N. California Tenets Don’t Hold Water

When discussing water, two beliefs are unshakable in the minds of many Northern Californians--and a few of their southern neighbors.

One is that Southern Californians use northern water to fill up swimming pools and hose down driveways. The other is that Northern Californians have not lowered themselves to scrap over that elixir of growth.

Neither is true, of course.

For one thing, most of the water moved around California--about 83% of the 12 trillion gallons used annually, according to the state--winds up in San Joaquin Valley farms, not San Fernando Valley pools.

For another, Northern California water agencies do indeed prowl for water. They may not move it as far--200 miles from dam to tap, contrasted with the 750 miles from Oroville Dam to San Diego--but they fight over it just the same.

The East Bay Municipal Utility District and Sacramento County, for example, have been fighting in court for years over the American River. Both hold clear rights to the water but disagree on where to take it from the streambed.

Sacramento County has joined an environmentalist lawsuit against East Bay MUD, as the Oakland district is called, to block it from taking its water north of the capital, before Sacramento residents can swim in it, boat on it and dump their treated sewage into it.

East Bay responded with its own suit, alleging among other things that since Sacramento does not meter water or charge more than a flat rate, Sacramento residents use 50% more than East Bay’s customers, a gap the Oakland district says is an illegal waste of a public resource.

Meanwhile, others also wrangle over the region’s water.

Marin County, north of San Francisco, wants to buy water now going to San Joaquin Valley farmers, and so does East Bay MUD. But some valley farmers say they want more water, not less, and have asked for some from the Stanislaus River.

Farmers have also sought water in California’s Nevada County, while Nevada state officials have designs on Lake Tahoe. A Reno company thought about using deep wells under the border to tap California ground water, then tried vainly to buy water from farmers in California’s Sierra County.

Hetch Hetchy Proposal

Even San Francisco, home to many water-project critics, wanted to boost the capacity of Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite National Park in 1985. The proposal was vetoed by the federal government.

Such jockeying among various regions and interests is only going to worsen, conservationists and others say, as demand grows. They, and even some water suppliers, say the California Water Project is unlikely to ever deliver all the water its promoters promised in 1960 while signing up contractors to pay for it.

Many groups, including the federal Environmental Protection Agency, contend that the San Joaquin-Sacramento Delta has no more surplus to tap, while rivers once destined for diversions are now legally regarded as wild and scenic and off-limits.

Even one of the most adamant advocates of delta diversions, Duane Georgeson of the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power, doubts that the delta can fulfill the project’s promises.

“I do not think anyone disputes there is still surplus water,” he said. “But I think early estimates of how much you could improve the efficiency of moving water through the delta may have been overly optimistic.”