Some of the state’s first restrictions on water use, such as in Long Beach and other cities where fines were handed out for overuse, have caused water consumption to fall about 8 percent below normal this year, according to state water officials.
But representatives still say that’s not enough and the decades-old infrastructure built to hold, share and import water needs to be upgraded.
Adan Ortega Jr. of GCG Rose & Kindle consulting firm for the Metropolitan Water District, the largest water district in the country, said the state is losing water because of an over-population of people, groundwater contamination, wasting water and levies drying up because of increased temperatures.
He said typically droughts last thousands of years, and states all over the country experiencing a water shortfall could continue to see a steady decline.
“We get rain, just not enough to support all those people,” he said. “We started to notice that the snow pack is getting smaller and smaller. Things are not the same.”
He said farmers, who rely heavily on imported water, are saying the state needs more storage, officials and taxpayers aren’t as willing to bank on restructuring the vast system of water flow, while global warming issues continue to affect on levies because of increasing water levels and high temperatures.
Water that households use two years, about 326,000 gallons of water, is known as one acre foot, and costs tax payers money depending on how the water is treated or where it comes from.
The three sources of water in California are the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, Colorado River, and local wells underground. Half of the water is from local resources and the other half is imported.
He said about seven states share water with California from the Colorado River.
“[State officials] don’t put enough time into education or resources into water,” he said.
“When you have political rhetoric you hear about special interests. We now have individual interests.”
Amidst increasing unstable weather conditions, Ortega Jr. said households, businesses and farmers continue to waste 25 percent of the state’s water supply.
“You’ll never see Lake Mead full again,” he said. “We waste half of all of the outside water that we use. When your customers are wasting water and they’re buying other water that is just going to be wasted again.”
In addition, the state has been increasing efforts to help bring back the Delta smelt, a small fish in the River Delta commonly used for bait that has nearly disappeared.
But Ortega Jr. said the state should be focusing on larger fish that have larger populations.
Ortega Jr. says the state should invest in upgrading its dilapidated levies and infrastructure, in addition to impose low flush toilets, and installation of satellite driven sprinkler systems for lawns.
“I think we are in a water crises of our own making,” he said. “If we don’t update operations we’re going to be in bigger trouble that before.”
Sam Pedroza, a former employee of the County Sanitation District of Los Angeles County, said there is still a lot local and state governments can do to help save water and money.
He said, due to the drought, water is costing households more and will continue to, if steps aren’t taken to limit consumption or find alternative water sources.
“Water is a natural recourse like air,” he said. “But we’re paying for the process that goes into getting it.”
Currently about 25 percent of California water comes from recycled water, which costs $200 to $300 an acre-foot, equal to an acre of water a foot high, from big tanks that pump in a reservoir that is filled up. Imported water costs about $400 an acre foot for untreated water straight from the Colorado River basin. The Santa Ana River and San Gabriel Valley percolate the water and it is treated by nature.
To receive “treated” imported water it has cost about $500 to $600 an acre-foot.
But now, Pedroza said, because of the drought the cost has risen to $800 an acre-foot.
New technology and innovations are the wave of the future, he said, and could be what helps the state with decreasing water levels and rising costs.
Such methods as desalination, where salt is extracted from water, or reverse osmosis, might cost more, but are alternatives rather than take away from the already depleting rivers and basins.
While desalination, common in Saudi Arabia or Catalina Island, costs $1,000 an acre-foot, costs for imported water are raising so high it could be the next choice.Recycled water, another alternative, is made through treatment plants, bacteria storage, through sand a gravel and anthracite coal and a fourth way is through reverse osmosis, or micro filtration that costs about $600 to $700 an acre foot.
The state proposed a program to start treating sewage water for drinking water in the 1990s, called unattractively “Toilet to Tap.” But it failed due to its dirty connotations, and reverse osmosis systems such as in Orange County could also be the answer he said.
“We have enough water, it’s just maximizing what we have,” Pedroza said.
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