturing, via the Potter Valley Project, nearly all of the Eel's summer flow to fuel the growth of its Sonoma County member cities.

The latest manifestation of watershed thirst is Amendment 11 to the the SCWA's contract with local water agencies. This 1998 proposal calls for a 40% increase in the diversion from the Russian River, to meet growth projections. There are two problems here. First, the Russian, with its history of dams, water diversions, reckless gravel mining, and agricultural encroachments, has been designated as one of the most threatened major rivers on the continent. Second, it happens at a time when endangered salmon issues threaten to drastically reduce diversions of the Eel into the Russian. The SCWA's sleight of hand is to claim the increase comes from Lake Sonoma in the Russian watershed, not the Eel. But by committing the rest of the Russian's "surplus" to consumption, any later action to reduce the Eel diversion would force a disastrous reduction of the Russian's summer flow.

The bottom line, of course, is that the Amendment 11 project commits to consuming more water than we have. Its EIR says next to nothing about the existing and future damage to the Eel, and all the people and businesses suffering from its demise.

Regrettably, all of the other local SCWA contractors succumbed to the inertia of this stealth amendment. That left only Petaluma, with council members capable of stepping out of the box. Rather than rubber stamping the proposal, Councilman Keller proposed a series of no-nonsense contract conditions that address the City's need for redundant/replacement pipelines and local storage, and that protect the City against the kind of cost overruns that are plaguing the flood control project. Most importantly, the conditions tie increased Russian River extraction to resolution of legal challenges to the Eel diversion, to implementation of a robust, targeted, and measurable conservation program, and to a well-publicized discussion among the SCWA and all contractors about policies for managing the finite fresh water resource in the face of growing demand.

The SCWA is playing LA-style hardball, threatening to cast Petaluma out of future negotiations, claiming impending shortages preclude taking the time to consider Keller's changes. This is hogwash. First of all, the City keeps its place at the table with the conditional approval. Second, the fastest (and cheapest) way to deal with shortages is the kind of conservation Keller, Torliatt, and their colleagues are proposing. For example, Petaluma's 1997 commercial toilet replacement program, quickly tapping one-fifth of the potential market, is alone saving almost ten million gallons annually.

The challenge of our time is learning to live prosperously within the earth's limits, of which one is water. "Smart growth" isn't smart if it steals water from someone else. We should support the efforts of Council Members who seek to quench our thirst in a fair and sustainable way.