Currents

An Energy Newsletter for Local Governments

A Call For A Set Of Ahwahnee Principles For Water

Ahwahnee Principles for Water (DRAFT)

1. Recognize and live within limits of water resources. Promote a stewardship ethic to care for those resources.
   
   The hydro cycle is vast, and California has the advantage of being on the edge of the ocean, but there are still limits to the amount of water that will ultimately be available. We will reach those limits much more quickly if we don’t take care of what we have.
   
   
2. Maximize local self-sufficiency and reliability of water resources by developing a diverse portfolio of water supplies.
   
   An investment strategy where “not all eggs are in one basket” is important. It is surprising how many communities don’t know where their water supplies come from, and assume that “someone else” (the wholesaler, the state, the federal government) will take care of development of additional future supplies.
   
   Local assets have been overlooked and undervalued, due to the historic assumption that “supplemental” water supplies will come from imported water sources. A lesson from drought — imported water supplies are not reliable. Recognize that Chino has one of the largest groundwater basins in southern California with 1 million acre-feet of additional storage that can be developed.
   
   In developing a water supply portfolio, recognize that not all water sources are “equal.” Considerations:
   
   
   • The importance of locally-controlled water supplies — control your own future. Essential to address Costa/Kuhl (221/610) requirements.
   • The importance of drought-proof water supplies like recycled and groundwater. This is the water that really counts during tight times. Availability of these supplies will help protect the economy as well as reduce pressure on imported water supplies (greatest conflicts in state/federal system occur during drought periods).
   • Minimize or eliminate reliance on inter-basin transfers. These supplies have the greatest competing needs and use of these supplies have increasing environmental (public trust) and third party impacts.
     
     
3. Use whole system planning and management approaches for development of water resources.
   
   The legacy of the “good planning” era of the fifties and sixties is the segmentation of resource issues into different departments. Water resources are particularly isolated, where civil engineers and sanitary engineers in the same community rarely talk to one another.
   
   Look at the linkage between water supply and water treatment. Also look at the linkage between water quality and water supply (example, How MTBE contamination in Santa Monica is impacting water supplies).
   
   Understand real patterns of water use and need. It is surprising how many “myths” there are about what a water community’s needs are. Take the example of Mono Lake/Los Angeles where LADWP insisted that Mono Lake water was essential to the City — yet the real issue was drought supplies and Mono Lake water was snowmelt that would not add to reliability of the water for the City. The solution was to develop conservation and water recycling projects that addressed the City’s needs and made it possible to protect Mono Lake.
   
   Understand how our watersheds work. It is surprising how little we know about the watersheds in which we live and how they process water — yet this is central to the issue of flooding, water quality, and water supplies.
   
   Connect to global issues. We need to consider how global issues like global warming impact our communities, but equally how we impact these global issues. Our choices are part of both the problem and the solutions to the problem.
   
   
4. Conduct whole system planning at the regional level as well as the local level.
   
   No city is an island. No watershed is an island. Everything is connected whether through natural systems or artificial systems (diversions). What happens upstream impacts communities downstream. We need to build this recognition into our planning.
   
   Regional planning provides opportunities to leverage investments in water infrastructure. Projects discussed at the conference (conservation, recycled, desalination, storm water capture) are not cheap. Nor can our communities afford redundant infrastructure. Regional planning provides an opportunity to share interests, build partnerships, and develop creative financing opportunities.
   
   
5. Restore and protect natural systems as an integral part of water management.
   
   Design with nature — not against it. Many problems facing our communities (increased flooding, loss of water quality, loss of groundwater recharge) have been exacerbated because our urban designs are working against natural processes.
   
   Use natural systems to achieve flood control, water quality and water supply goals. The reality is that we can more effectively achieve these goals where we take advantage of nature’s services and design systems that compliment natural systems.
   
   
6. Design and plan buildings, landscapes, and communities to capture rainwater, utilize water efficiently, re-use water and minimize environmental impacts. In an era of limits, can we afford to use water once and throw it away?
   
   
7. Design and account for multiple benefits of sustainable water management.
   
   The era of single purpose projects is over. We cannot afford to investment in infrastructure that has only one purpose.
   
   When projects are designed to achieve multiple goals, the comprehensive benefits achieved by the projects need to be accounted for. Often there are important societal or global benefits that are overlooked in traditional water planning. For example, ,energy. When we develop and use local water supplies in southern California, the need for imported water pumped over the Tehachapis is reduced. The energy benefits include reduced impact on peak energy usage, reduced green house gas emissions, and avoided global warming impacts. Second example, capturing local runoff. When we have the landscape do a better job of processing runoff, it helps to reduce flooding, improves water quality and enhances local water supplies.
   
   Remember to include social/environmental justice benefits in the equation. Poor families can’t afford to waste income on leaks. New toilets improve the quality of the home and may bring health benefits. Also it is important to make the connection with community/public education, for example, with children traveling to Mono Lake and seeing where their water came from, planting trees, playing in the snow and developing a sense of connection with a water source that is over 350 miles away from their home.
   
   Use multiple objective accounting to guide investments in the development of water projects. This is critically important with the use of water bonds as the major source of new state funds in water resource development. Criteria needs to be developed that will ensure that State funds are invested in the most sustainable, beneficial projects.
   
   
8. Recognize and reward agencies and their staff for changing how they plan and implement water projects.
   
   Institutional change is enormously difficult. We are asking our agencies to alter the fundamental way they do business — moving from single objective planning to multiple objective planning; moving from one agency focus to multiple agencies (and at different levels).
   
   Accountability is key — Ruth Galanter’s proposal that agency staff performance measures include a review of the actions they have taken to promote local water supply planning.
   
   Providing support is key — staff need to have the resources and time to develop these new approaches.

Continued...

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