WaterWired

Lloyd Carter's and KQED's Interviews with Jared Blumenfeld, EPA Region 9 Administrator

The intrepid Lloyd Carter recently (11 June 2010) interviewed EPA Region 9 Administrator Jared Blumenfeld on his radio show Down in the Valley (on KFCF-FM).

The interview emphasized San Joaquin Valley issues.

Blumenfeld, who's obviously not from 'these here parts' (the UK), did a good job of keeping up with Carter, who arguably knows more about San Joaquin Valley water and environmental issues than anyone else, as Carter quizzed him on the Kettleman City toxic waste site, drinking water, air quality, selenium, the Delta, migratory birds, and a few other things. The interview lasts about 32 minutes.

Here  is a longer (c. one hour) interview of Blumenfeld from KQED broadcast last February.

"I will be a tireless advocate for equity. The quality of your environment cannot be dependent on the color of your skin, the size of your bank account, whether you were born on tribal lands or in a gated community, whether you live on a small island or in a big city. Environmental justice cannot be an afterthought - it must be central to how we think and what we do so that we can offer meaningful assistance to communities that have been left behind." --Jared Blumenfeld

Emily Green's The Week That Was (in Water), 13-19 June 2010 - And More!

Emily Green has once again treated us to an excellent review of the water world for the past week. Her timing is excellent, as I am at wit's end reviewing a galley proof of one of my papers. So I can now be entertained by a real live journalist.

Emily cautioned me to take Prozac before reading.

First, here are three things you won't find in Emily's post:

1) Dr. Thomas Harter's detailed notes  from the recent Sustainable Groundwater in Agriculture conference, and his blog,Random Groundwater Notes.

2) David Zetland reviews James Powell's excellent Dead Pool. I did a three-part review of this book about 18 months ago beginning on 2 January 2009, then5 January 2009 and 8 January 2009. This book is a must for all WaterWonks, espcecially those in the Southwest USA.

3) The shale-gas drilling documentary Gasland is on HBO tonight. See it.

Emily's post this week is a humdinger - lots of stuff on oil and floods. Sounds like disaster week - floods in China, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, and France, plus high flood insurance bills in California.

Tough week for BP CEO Tony Hayward. He had to testify before those nasty Congressmen and Congresswomen, then his yacht finished fourth in its group. Bummer, man, hope you get your life back soon!

And there is one more CEO who wants her life back - Pat Mulroy of SNWA. Pat, once hailed as a hero, now finds her agency treated just like any other Nevada entity (except the big casinos, of course). But the Nevada Sureme Court actually gave her a treat, ruling that SNWA does not have to refile applications for water rights in eastern Nevada. So that's sort of good news, certainly compared to what Hayward's been hearing.

The photo is by Green, from Spring Valley, NV.

And, if things are not bad enough, the flow in the river formed by the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers is no longer strong enough to keep the sea at bay. Maybe Tony Hayward should try yachting there.

Read Emily's post.

And it's nice to note the drought is over. Now, where's that Prozac?

“Our board basically said, if there’s no reason for restrictions, why are you going to ask people to conserve?” — Charles Hardy, a spokesman for the East Bay Municipal Utility District, “Water crisis over? Everywhere in the Bay Area but Santa Clara County,”  Mercury News, June 16, 2010

Thomas Harter's 'Random Groundwater Notes' Blog and Groundwater Conference Notes

During the past week I had the pleasure of meeting and interacting with Dr. Thomas Harter, groundwater guru at UC-Davis. Thomas chaired the recent Sustainable Groundwater in Agriculture conference that was such a success.

Here are the conference abstracts.

I also discovered he blogs at Random Groundwater Notes. You will find lots of good information there, such as his detailed notes on the aforementioned conference.

Here's a PDF of his notes:

Download Harter_NOTES_Toward_Sustainable_Groundwater_in_Agriculture

Here is what he says about the conference in today's post:

...that was the title of our international conference this week in Burlingame/San Francisco. Complete with pre-conference workshops and a post-conference tour of lovely Sonoma Valley and it's dairies and wineries. The conference was an amazing gathering of movers and shakers, thinkers and tinkerers, decision-makers, policy makers, planners, farmers, ag-industry representatives, consultants, students, even high-school students, and researchers. Attendees came from California, from across the United States, and from around the globe - Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America, Australia. All had one thing in common - a shared interest in groundwater resources of agricultural regions and in agriculture's role in sustaining groundwater resources for future uses in agriculture and for other uses.

Enjoy!

"Civilized people should be able to dispose of sewage in a better way than by putting it in the drinking water." -- Theodore Roosevelt, 1910, quoted by Robert Glennon

Will Texas Groundwater Pumps Be Turned Down a Notch or Two?

No chance of silencing the groundwater pumps of Texas, , but perhaps they will be reined it a bit. The Rule of Capture, aka the Rule of the Biggest Pump, the groundwater law in Texas, may be on life support, according to a recent article by Greg Harman in the San Antonio Current.

For as long as most people can remember, Texas groundwater law followed the Rule of Capture, which means that a landowner can pump all the water he or she wants to pump. There is no 'reasonable use' criterion, although 'malicious intent' is frowned upon. To those of us who are non-Texans, such a law seems apropos, well-suited to the Lone Star State, if somewhat anachronistic, given the tenor of the times.

The rule's effects  have been mitigated somewhat by the creation of the 91 confirmed groundwater conservation districts(GCDs)  in Texas, each of which has varying degrees of authority over groundwater (well permits, spacing) and/or pumpage within its boundaries. These districts generally follow political boundaries and not those of of aquifers or groundwater basins. But I suppose they are better than nothing.

The state has also created 16 groundwater management areas (GMAs) that cover the entire state. The GMAs don't obviate the GCDs; it will be interesting to see how these two entities come together (see FAQs).

Okay, now - where does the Rule of Capture come into all this?  Here goes.

Harmanbegins:

It’s called the Rule of Capture, or more directly, the Rule of the Biggest Pump. And in a state where the moisture index plummets from plumb soggy to high desert within the 830 highway miles linking Beaumont to El Paso, it’s become one enormous pain in the ass.

At least it did for the state’s smaller pumpers as Texas urbanized and industrialized over the last century and heavy production at one end of Main Street started emptying wells down the road. Rule of Capture has meant, for example, that an international water-bottling company like Nestle’s Ozarka could dry out a bevy of farmers in East Texas, as it did a decade ago, so long as they weren’t mean-spirited about it. (Texas courts can’t abide “malicious intent” when it comes to pumping neighbors dry — one of the few exceptions to our unique form of Wild West water recklessness.)

Of course, Texas, like the rest of the American West — and the rest of the world, for that matter — is fast colliding with a future of liquid uncertainty. While the state is expected to double in size by absorbing another 20 million residents by 2060, we’re going to have to get by with 22 percent less of the wet stuff, according to the Texas Water Development Board’s 2007 State Water Plan.

And yet, Texas being Texas, traditions like Rule of Capture don’t drain away so easily. For many, the right to unlimited access to the water below one’s feet is as fundamental as private property itself. “It’s been true for more than 100 years,” San Antonio attorney Tom Joseph told the nine Republican members of the Texas Supreme Court earlier this year, arguing a case that represents the court’s first chance to redefine Rule of Capture since Ozarka washed up on their docket in the ’90s. “It’s been true even when the Ten Commandments were given us because it says, ‘Thou Shalt Not Steal.’ Well, if you couldn’t own property, it wouldn’t make any difference if you could steal.”

With the above as background, Harman writes specifically about what is being called the Day case:

The Edwards Aquifer Authority and the State of Texas v. Burrell Day and Joel McDaniel, aka “the Day case,” involves a couple of local oat and peanut farmers whom the Edwards Aquifer Authority refused a request to pump 1.3 million gallons per day on a parcel that had historically been used to graze cattle. It’s a muddled case that also seeks to determine whether subsurface groundwater surfacing though a natural spring, passed down a creek, and stored in a lake should still be defined as groundwater and thus the property of the landowner who controls the spring. In a way, the farmers’ argument takes Rule of Capture a step beyond historic practice: that the water beneath the land can be “owned in place” without going through the trouble of capturing it with a pump. Joseph calls it “absolute ownership.” Prime parsing for water wonks. The reason the case has the attention of growers, lawyers, academics, and politicians across the state is that the Day case challenges the Authority’s very right to regulate the Edwards Aquifer (see map; my favorite aquifer!) at all, making it the first opportunity since Ozarka for the Court to finally rule one way or the other on the historic, fundamental interpretation of Rule of Capture.

Harman is wright - WaterWonks, including yours truly, will be watching this case.

Thanks to fellow WaterWonk Gabriel Eckstein for alerting me to this.

"Opium for one, elixir for another." --Tushaar Shah, discussing the massive groundwater pumping occurring in India

How I Spent My 17 June: Day 3 - Toward Sustainable Groundwater in Agriculture Conference

Little late with today's post - just returned home from the aforementioned conference.

Just a reminder that the Power Points and plenary session videos will be posted on the conference site in a little while.

So here goes - the last day.

Morning Plenary Session
Thursday's plenary dealt with law and policy issues. Speakers were Jennifer McKay, Director of the  of the the University of South Australia's Centre for Comparative Water Policies and Laws. She teaches both law and business.  The perceptive Mike Wireman of EPA (Region 8 - Denver) spoke on regulatory aspects and Stefano Burchi, formerly of FAO and now Executive Chairman of the International Association for Water Law.

McKay summarized the five epochs of Australia's water laws and policies. She noted that although Australia's constitution is based on the USA's, her country does not grant water rights but water licenses, which, like a driver's license, are valid for a certain period of time and then have to be renewed. They are also revocable for cause at any time. Big difference from our water rights system in the USA!

Like much of the western USA, Australia has overallocated its water.  But it now requires that water be allocated as a share of the 'consumptive pool.'

She did confess that Federal-state control issues are common to Australia just as they are in the USA but the Australian Federal government is stronger than the USA's.  In 1992 it required all states to include intergenerational equity and ecological sustainable development (ESD) in all their laws. The states have essentially referred water authority over to the AU Federal government, which now has the authority to alter the regional water plans (56) currently being developed by the states if the plans are not in the 'national interest' (which is undefined).  The AU Federal government is also developing the water plan for the beleaguered Murray-Darling basin as a result of the 2007 Water Act which applies only to the Murray-Darling Basin.

Some final comments: 1) laws can lead, but mainly follow community attitudes; and 2) outcomes must be fair and applied equally to all.

Wireman spoke of pesticides and nutrients. There are 20,000 registered pesticides and over 200,000 Animal Feeding Operations (AFO); of those, about 20,000 are Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations CAFO). He added that CAFOs are generally moving west, in search of cheaper land and easier state regulation.

Wireman noted that fertilizers are not regulated.

Important points/observations:

1) contamination problems cannot be solved only at the Federal level;

2) BMPs do not appear to m be ameliorating the problem, but it is unclear whether it's becuase they are ineffective and poorly implemented. - more research is needed;

3) must limit nutrient loading;

4) improve monitoring of agricultural lands must be improved;

5) incorporate differential management based on hydrogeology; and

6) need for better science re: groundwater contribution to TMDLs.

Good talk!

Stefano Burchi, ever elegant and debonair, whom I  I finally met at the Fifth World Water Forum last year, spoke on the maturing of groundwater law.  He noted the importance of the land-groundwater connection, especially in the context of of recharge area protection. He also noted the Chile's water rights marketing system does not recognize third-party effects, an important consideration when rights are bought and sold.

Impoortant issues/observations:

1) Legislation is surface water-centric;

2) groundwater is perceived as a private resource;

3) there are legal obstacles to bridging the disconnect between surface water management and groundwater management;

4) translating of la into management is difficult; and

5) inability of states to deliver on regulations.

His conclusions:

1) user groups should manage groundwater;

2) dispense with the 'use it or lose it' approach; and

3) implement PFS - payment for ecosystem services - downstream groundwater users should share in the costs of upstream ecosystem services (e.g., recharge areas).

Excellent!

Before he departed, Burchi put in a plug for the IWRA World Water Congress in Recife, Brazil, 25-28 September 2011.

Afternoon Plenary Session
At the very end, there was a panel discussion on "Challenges, Observations, and Key Outcomes" in which four panelists -- myself, Mark Giordano of IWMI, Jean Fried of  UNESCO (consultant) and UC-Irvine; and Jacob Burke of FAO -- answered a variety of questions from Moderator Margaret Catley-Carlson of the Canadian Water Network. The questions came from the conference organizers and the participants. The stage was set up with four comfirtable chairs - a Davos-style arrangement  that worked very well.  We went on for almost 2.5 hours. The panel was recorded so it should be on the conference site soon.

I enjoyed it, and thank friend and colleague Vicki Kretsinger for inviting me to be a panelist.

Odds 'n Ends
Meredith Blount,River Systems Institute, Texas State University, spoke on developing  municipal and agricultural water conservation tools. Groundwater and surface water need to be integrated.

Christopher Scott, University of Arizona, discussed groundwater overdrafting in México. He noted that the national water commission, CONAGUA, sells titles to groundwater for M&I uses but not for agricultural use. It's a revenue stream that brings in about $1B per year.  Conflict of interest? He said that since CONAGUA and the national energy commission are rivals, energy-water nexus opportunities have been lost.  And virtual water arguments fall flat when they are based on mined groundwater.

Matt Zidar, GEI Consultants, Inc., informed us that there are 20 different kinds of water districts in California. Trends he noted: integrated water resources management; regional planning with emphasis on local management; groundwater quality protection; sustainable environmental stewardship; greater efforts to deal with risk and uncertainty;  and state financial support for restrategic planning. The 2009 State Water Plan encourages bottom-up planning with state guidance. Matt also provided today's quote.

John C.  Peck, University of Kansas School of Law, spoke on legal instruments for dealing withagricultural groundwater management. It was a good talk, but he cited someone who said that sustainability with respect groundwater means  'no lowering of the water table.' Wish John Bredehoeft had been there to hear that! He did wonder whether the public trust doctrine could be applied to groundwater (see my post last month).

My Impressions
I enjoyed this meeting very much. Had I not been invited to be a panelist I doubt I would have gone - I don't do too much with agricultural groundwater. But I learned a lot, saw some wonderful colleagues and friends, and met some new ones: Tushaar Shah, Virginie Gillet, Maurice Hall, Jacob Burke, Randall Hanson, Ian Greene, Emin Dogrul , among others.

I look forward to the posting of the presentations and videos.

And it's possible that a collection of selected papers may be published in Water Resources Research..

Thanks to Thomas Harter, Rita Schmidt Sudman and their colleagues for their hard work and foresight. Great job!

And to top it off, I watched the Lakers-Celtics championship game with old friend and Bostonian Frank Colvario, in town to see his daughter and attend the U.S Open at Pebble Beach. Too bad the Celtics couldn''t pull it out. Like yours truly, the old guys ran out of gas in the last five minutes.

"Every problem is an opportunity in drag." -- Matt Zidar