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California water rights and flexibility; is there a shadowy mastermind at work?

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on April 30, 2009 at 12:30 pm

From the On the Public Record blog, a series of posts about California’s current system of water rights. First the blog begins with laying out two defenses of our current water rights system, one by Laura King Moon of the State Water Contractors Board, given in her testimony to the Little Hoover Commission, and the other given in the position paper of the newly created Public Water Coalition: Two defenses of our current water rights system

Here is the OTPR’s quick summary of our current water rights system.

In another post, the OTPR discusses water infrastructure investments and water rights:

One of my consistent themes is that scarcity requires management. The districts whose water rights guarantee them abundance do not invest nearly enough in their physical systems. It is especially blatant for the districts with the most senior water rights, from before 1914. They have plenty, will never get cut back, and have primitive, wasteful delivery systems. The city of Sacramento, with pre-1914 water rights, doesn’t even have water meters on houses. The city of Folsom is the same. San Juan Water District is the same, and has the highest per capita water use in the state, four times as high as average. I don’t even know how they get their usage that high. Fix leaks? Why bother? With their water rights, they will never run out.

Irrigation districts follow the same pattern. The district with the largest, oldest water rights in the state, Glenn Colusa, has earthen canals and barely any controls. Here. Look. That’s a dirt ditch with the occasional flashboard check structure in it. Scroll around. The whole district is like that2. They have not invested money on tight water control. Why would they? Under our current rights system, they will not face scarcity. Spending money on their physical capital wouldn’t get them anything. This holds true for all the old, big rights holders. When people have rights to an amount of water close to what they (perceive they) need, they invest in capital to use it well. When water rights guarantee abundance, districts invest enough to move it around sloppily, but no more than that. Our current water rights system does not direct investment very well. It gives districts the security to do some investing, but it allows severe underinvestment for the most senior rights holders.

Read the full text of this post from the On the Public Record Blog: California’s Current Water Rights and Investment

In this next post, the OTPR blog expresses surprise that both defenses of our current water rights system tout flexibility:

All this talk about the great flexibility of California water rights is strange to me, because, like, they aren’t. Riparian rights can only be used on land adjacent to the river; water under a riparian right can’t be stored. Appropriative rights can only be used for the permitted point of diversion, place of use and purpose of use1. An appropriative right will have an upper limits on flow and maybe also on annual total diversion. It has permissible dates or season of diversion. Per the Constitution, only beneficial use is legal. If you stop using all or part your water right, the right is destroyed in all or part. The right can be modified for $1000, a change permit and environmental documentation, if the State Water Resources Control Board approves the change application. It is difficult if not impossible to get a new right, since most systems are overallocated; the only reallocation method between contemporary users is a full-fledged court adjudication and watermaster for the river or watershed.

I don’t think these restrictions are entirely nonsensical, although some of them are arbitrary vestiges of older laws. But this is not a flexible water rights system, nor one capable of adapting to additional users or changes in hydrology.

The blogger muses why the water ‘big boys’ are emphasizing flexibility in a system which clearly is not… is it some strategic ploy from a shadowy mastermind???

Check it out from the On the Public Record Blog: California Water Rights and Flexibility

Do you want to know more about California’s water rights? Check out the Water Education Foundation’s Layperson’s Guide to Water Rights. It’s written in plain English, and includes sections on surface water rights, groundwater rights, water transfers and more.

April 30, 2009 · Filed Under Water Rights

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