Apples and oranges?
Powerful lessons: B.C. must heed California’s drought and groundwater law reform — and act now
Drought can be scary, and there’s no doubt that recent news about the potentially cataclysmic drought in California makes us all uneasy. In some towns, wells have run dry. Water deliveries to California’s globally important agriculture industry have been cut back or cut off. Winter snowpack was virtually non-existent this year. And many cities will have to cut water use by as much as a one-third.
California dreaming has become California drying.
One consequence is the unprecedented rates at which groundwater is being pumped and wells are being drilled. Groundwater has long been California’s safety net in times of drought, but so much groundwater has been taken that land is sinking under people’s feet and aquifers are at serious risk of being depleted (if they aren’t already).
Worse, up until last year, when and where wells were drilled and how much could be pumped from them was basically unregulated in most of California. Can B.C. learn from this? Prior to last year, B.C. also did not regulate its groundwater. In 2014, B.C. and California passed the Water Sustainability Act and the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act respectively. B.C.’s act is not yet in force, but will be soon.
Both B.C. and California have envisioned systems where water sustainability is key and significant responsibility for preventing and addressing water crises would potentially reside locally through planning and delegation processes. A relatively novel approach in B.C., California’s experience offers some valuable lessons. They’re the focus of the new report “California’s Oranges and B.C.’s Apples? Lessons for B.C. from California Groundwater Reform” released this week by the University of Victoria’s POLIS Project and Ecojustice.
California’s local agencies have roughly 20 years of experience with voluntary, non- binding groundwater planning. Developing binding plans to achieve sustainability will take a further five years and another 20 to implement. Yes, California’s fasttrack, historic drought response will take until 2040 to achieve results urgently needed now.
The big insight for B.C. is that local planning and control are important, but they can take decades. So, it’s critical that local groundwater planning in B.C. starts now, even though it’s not yet required in the new legislation.
Second, voluntary programs simply are not good enough when water supplies really start to run out. Starting in the 1990s, California encouraged local planning exercises to protect groundwater. There was no requirement to actually stick to these plans, but it was thought that the knowledge gained through the exercise would carry over to decision-making and management. While some successful examples exist, this approach is generally ineffective on a wider scale. Under California’s new law, local authorities must now create binding plans.
In B.C., the new act is set up in a way where these kinds of plans will only occur on an ad hoc, discretionary basis. If California’s experience is anything to go by, this will likely be too little too late for any of the real challenges — regional drought or flooding — that B.C. is likely to face.
Third, beyond the requirement for binding plans, not just any old plan will do. Plans must achieve some minimum performance standards. California has now written these types of standards into law, and the ‘sustainable’ in its Sustainable Groundwater Management Act is defined to include things like preventing the depletion of aquifers, water quality deterioration, salt water intrusion, land subsidence, and negative impacts on other beneficial uses.
B.C. has passed its Water Sustainability Act, but has not yet defined what constitutes sustainability. The legislation does have some potentially powerful provisions to ensure environmental flows (the critical water levels needed to keep fish and ecosystems healthy, including groundwater inflows to streams). But, until specific details are articulated in the act’s regulations there is no way of knowing how effective this safety net will be.
There is a lot to commend in B.C.’s new legislation, but there is a risk of repeating some of California’s mistakes by not being clear, comprehensive, and insistent that water resources be protected. We must start before the crisis is upon us: Water planning in the midst of a flood or drought will set us up for bad and ineffective plans.
The good news is it’s not too late. Over the next few years, B.C. will be developing the necessary regulations to create and enforce measures that are desperately needed to protect our water. So, let’s do it right with a healthy dose of prevention and precaution. The lesson from California is that we can avoid its errors and benefit from its successes but, as a province, we must act now. When a water crisis hits, it will already be too late.