Several events with far-reaching consequences have altered water management in California since 1987, the last year an update to the California Water Plan was published. A drought that lasted six years strained the State's water supply system. During the last year of drought, 1992, actions to protect threatened aquatic species changed the operations of California's two largest water projects, the State Water Project and the Central Valley Project. That same year, the Central Valley Project Improvement Act passed, reallocating CVP supplies to protect natural resources. With severely limited supplies and fewer demands fully met, California realized that its water management system was no longer providing adequately reliable service, and the reliability of future supplies was highly uncertain.
In October 1991, amendments to California Water Code Sections 10004 and 10005 passed, requiring that the State's water plan be updated every five years. The California Water Plan Update, Bulletin 160-93, is the first update to be issued according to these amendments. This executive summary condenses the major findings and conclusions in Bulletin 160-93. After a short background discussion and an abstract of how recent acts and laws are affecting California's water resource management, essential supply and demand figures are presented. Next, options for balancing water supply and demand are outlined. Finally, major conclusions and recommendations from the bulletin are recapped. Key findings of Bulletin 160-93 are:
In most areas of California, the 1987-92 drought caused a marked increase in urban water conservation, reduced surface water supplies for agriculture, and stressed environmental resources. Some urban areas resorted to mandatory rationing, farmers in several agricultural areas chose to leave part of their acreage fallow, and ecosystems in certain regions endured harsh impacts. Still, innovative water banking, water transfers, and changes in project operations helped reduce the harmful effects of drought. The six-year drought and the need for a comprehensive policy to guide California's water management and planning prompted the Governor to announce his water policy on April 6, 1992. The policy provided general guidance in developing the options in Bulletin 160-93.
For decades, the San Francisco Bay-Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta estuary has been the focal point for a wide variety of water-related issues, generating more investigations than any other waterway system in California. Major components of the complex Bay-Delta system include the Suisun Marsh, San Pablo Bay, and the Delta estuary. Two-thirds of the State's population and millions of acres of agricultural land receive part or all of their water supplies from the Bay-Delta. More than 100 species of fish use the Bay-Delta system. The Suisun Marsh covers 80,000 acres and is the largest contiguous wetland remaining in California. The entire system provides habitat for hundreds of species of fish, migratory waterfowl, mammals, and plants while also supporting extensive farming and recreational activities. The Delta and its tributaries, the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, are critical to California's water supply picture (see Figure ES-1). Water quality issues affecting these water bodies affect supplies from California's key water supply hub.
In February 1993, the National Marine Fisheries Service issued its biological opinion for the threatened winter-run chinook salmon (and later changed its designation to endangered). In March 1993, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued its biological opinion for the threatened Delta smelt. Both species had been listed under the federal and State Endangered Species acts because of population declines. The biological opinions impose restrictions on exports from the Bay-Delta. In addition, the CVPIA reallocates over 1 million acre-feet of CVP supplies to the protection of fish, wildlife, and their habitat. In 1993, about 400,000 acre-feet of reallocated CVP supplies benefited winter-run salmon and Delta smelt. The act's ultimate effect on Delta exports and how the environmental water will be used for the long-term are yet to be determined.
Other factors that will likely impose added restrictions on Delta exports are the State Water Resources Control Board's Bay-Delta proceedings and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's proposed Bay-Delta water quality standards. In response to the Governor's April 1992 water policy statement, SWRCB proceeded with a process to establish interim Bay-Delta standards (proposed Water Right Decision 1630) to provide immediate protection for fish and wildlife. In April 1993, the Governor asked SWRCB to withdraw its proposed Decision 1630 and instead focus efforts on establishing permanent standards since recent federal actions had effectively pre-empted State interim standards and provided interim protection for the Bay-Delta environment. By the end of 1993, EPA announced its proposed standards for the estuary in place of SWRCB water quality standards EPA had rejected in 1991.
In April 1994, the SWRCB began a series of workshops to review Delta protection standards adopted in its 1991 Water Quality Control Plan for Salinity and to examine proposed federal EPA standards issued in December 1993. This process is intended to help establish a draft SWRCB Delta regulatory plan acceptable to both the State and federal governments, to be released in December 1994. The plan will be developed in accordance with the Triennial Review requirements of the Clean Water Act.
More recently, the California Water Policy Council, created to coordinate activities related to the State's long-term water policy, and the Federal Ecosystem Directorate (sometimes referred to as "Club Fed"), comprising representatives from the EPA, NMFS, USFWS, and the USBR, have developed and signed a framework agreement for the Bay-Delta Estuary. The agreement provides for improved coordination and communication among State and federal agencies with resource management responsibilities in the estuary. It covers the water quality standards setting process; coordinates water supply project operations with requirements of water quality standards, endangered species laws, and the CVPIA; and provides for cooperation in planning and developing long-term solutions to the problems affecting the estuary's major public values. Coordination of State-federal resource management and long-range planning in the Bay-Delta estuary is necessary to promote regulatory consistency and stability, and to address the estuary's environmental problems, in a manner that minimizes economic and water costs to California.
Regulatory consistency and stability in the Bay-Delta estuary are also crucial to facilitating water transfers. Water transfers and marketing are integral components of California's water supply network. With appropriate safeguards against adverse environmental and third party effects, water transfers are an important tool for solving some of California's supply and allocation problems. There are generally fewer environmental impacts associated with transfers than with construction of conventional projects, and although often difficult to implement, transfers can be carried out more quickly and usually at less cost than construction of additional facilities.
During the 1987-92 drought, many water transfers took place between areas that could temporarily reduce usage and areas with water shortages. Some of these transfers were part of the State Drought Water Bank, which was designed to move water from areas of greatest availability to areas of greatest need. There were three sources of water for the 1991 State Drought Water Bank: temporary surplus in reservoirs, surface supplies freed up by the use of ground water, and surface supplies freed up by fallowing farm land. (The 1992 State Drought Water Bank did not purchase surface supplies freed up by fallowing.) Transfers of water outside the State-sponsored Drought Water Bank have also become more prevalent; many of these transfers involve the Department of Water Resources because they require conveyance of the transferred water through SWP facilities.
At the same time, California's water supply infrastructure is limited in its ability to transfer marketed water due to constraints placed on export pumping from the Delta (what some people refer to as "the institutional drought"). For example, in 1993, an above normal runoff year, environmental restrictions limited CVP deliveries to 50 percent of contracted supply for all federal water service contractors in the area from Tracy to Kettleman City. Such limitations will exacerbate ground water overdraft in the San Joaquin River and Tulare Lake regions (Figure ES-2) because surface supplies in wet years will not be available to recharge ground water that was used during dry years to replace the shortfall in surface supplies.
It may take a decade or more to fully assess the cumulative effects of the
biological opinions, the CVPIA, more stringent water quality standards, and
increased water transfers. In that time, the effects will be somewhat offset
because adjustments to water demand patterns will probably lead to more efficient
use of water, and options for improving the supply system's reliability and
flexibility will probably be implemented. In the short-term, however, those
areas of California relying on the Delta for all or part of their water face
great uncertainty about supply reliability. Until solutions to complex Delta
problems are identified and put in place, many Californians will experience
more frequent and severe shortages. Without solutions to key Bay-Delta problems,
many of the major proposed water supply programs north and south of the Delta
are not feasible.
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