COLUMN ONE : Drought Ushers in a Dry Era : Soaring population and environmental constraints have made the state water system inadequate. Shortages and enforced conservation are likely to become the norm.

When this drought finally does end, Californians may be surprised and dismayed to discover there will be no blissful return to the old Lotus Land lifestyle of unlimited water supplies.

Even in years of normal rain and snowfall, California’s ability to provide the people with all the water they want has been undercut by a soaring population, political impasse and a lack of new water facilities.

As a result, water shortages and some forms of enforced conservation are likely to become the norm and not the exception as the 21st Century approaches, say federal, state and regional authorities.

Before, whenever drought stretched the ability of California’s renowned water projects, new dams and aqueducts were rushed into construction with the promise of a fresh water supply lasting decades into the future.

But today, for the first time in this century, California does not have a specific program in place for providing the additional water needed to accommodate all expected growth. Indeed, the state has accelerated toward a period of chronic shortages faster than anyone dared forecast a decade ago.

Recent state surveys indicate that in future dry years California will fall an estimated 1.5 million acre-feet of water short of demand, or twice as much water as the city of Los Angeles now consumes annually. The deficit would be worse if there was another multi-year drought.

By 1995, the six-county region served by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California faces a 50% chance of experiencing water shortages--and the odds of having shortages as bad as this year’s are 1 in 10, said Timothy Quinn of the MWD.

By the year 2000, the prospects of a water deficit will increase to 75%--with odds that three out of four years will see shortages--and 25% for a severe shortfall.

“Basically, within four years, we in Southern California will have a coin’s toss chance of going through another water shortage,” said Quinn, director of MWD’s State Water Project and Conservation Division.

How California got into this bleak predicament, critics say, is a story of continued extraordinary growth and a breakdown of the kind of visionary leadership that once primed the state for population booms of the past.

Since the turn of the century, California’s water masters had planned and built for the future so that all regions and segments of the economy could count on assured supplies of water, even in the worst expectable drought. But now, Quinn said, the water industry falls well short of the ability of other public utilities--electricity, natural gas and telecommunications--to promise delivery of a product.

“We think there is nothing short of a reliability crisis in the state of California,” Quinn said. “And the impacts could be devastating.”

Future Shock

The implications for the future are profound:

* Even when the drought is over, many Californians may have to endure restrictions on lawn watering, car washing, hosing down driveways and other routine uses. Residents can expect severe cutbacks more often because there will be less water in the system to ease the state through the early years of another drought. And legislators are considering making low-flow faucets, toilets and shower heads the law everywhere.

* Water will cost more as bills begin to reflect the high cost of developing new supplies. For example, every acre-foot of water the city of Los Angeles imports from the Owens Valley through its Los Angeles Aqueduct is free, other than costs for maintenance of the system. But when the city suffers cutbacks in its Owens Valley supply, it must buy replacement water from the MWD at a cost of $234 an acre-foot. And water from desalination plants now being envisioned will cost an estimated $1,200 an acre-foot and more.

* The quality of life in some regions of Southern California may come to be measured, to some extent, by the availability of water. For example, portions of Orange County that have healthy ground-water basins will be noticeably better off than other communities. Residents in cities that rely heavily on water imported from elsewhere--San Diego, for instance--will feel the pinch more often.

* It will take longer to bring new water projects on line, once decision-makers agree on what should be built. Since the early 1970s, there has been a growing realization of the damage that projects have done to rivers, fisheries, wildlife habitat and other natural features. Legislation, regulation and court rulings have restricted some project operations to protect or restore the environment. New projects must pass strict environmental reviews that were not required when most of the existing systems were built. And a handful of California streams long coveted by the dam-builders have been granted permanent protection by inclusion in the wild and scenic rivers system.

* The State Water Project will continue to fall short of providing what’s needed unless its expansion is completed. Conceived in the 1950s, the system of dams, reservoirs and aqueducts was sold to voters in 1960 as the solution to Southern California’s water problems for well into the 21st Century. Feather River water in far Northern California is stored behind Oroville Dam, released down the Sacramento River and transferred by pumps in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta into the California Aqueduct. The 444-mile-long aqueduct distributes the supply to farmers in Kern County and urban users throughout Southern California.

But by the time the project’s first deliveries were made in 1973, experts already were saying the project had to be expanded to fulfill promises made back in 1960.

“The State Water Project today is essentially inadequate in all but the wettest of years,” said MWD General Manager Carl Boronkay. “If that is not yet apparent to most, it soon will be as the discrepancy between supply and demand continues to grow.”

No Surprise

The specter of chronic shortage is nothing new to water-world insiders like David N. Kennedy, director of the state Department of Water Resources for the last eight years and boss of the giant State Water Project.

“Why are people surprised that we’ve got a problem?” Kennedy said, as one in a series of the “March miracle” storms splattered raindrops on the windows of his Sacramento office. “We’ve been telling everybody for a long time that we need more storage. We’ve been telling people that California is growing at a rapid rate.”

This drought, Kennedy noted, offers a dramatic illustration of how quickly the carry-over excess of wet years can be used up during dry ones. The state’s reservoirs were virtually full two years ago--and were close to bone dry until the March storms.

Currently, the keystone of state planning is to develop more water storage reservoirs, particularly in the northern San Joaquin Valley and in Kern County. There, the state would store surplus water for use during the dry summer months and as insurance against future drought years.

Critics say such moves have been too slow in coming. They blame a lack of political leadership for the failure of decision-makers to develop additional supplies or significant storage during the last 30 years.

The last notable success, as cited by state Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles) and others, came at the hands of former Gov. Edmund G. (Pat) Brown, who got the State Water Project authorized by legislators--and then by voters.

Since then, California governors from Ronald Reagan to George Deukmejian stubbed their political toes on roadblocks to expansion of the state’s program. They offered water development schemes only to see them sucked into a whirlpool of regional and institutional jealousies and infighting. Once rebuffed, they tended to shun water issues thereafter.

“There has been no follow-through by the politicians,” lamented Kern County cotton farmer Fred Starrh. “It’s like they’ve just given up on the State Water Project--or chickened out.”

Environmental Clout

Other factors explaining how California got in this predicament include the environmental movement’s growing clout in the 1970s and 1980s, increased demand from expanding agriculture and cities, and--in Southern California and elsewhere--the actual loss of water to various court-ordered restrictions.

Activists became major players in the water game starting in the 1970s. They won landmark court rulings requiring the diversion of large amounts of water to estuaries, wetlands, wildlife preserves and fisheries damaged by water project operations. Today, they continue to successfully oppose additional projects they believe are harmful. Before we talk about new facilities, the activists argue, we need to start doing a better job of managing existing ones.

Environmental constraints, for example, have cut the city of Los Angeles’ traditional Owens Valley-Mono Basin supply. As a result, no matter how much snow falls atop the Eastern Sierra, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power can take only a certain amount of the runoff. This year, DWP was limited to 200,000 acre-feet, even though snowfall produced more than 300,000 acre-feet of runoff. That amount will meet only about 35% of DWP’s needs, compared to 70% in years unaffected by legal restrictions.

Source Problems

At the same time, supplies from Los Angeles’ two other water sources were lost. The MWD’s historic Colorado River entitlement has been slashed by half, or the equivalent of nearly 20% of the agency’s annual total deliveries, to satisfy Arizona’s demands. And tougher water-quality standards in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta have limited the potential for additional shipments to the south by the State Water Project.

Meanwhile, people continue to stream into Southern California and, statewide, accelerating population growth has further diminished the state’s ability to provide water to all who request it. Back in 1978, state forecasters believed California’s population would reach 29 million by the year 2000. In fact, the state has already passed 30 million.

All the while, the cost of new projects soared beyond the ability or willingness of sponsoring agencies to finance them alone. For instance, the price tag of the proposed federal Auburn Dam on the American River north and east of Sacramento grew from $283 million in 1965 to $1.1 billion in the late 1970s when construction was halted, partly because of the escalating cost.

Silver Lining

But if there is a silver lining to California’s cloudy predicament, it is that the 1987-91 drought renewed the quest for solutions to the state’s growing water problem.

Politicians such as Roberti joined the debate after remaining aloof from it for years. The election of a new governor, Pete Wilson, with a penchant for problem-solving, has raised hopes that the political deadlock over construction of new facilities can finally be broken.

Big city water agencies, farmers and environmentalists--groups that usually face off from opposite sides of the fence--are actively negotiating to reach agreement on critical issues to then take to the governor and Legislature.

The cities want more water diverted from Northern California, they want the water safe from contamination and they want the option of buying irrigation water from the farmers. In turn, the cities would agree to conserve more water and move more aggressively on the reclamation of treated sewage, which can be used for lawn and golf course irrigation.

Trade-offs would include the use of more water for environmental protection, primarily for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and San Francisco Bay. Farmers would be assured a fair price for any water they agreed to sell the cities and they would be protected against long-term loss of water rights.

So far, a breakthrough has eluded the parties. But one key negotiator, Boronkay of the MWD, is optimistic. “It’s very gratifying to see archenemies sitting down and actually trying to draft language,” he said.

Staking a Claim

Some observers fear that the rains of March, and the subsequent loosening of some water restrictions, will ease the sense of crisis that has helped keep negotiators at the bargaining table. But the talks must continue, Boronkay said, because it is now clear that the state system is capable of meeting all its customary water demands only in the wettest of years.

“In the past, you all went out and staked out your claim,” said Boronkay, whose agency is responsible for meeting about half the water needs of 15 million Southern Californians. “Just like you staked out your land, you staked out your water. Water was there to be exploited. Well, that’s changed.”

The result, said state Water Resources chief Kennedy, is this: “Basically, we’ve got greater demands than we’ve got supplies. We’ve added 7 million people to the state, many of them in the (State Water Project) service area, since ’77. We’ve been telling the world for a long time that we’re oversubscribed.”

The story of inadequate water supply is not a new one for California. Los Angeles’ Owens Valley system had been in operation only 10 years in 1923 when “drought proved its Sierra Nevada watershed inadequate to fill the aqueduct during a dry cycle,” according to an MWD report.

To boost supplies, the city went farther north to tap the snow-fed Sierra streams flowing into Mono Lake. And Los Angeles joined with its neighbors to form the MWD to build the Colorado River Aqueduct with the goal of meeting the region’s water needs “for generations to come,” the MWD report said.

With all that accomplished, Southern California again faced a potential shortage by the 1950s. MWD promoted a new plan to import water--the State Water Project, which was to transfer Feather River water more than 400 miles south to Southern California.

Prop. 9’s Demise

Expansion of the State Water Project has been needed for years, but is still unlikely to get done any time soon. Voters in June, 1982, nixed the best prospect state officials had for getting the facilities approved. Proposition 9 on that ballot would have authorized a $1.3-billion second phase of the water plan--a package of projects that probably would cost twice that today.

The election turned almost exclusively on the emotional issue of a Peripheral Canal to route the clear Sacramento River waters around the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to state project pumps that divert the water south. Northern voters viewed the canal as a blatant Southern California water grab. It was their water. They defeated the measure with a “no” vote margin of 9 to 1.

Today, the State Water Project is capable of delivering only half of the 4.2 million acre-feet that was promised to customers by 1990, and half of the 2 million acre-feet allocated to MWD, the project’s biggest partner.

“We all want to continue with our comfortable lifestyle of using more water than we really need,” said Ventura County Supervisor John Flynn, a member of Wilson’s drought task force. “But until we improve the management of our water supply and diversify our sources, that simply may not be realistic.”

For all the talk about better water management and new supply sources such as desalination, the bottom line for Southern California is to import more water, said Richard Atwater, general manager of the West and Central Basin Municipal Water Districts serving more than two million Los Angeles-area residents.

“The 1991 drought crisis is symptomatic of a new era of California water,” said Atwater, a former MWD and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation official. “Severe shortages are very likely during the next decade.”

SUPPLYING THE STATE’S WATER

Nearly half of the water consumed in California by 20 million residents and millions of acres of croplands is provided by seven giant projects built by local, regional, state and federal governments:

Project: LOS ANGELES AQUEDUCT

Operator: Los Angeles Department of Water and Power

Facts: System cost $1.5 million in 1905. Put into operation in 1913, sending water 233 miles southward from Owens Valley to Los Angeles. Aqueduct was extended northward into Mono Basin in 1940, drawing water from streams feeding Mono Lake. A second barrel of aqueduct opened in 1970, primarily to handle groundwater from Owens Valley.

Capacity: Average yield over past 20 years has been 450,000 acre-feet*, providing Los Angeles with 60%-80% of its total water supply. However, environmental lawsuits have limited system to estimated 380,000 acre-feet in normal precipitation years with potential for further reductions. This year, such limits prevent Los Angeles from taking more than 200,000 acre-feet, or about 40%, of its supply from Owens Valley.

Project: COLORADO RIVER AQUEDUCT

Operator: Metropolitan Water District of Southern California

Facts: MWD was formed by City of Los Angeles and 12 other communities in 1928 to provide water from California’s allocation of Colorado River waters. Construction of $220 million, 242-mile long aqueduct was approved in 1931. It began operating in 1941. San Diego linked up to system in 1947 and aqueduct was expanded in 1950s. MWD now has 27 member agencies and provides about half the supplies for an estimated 15 million residents of six Southern California counties.

Capacity: Aqueduct was built to handle 430,000 acre-feet of water a year. Additions brought capacity up to 1.2 million acre-feet, which for years was MWD’s legal right to Colorado River water. That has been reduced to 550,000 acre-feet annually.

Project: STATE WATER PROJECT

Operator: State Department of Water Resources

Facts: State Water Project was financed through a $1.75 billion bond issue approved by voters in 1960. Project captures Feather River behind Oroville Dam and allows it to flow down Sacramento River. Water is then channeled into 444-mile-long California Aqueduct and down San Joaquin Valley, where much of supply is delivered to Kern County farmers. Rest is pumped over Tehachapis for MWD.

Capacity: Project was designed to provide 4.2 million acre-feet of water by 1990, including 2 million acre-feet to MWD. However, all facilities have not been completed and it delivers about 2.4 million acre-feet in a normal water year, including 1.2 million to MWD.

Project: CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

Operator: U.S. Bureau of Reclamation

Facts: Originally designed as a state facility, Central Valley Project was taken over by federal government in 1930s when California failed to finance it during the Depression. Today, it represents an investment of several billion dollars. First phases were completed in 1951, including keystone Shasta Dam on Sacramento River.

Capacity: Central Valley Project is California’s largest, delivering 7 million acre-feet. With planned but unbuilt facilities, CVP potentially could be expanded to nearly 10 million acre-feet.

Project: HETCH HETCHY SYSTEM

Operator: City of San Francisco

Facts: After years of opposition by infant Sierra Club and John Muir, San Francisco won authorization to build O’Shaughnessy Dam on Tuolumne River in Yosemite National Park. Work began in 1915, with an initial authorization of $45 million rising to a total $102 million by 1933. The 227-foot dam was dedicated in 1923 and was raised to 430 feet in 1938. First water was delivered to San Francisco through 150 miles of aqueduct, tunnels and power generation plants in 1934.

Capacity: Hetch Hetchy system delivers about 250,000 acre-feet of water a year, some 40% of it for use in city itself. Rest is distributed for resale in Alameda, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties.

Project: MOKELUMNE RIVER AQUEDUCT

Operator: East Bay Municipal Utility District

Facts: Voters in Alameda and Contra Costa counties formed district in 1923 to serve an area that now has more than 1.1 million residents. Waters from Mokelumne River watershed in western Sierra are captured at Pardee Dam and Reservoir 38 miles northeast of Stockton. The system, financed with a $39-million bond issue, delivered its first water in 1929. A second Mokelumne River aqueduct was completed in 1949 and a third in 1963.

Capacity: East Bay has rights to about 364,000 acre-feet of water on Mokelumne, although with existing storage facilities, it gets about 241,000 acre-feet.

Project: All-American and Coachella canals

Operators: Imperial and Coachella Valley irrigation districts.

Facts: All-American Canal was authorized in Boulder Canyon Project Act of 1928 that also provided for construction of Hoover Dam. The 82-mile-long All-American Canal was completed in 1942 and the 122-mile Coachella Valley branch in 1949.

Capacity: Imperial, Coachella, Yuma Project and Palo Verde Irrigation District share a priority water right to 3.85 million acre-feet a year out of California’s total Colorado River allocation of 4.4 million acre-feet (rest belongs to Metropolitan Water District). Imperial annually imports 2.7 million acre-feet through All-American Canal. Coachella receives about 300,000 acre-feet through its branch.

* One acre-foot, the standard of water measurement, equals 325,900 gallons and is approximately enough to meet the needs of the average California family for a year and a half.

Sources: Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, Metropolitan Water District, State Department of Water Resources, Water Education Foundation, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, San Francisco City Water Department, East Bay Municipal Utility District, Imperial and Coachella Valley irrigation districts.