NEWS FLASH: 'Can we conserve our way out of this drought [uhm...climate change crisis]?'
Watch the Southern California Water Dialogue Zoom webinar for answers, today at 12:00-1:30 pm. Engage with your own questions and comments.
How many times have Californian’s heard that “We can’t conserve our way out of a drought”?
Maybe the question of today’s Water Dialogue webinar should be updated to, “Can we Conserve Our Way Out of this Climate-Change Crisis?”
In any case, studies show that conservation is clearly the cheapest and most efficient way, per se, to maintain and increase our water-supply reliability.
But water districts depend on water sales to pay for everything they do, from ACWA junkets for their members to fixed costs for maintaining needed and (arguably) sometimes unneeded infrastructure.
Like the Carlsbad ocean desalination plant that makes up to 24 percent of the San Diego County Water Authority’s water-supply related costs yet produces only 10 percent or less of its supply.
Big infrastructure projects, needed or not, create lots of debt that is passed on to ratepayers who pay more each month as a consequence. That’s especially bad for San Diego County, which already has the highest water rates in the state, if not the nation.
The current water management system results in punishing lower-income ratepayers, who conserve responsibly, with higher water bills while they subsidize higher-income customers who splurge and waste.
The problem could get a lot worse.
In San Diego County, water use has generally declined for decades due to increased conservation. Future water supplies are threatened by severely diminished Colorado River shortages (due to climate change.) And, following a huge trend, wastewater recycling plants will be built by the City of San Diego and the Padre Dam Municipal Water District—those agencies will have to pay for their own infrastructure costs (also passed on to ratepayers) and they need to avoid the jacked-up charges of imported water sold through the Water Authority.
On top of that, the Water Authority is still seriously considering a $5 billion water conveyance project that would short-cut its Colorado River supply across the Anza Borrego State Park and desert—even though it won’t add a single drop to the county’s water supply—simply to avoid passing it through its perceived decades-old enemy, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (its imported water supplier).
But an independent study commissioned by 18 of the Water Authority’s 24 member agencies concluded that the project is “substantially more costly than other options,” meaning that it’s far better off cost-wise by dumping the pipe proposal and sticking with the MWD.
So, my question for the webinar’s panel of experts is, how can we change water management in Southern California so that we don’t screw responsible ratepayers by making them subsidize the water-wasting habits of higher income ratepayers and the impulsively planned, wasteful, and costly projects that their water districts would force upon them?
Join in the discussion with a distinguished panel of experts put together by the folks at the Southern California Water Dialogue.
The following is the Dialogue’s description of today’s event:
Topic: Can We Conserve Our Way Out of this Drought?
Description: Join some of the most creative and experienced water conservation experts as the Water Dialogue explores how conservation actions and projects can be accelerated to better manage the current megadrought. Speakers will explore actions that can be taken immediately, strategies to move past barriers, and approaches to hasten the application of promising policies and technologies.
Speakers:
Max Gomberg, former Water Conservation and Climate Change Manager, State Water Resources Control Board
Tracy Quinn, Chief Executive Officer, Heal the Bay, former Director of California Urban Water Policy at the Natural Resources Defense Council
Fiona Sanchez, Director, Water Resources, Irvine Ranch Water District
Time
Oct 26, 2022 12:00 PM in
Registration is required at: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_mMKy6a1bQU-Fj-ZQIVrPRQ