How Shortage Can Lead to Richness : WATER WATCH: Two years of hard negotiating bring north and south together

Even before the state’s current drought, it was clear that the easy sources of additional water to support growth were tapped out. With that came an awareness that conserving may be the best way to find “new” sources of water. Now the state’s urban water agencies, which have a long history of infighting, are joining in a pioneering conservation pact aimed at saving enough water to meet the needs of several million people a year. The plan marks a new era of water politics in California.

The pact is the result of efforts by the State Water Conservation Coalition, which brought together the Irvine-based Southern California Water Committee and the Committee for Water Policy Consensus in Contra Costa County in Northern California. During two years of negotiations, water agencies, environmental groups, cities and counties set aside their differences to come up with a set of standardized methods to conserve and reclaim water. To date, the agencies have identified 16 measures. These include offering incentives to install low-flush toilets and to reduce landscape watering.

While most agencies already have put at least some of these measures into practice, especially during recent dry years, the pact will commit them to instituting all of them during the next 10 years--drought or no drought--which is good planning.

There is a cost, of course. The California Department of Water Resources, which participated in creating the policy, puts the cost of the conservation measures at $100 million a year statewide. That comes to about $300 per acre-foot for this conserved water--more than the cost of current supplies but far less than getting additional supplies from new dams or desalination plants. Also, building dams and other huge projects surely would trigger a round of environmental objections, a major reason the Natural Resources Defense Council and other environmental groups joined in coalition efforts to find ways to conserve supplies.

The Municipal Water Authority of Orange County, a wholesale water agency serving 28 cities and districts, last week became the first of the agencies to endorse the policy; the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and the San Diego County Water Authority quickly followed. The Los Angeles Metropolitan Water District and other agencies are expected to sign on in coming weeks and months. There are 1,200 urban water agencies statewide.

As a result of the coalition’s efforts, there is now agreement on a “water ethic” for water agencies throughout California. That’s a breakthrough in a state where regional water fights are a bitter tradition.