Max Gomberg worked for ten years as the conservation manager for the California State Water Resources Control Board. He quit last July and, despite Gov. Newsom’s progressive rhetoric, issued a harsh resignation letter accusing his administration of eviscerating the ability of the agency to battle climate change.
In his letter, addressed to “everyone,” Gomberg wrote:
These are dark and uncertain times, both because fascists are regaining power and because climate change is rapidly decreasing the habitability of many places. Sadly, this state is not on a path towards steep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions reductions, massive construction to alleviate the housing crisis, quickly and permanently reducing agriculture to manage the loss of water to aridification, and reducing law enforcement and carceral budgets and reallocating resources to programs that actually increase public health and safety. All of these (and more) are necessary for an equitable and livable future.
In a Oct. 26 webinar hosted by the Southern California Water Dialogue, sponsored by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD), Gomberg was one of three distinguished panelists brought together to answer the question, “Can We Conserve Our Way Out of this Drought?”
The event was facilitated by Conner Everts of the Southern California Watershed Alliance.
The other panelists were:
Tracy Quin, a member of MWD’s Board of Directors, Chief Executive office of Heal the Bay, and former Director of California Urban Water Policy at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Fiona Sanchez, Director of Water Resources, Irvine Ranch Water District in Orange County.
I am posting each presentation in the order they were given (watch above).
Going first, Gomberg laid out reasons for giving the state a strong role in water management in face of a growing supply crisis caused by human-induced climate change and a profit-oriented management system that encourages overuse by big agriculture.
By comparison, the state has strong regulations for the production of renewable energy sources by the private sector, and they are working well or improving, he says.
After confronting unsustainable obstructionism by local government, the state realizes “it’s now time for some rules and requirements” to make building homes easier.
As housing goes, so goes its water crisis. And the solutions are basically the same: stronger state policies.
“We have a lot of local control still existing in our policy framework and therefore we don’t have a strong set of state mandates to really push us into the direction of getting a handle on our [water] crisis,” he believes.
The model that allows private concerns, particularly agriculture, to profit from public investments, then get government subsidies to fix the over-pumping problems they cause, is also unsustainable, he says.
State water management needs “a clear vision, goals, and resources” with “statutory and regulatory mandates” to avoid crisis after crisis.
Gomberg asked water planners to seriously consider a policy direction that includes power sharing between state and local governments.
“Simply chanting the local control mantra isn’t going to cut it anymore,” he warns.
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