The rightwing water howl

 Wayne Lysvardi, the Cal watchdog bringing illumination to all the lampposts, has delivered his considered opinion on what’s really wrong with the California water/energy system in a simply organized article of great duplicity. As is usual with Lysvardi, the deceptions are sprayed about so erratically as our watchdog trots through the night that it is difficult to bring them all to light. However, two “humps” and a few wobbles in his reasoned path do appear.
 
First, he breaks up a number of his energy figures to obscure the fact, which he them expresses without actually mentioning the Banks and Edmonston pumping plants, the latter of which pumps water originating in the Feather River of Butte County 2,000 feet over the Tehachapi Mountains to Southern California. He neglect  to inform his readers that the population of about 15 percent of the state’s land mass – metropolitan and suburban Southern California -- increased by more than 10 million after the Edmonston Pump Station was installed. That is more than half of the total state-population increase from 1970-2010 –supplied with water either from water wheeled through the San Joaquin-Sacramento Delta or the Colorado River. Since the new arrangement with the upstream users of the Colorado River in the early years of the century, the Southern California urban/suburban area is receiving progressively less water from the Colorado, placing ever more pressure on the Delta.
 
Lysvardi’s choice of the State Water Project is unfortunate on another level because judges in repeated lawsuits brought against the state Department of Water Resources regarding the SWP have noted that DWR vastly over committed the water from the yet unfinished project, conservatively as much as five times the actual amount of water the project provides in a moreorless normal year.
 
His claim that water cannot flow across the San Joaquin Valley in the riverbed of the San Joaquin River because of a “hump” is ludicrous. A typical example of how the right wing, if you just let their practitioners drone on long enough, will tumble off the edge of their own flat world. The reason there is no water in that channel is that since construction of the Friant Dam in the low foothills of the Sierra, 95 percent of the river’s water has been diverted down the east side of the San Joaquin Valley for irrigation. A settlement agreement on a federal suit brought by environmental groups against the federal government and Friant water users, mandated by federal court and funded by Congress, brought some flow back into the river in the last two years. The environmental groups have not insisted on water flows this drought year. Although it took 25 years, environmentalists and the farmers have learned to interact responsibly. Yet, the intensely authoritarian Right funded by local and global agribusiness and its lapwatch dogs continue to howl as the caravan goes on down the road.
 
Finally, there is Lysvardi’s ideological construct of “environmental” water, which in his overheated brain consists of all water not being consumed by either agriculture or municipal/industrial users (setting aside for a moment the over commitment  of the SWP). There is a tremendous bloat that occurs in this kind of thinking that involves such massive negation. One cannot help but hear the kah-ching, kah-ching, kah-ching in the background. In this mindset, that which cannot be instantly monetized does not exist or should not exist. No quarter is to be given the natural world. No place. It is to be driven off the face of the planet by slavering hounds of commerce and dull-witted, inflated egos like Lysvardi who believe their their “powers of reason” can rationalize the writhings of California special interests in finance, insurance and real estate, in the midst of a real drought, rather than the media droughts staged in earlier years. -- blj
 
3-7-14
Cal Watchdog
NEW: Drought: What’s the best way to save water and energy?...Wayne Lusvardi
http://calwatchdog.com/2014/03/06/drought-whats-the-best-way-to-save-wat...
It is being widely touted in the media that water conservation obviously not only saves water but also saves energy.  Water is free, but the cost to capture, convey and treat it is not.
It’s worth asking, and answering: Which sector has the greatest potential for water energy conservation?
1.   Municipal water;
2.   Agricultural water;
3.   Environmental water.
1. Municipal water
A statistic that is currently advanced is that energy comprises 80 percent of a municipal water district’s operating costs, as Catherine Wolfram and David Zetland wrote in a March 3 op-ed in the Los Angeles Times.
But government statistics show the actual cost is less than half that.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, energy costs are about 40 percent of total operating costs for municipal drinking water. The EPA further estimates that only 3 to 4 percent of all electricity consumption in the United States is used to provide drinking and wastewater treatment services.
Here are the operational costs of the State Water Project, which delivers raw, wholesale water to irrigation districts, urban water districts and water departments:
·         Bond service payments: 37 percent;
·         Net power purchases: 32 percent;
·         Operations and maintenance: 25 percent;
·         Reserves for replacements, insurance, etc.: 6 percent.
That means financing the state water project with tax-exempt bonds costs more than the power does.  And power is only 32 percent, not 80 percent, of the costs. Wholesale water rates are based on cost recovery.
A recent study by the Metropolitan Water District reported:
“The California Energy Commission has estimated that the state’s energy consumption related to the conveyance, treatment, storage, and distribution of its water supply is approximately 19 percent of the total statewide energy usage.”
Of that 19 percent, 14 percentage points go to heat, cool, treat, process and pump water on one’s own property.
2. Agricultural water
Another oft-repeated statistic is that agriculture uses “80 percent of all the state’s water.” For example, on Tuesday KCRA.com in Sacramento reported on the meeting in Merced of the Governor’s Drought Task Force. It quoted Felicia Marcus of the State Water Resource Board, who said, “It’s horrifying agriculture uses 80 percent of water in California so they are going to take 80 percent of the hit,” meaning conservation measures.
Not so.  Those who propound this percentage don’t define what they mean by “all.” So, is it:
·         All rainfall — 194.2 million acre feet?
·         All system water — 82.t million acre-feet?
·         All water for human use — 43.1 million acre-feet?
When politicians and water experts say agriculture uses 80 percent of all water, they mean 80 percent of the smallest pool of water for human use.  By defining “all water” as the smallest pool of water, the percentage of water used by agriculture thus is inflated to 80 percent.
On average, agriculture uses only 42 percent of all system water and only 17.7 percent of all average annual rainfall and imports, according to the California Department of Water Resources.
Agriculture uses 80 percent of water for human use, but not “all state water.”  Here are the numbers and percentages from the California Department of Water Resources so you can see for yourself. Note the red numbers:

Where the water goes in average year:

Million Acre Feet of Water

Percent of Dedicated Supply
82.5 MAF

Percent of All Water
194.2 MAF

Total Precipitation and imports

194.2 MAF

N/A

100%

Dedicated Supply (includes reuse)

82.5 MAF

100%

42.5%

* Environmental water

39.4 MAF

47%

20.3%

* For Human uses
+ Agricultural uses
+ Urban uses

43.1 MAF (100%)
34.3 MAF (80%)
8.8 MAF   (20%)

53%
42%
11%

22.2%
17.7%
4.5%

Data Source: California Department of Water Resources

Central Valley farmers use way less electricity because they are nearer to large reservoirs and do not have to pay the cost to pump water over the Tehachapi Mountains, as do cities in Southern California.
Again, water is “free,” but capturing, pumping, conveying and treating it is not.  So farmers typically pay as little as $80 to $280 per acre-foot for water, but Southern California cities pay up to $340 per acre-foot for raw, untreated water.
Urban retail water customers pay even more for water because it has to be stored and treated. That means more use of electricity. The main price difference is the cost of electricity to pump the water.
The Center for Irrigation Technology at Cal State University, Fresno estimates that the potential for water-use efficiency from agricultural water is a paltry 1.3 percent of the current amount used by farmers.
And the potential for such water-use efficiency is only 0.5 percent of California’s total yearly use of 62.7 million acre-feet of water.
Changes in irrigation practices, such as drip irrigation, can shift water within a region, but generally do not create more water outside that area.
3. Environmental water
Oddly, where most of the water is allocated in California is to the environment, not farming or lawns and swimming pools.
In a wet year, 64 percent of all system water is dedicated to the environment — where it is flushed to the sea through rivers, mainly for fish runs.  In California, water storage in reservoirs depends on capturing excess water in wet years to use during dry years. And where most of the system water goes to in wet years is to the environment.
When we think of “environmental water,” we think of water flowing by gravity in natural rivers, streams and lakes.  But in a modern technological society, water has to be captured in storage reservoirs to prevent flooding and released to rivers for fish runs.  In other words, water for the environment also has to use electricity.
The San Joaquin River has a 60-mile stretch where the river runs dry during droughts because the riverbed is at a higher elevation.  The present solution to this hump in the river that keeps salmon from running to the ocean is to flush the river with huge amounts of water to get the fish over the hump.
This is inefficient and takes excessive amounts of water away from farmers that they have to pay for.  A possible solution would be to pump water over the hump, which would save water but run up the electricity costs for environmental water.  It would cost about $1 billion or higher to lower the riverbed to create a sort of Panama Canal for fish.
Where California could get its greatest water savings is through quantification and greater efficiency of environmental water, not agricultural or municipal and industrial water.  Farmers have already spent $2 billion since 2003 on water conservation improvements. And since 2000, California voters have approved five water bonds totaling $18.7 billion mainly for urban water conservation efforts.
A 2004 report, “Considering Water Use Efficiency for the Environmental Sector”, by the University of California, Berkeley, indicates that future water conservation efforts should be targeted at water allocated to the environment.
Conclusion
So, it’s clear that environmental water is the sector where the most energy savings most could be found.
As Mike Wade of the California Farm Water Coalition sums up the issue:
“More than 3 million acre-feet of water that once served farms, homes and businesses has been ‘re-prioritized’ each year for environmental purposes. Unfortunately, unlike urban and agricultural public water agencies, environmental uses are not required to meet any sort of efficiency standards.
“Taxpayers should be concerned that public funds and water resources used for environmental restoration activities may not return the value to the state that they expect. Absent efficiency standards, even the most rudimentary ones, a tremendous amount of water and money can be wasted with no accountability.
“As the State Water Resources Control Board considers new flow standards on the Tuolumne River, farmers in the Turlock and Modesto irrigation districts and others stand to lose almost one-third of the surface water that they depend on to irrigate their crops. Any benefits that water will have for the environment are undetermined. Environmental water use efficiency standards are long overdue.”
 
 
1-23-12
The Design Observer Group
Thirsty City
By Austin Troy
http://places.designobserver.com/feature/the-very-hungry-city/32058/
3. Actual consumption during the first -mile section of the aqueduct with its 6 pumping stations is 3.95 billion kWh. This calculation is based on the U.S. Energy Information Administration estimate that California households use 7,000 kWh annually, considerably less than the national average of 11,000 kWh. Energy consumption data are from California Department of Water Resources, Management of the California State Water Project, Bulletin 132-05 (Sacramento: California Department of Water Resources, 2006); all power figures are from 2004 data. 

Edmonston uses 2.23 billion kWh. In terms of hydroelectric recovery, of 8.65 billion kWh used for the entire pumping system, my calculations (based on data from the California Department of Water Resources) indicate that only 2.15 billion kWh are recovered after pumping water uphill. The California DWR literature accounts for additional hydroelectric power generated before any water is pumped uphill — that is, from dams in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, where the initial water is impounded—as if it were recovery power for the California State Water Project. However, from the perspective of evaluating energy efficiency, this is misleading, because that power would have been generated regardless of whether the California Aqueduct existed and it is therefore not “recovered” as a result of any uphill pumping. In total, to get from the Sacramento River to the crest of the Tehachapi Mountains, one year’s worth of water requires the equivalent energy used by 1.2 million California households — just slightly less than the number in the city of Los Angeles (1.2785 million, according to the 2000 Census). If you subtract the power that is recovered after uphill pumping has occurred, there is a net consumption of 6.4 billion kWh, or the equivalent of the power for 900,000 average California homes.