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Lois Henry: Unchecked growth a strain on water
| Saturday, Jun 14 2008 12:00 PM
Last Updated: Monday, Jun 16 2008 8:17 AM
Water is all over the news these days and if you’ve been paying attention at all, you know it isn’t good.
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It hasn’t been good for a long, long time but, mostly for political reasons, you’re gonna hear about it BIG TIME now.
Amid all the clamor and clang, however, you will never hear these words — building moratorium.
I’ll say them because, well, it’s time to tell the truth about water.
There isn’t enough.
We absolutely must stop or drastically slow development in this state so we can get a handle on our true water supplies, how to make the most of them and how to develop more, if possible.
Otherwise, we’re going to race to the end of our finite water string and then what? Armed conflict?
Hey, thirsty people are angry people.
I’ve been told that no, no, no, we don’t have a supply problem, we have a regulatory and distribution problem.
Maybe so. But that still adds up to a supply problem.
In fact, our surface water has been quantified by the state board that oversees California’s water permits and it is not good.
The State Water Resources Control Board found that “current permitted water appropriations, amount to about five times California’s average annual surface water supply,” according to its strategic plan released in January.
That means we are beyond maxed out.
So far, the only options being batted around the Legislature, including the governor’s latest attempt to get a bond ($11 billion this time) onto the November ballot, have looked at some conservation methods, new dams and the politically radioactive peripheral canal, which would skirt water around the ailing San Joaquin/Sacramento delta.
Some believe the governor’s official drought announcement recently and his emergency water declaration for nine valley counties, including Kern, are ploys to boost support for his bond measure.
Probably. But I’m more interested in what his, and others’, list of solutions leave out.
What about development?
Apparently, that’s even more politically radioactive than the ol’ p-canal.
I actually don’t have a lot of faith that a gigantic state fix is in our future. But we can work at the city and county level with local officials reigning development in to match our supply, even if it means delaying or denying some projects. In other parts of California, even rampant growth areas like Riverside, it’s already happening.
Once those houses are built, you can’t shut off the water when things get tight. They can’t be plowed under, as 45,000 acres has been so far in Kern this year because the state only delivered 35 percent of our anticipated water allotment.
State law does require developers prove their water supplies for a 20-year period. That law increased water responsibility. But why just 20 years? Do the houses go away after that? In Arizona, the rule is 100 years.
In eastern Kern County, three developers ditched their proposed projects because the water district requirements made water too expensive, the county planning department told me.
Bakersfield, of course, is different. And we do have a good supply considering our aquifer, Kern River rights and extensive banking program.
“We have enough to sustain our growth for the next 30 to 50 years,” Bakersfield’s Water Resources Manager Florn Core has told me ad nauseam when I ask.
But we seem to be the exception even in our own county.
Outlying areas are struggling. Consider Delano, which just announced major water restrictions after two years of scant rainfall caused a 20-foot drop in the water table.
The County Planning Department is taking a stricter look at proposed developments in outlying areas, even refusing to allow developers to cite the State Water Project as a source. After a judge last year curtailed pumping from the delta to protect the threatened smelt, the state project is too unreliable to base a housing development on, I’m told.
The county will also be taking a hard look at how much growth can be accommodated given our water issues as part of the General Plan update.
Whoa! Linking growth to water supply!
Hopefully, it will be a concept that catches on.
Opinions expressed in this column are those of Lois Henry, not The Bakersfield Californian. Her column appears Wednesdays and Sundays. Call her at 395-7373 or e-mail lhenry@bakersfield.com.