Senator Cogdill & David Slawson: Now is the time to address water infrastructure needs

Here’s an article from the Riverside Press-Enterprise, written by Senator Cogdill, in support of the Governor’s water plan and SB 59:

Senator Cogdill starts by citing recent population growth estimates that say that California is growing at the rate of 500,000 to 750,000 people per year, mostly in Los Angeles and Riverside Counties, and that California will need an additional 4 million acre-feet over the next 25 years. He also points out that recent climate predictions have estimated that California will lose 25% of it’s snowpack by 2050.

In the Senator’s own words:

How will Southern California fill the coming supply gap? It won’t come from the Colorado River — the state already receives its maximum allotment. At some point, conservation will cease to be effective. That will occur after water has been rationed and people are no longer allowed to water their lawns or fill their swimming pools.

In reality, Southern California has just one source of water with some built-in flexibility — the water that flows from Northern California. Unfortunately, California’s interdependent water system is only as good as its water-storage capacity, which is in no shape to shoulder the coming burden. To fully address our state’s complex and varied needs, it’s imperative that we build sufficient groundwater and surface storage to meet tomorrow’s needs.

There is also an immediate necessity for us to address the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. As the hub of California’s water system, water for nearly two-thirds of California’s population flows through and is pumped out of the delta. Yet, the delta is immensely vulnerable. Recently, concerns about an endangered fish species caused the Department of Water Resources to cut drastically the amount of water being pumped out of the delta. That decision had a ripple effect on all the communities that rely on the pumped water.

Additionally, the delta is exceedingly susceptible to earthquakes. One large-magnitude earthquake could decimate the delta and the system used to convey water to Southern California.

For all these reasons, I introduced Senate Bill 59, the Reliable Water Supply Bond Act of 2008, and I continue to press the issue within the Legislature.

To read the rest of the article from Riverside’s Press-Enterprise, click here.

David Slawson, Eastern Municipal Water District (Riverside) also wrote an article, not necessarily in support of Schwarzenegger’s plan, but speaking more to the importance of addressing water infrastructure needs:

Though tremendous investments have been made in water facilities on a local and regional basis, improvements in our statewide water infrastructure have lagged behind. That must change if we are to reliably deliver clean and affordable water to 60 million Californians in a few short decades.

In the Riverside area, we are stretching every drop of water we have through water recycling, water-use efficiency and other strategies. We have diversified our water supply sources, and we continue to expand water recycling and conservation efforts. We are also pursuing new programs to maximize local groundwater basins through efforts such as desalination.

These successes are making a real difference in our regional water picture today, but our statewide outlook is less certain. It has been 25 years since significant improvements were made in our statewide backbone infrastructure, even though our state’s population climbed from 20 million to 37 million in that time.

To read the rest of this article, also from Riverside’s Press-Enterprise, click here.

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