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Seven Things You May Be Surprised to Know About Water in California
1
There’s enough drinking water in the state to meet demand – even during a drought – but it’s being mismanaged.
The state has enough water to meet the demands of businesses, farms and private citizens—even during drought years. The problem is that a small number of industrial agribusiness interests have an outsized influence on who gets water. The state has refused to quantify water and its use because if it did, they’d have to do something about it. A public trust analysis of this critical natural resource can guide equitable and sustainable distribution of water throughout the state.
2
Agriculture in California is only 2% of the state economy, yet it consumes 80% of our developed water.
Regular citizens are asked to conserve, some farmers get no water, and salmon face extinction while a small number of industrial agribusiness growers increase their acreage and profit from overusing a public resource. This inequitable imbalance is driving up costs to ratepayers, damaging the environment and ultimately hurting our economy.
3
Two-thirds of California’s developed water comes from just one source.
The California Delta is a life-giving ecosystem that includes 26 major rivers and creeks. At over 75,000 square miles, it’s the largest watershed in the state. It not only provides water to two-thirds of California’s population, it’s part of the largest migratory bird flyway in North and South America, and home to three runs of wild salmon—all of which are on the verge of extinction. The overallocation of water is unravelling this priceless ecosystem that many forms of life depend on, including us. Read more →
4
The State of California has given away rights to 5.3 times more water than exists in the Delta Watershed.
Water that exists as water-rights claims in legal documents (but not in the real world) is known as "paper water". The state has about 29 million acre-feet of surface water available for use. Based on active water-rights records, a total of 153.7 million acre-feet a year is allocated in contracts to water districts, agricultural interests and development. That’s 124.7-million-acre feet of paper water that doesn’t exist. Read more →
5
Dams are no longer a viable solution.
Dams and reservoirs are “high cost, low yield”—extremely expensive relative to how much water they capture, with California ratepayers footing the bill even when little or no water is available. Storm water capture is best done locally, along with conservation, wastewater treatment, modern desalination and other proven water-saving measures.
6
Extinction of salmon in the California Delta is happening right now.
The population of all fish in the Delta watershed has declined 95% since exports of water were increased above recommended levels. It’s estimated that California’s runs of wild salmon could be completely extinct by 2022. Read more →
7
The California State Constitution asserts that water is a public trust resource. Meaning it belongs to you.
Codified in Roman law and included in the California State Constitution, the public trust doctrine principle recognizes the public right to designated natural resources—including air, rivers, the sea and its shore—and requires the state, to hold “in trust” these resources for the benefit of all citizens of the state—now and in the future.
The public trust doctrine is not new to the courts and it’s been used successfully to argue for the environmental protection of public resources. In 1983, the California Supreme Court held that the public trust doctrine applied to Los Angeles’ rights to divert water from Mono Lake’s feeder streams, limiting how much could be taken.
We’re fighting in court because the public trust doctrine also applies to the California Delta.