Should S.F. take less Sierra water?
Yes: City’s demand destroying state’s rivers, native fisheries
San Francisco is addicted to a cheap supply of abundant water. This has led to unsustainable water demand that threatens to extinguish some of the state’s native fishes and the valuable fisheries and tourism industry they support.
The Tuolumne River is the source for much of the water San Francisco uses and sells to Peninsula communities. The city’s water managers are upset that the city might be held responsible for conditions on that river as well as downstream, in the San Joaquin River, the delta and San Francisco Bay.
The Tuolumne and other Central California rivers however must retain even more water than what the State Water Resources Control Board has asked for in order to improve water quality and fisheries in the delta and beyond. Yet the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission is trying to block the water board’s timid proposal.
The city’s unsustainable water management practices and antiquated infrastructure take too much water from the Tuolumne. As a result, the SFPUC bears as much responsibility as other water developers for the miserable conditions in Central Valley rivers and the San Francisco Bay estuary they feed. For example, invasive water weeds infest the once-mighty Tuolumne, the San Joaquin is a hot cesspool of agricultural runoff, and the San Francisco Bay estuary is home to no less than six endangered fish species and increasingly frequent toxic algal blooms. Central Valley salmon populations have dropped to historically low levels, leaving our local Orca pod and fishing fleet (both of which depend on abundant salmon) struggling to survive.
Increased river flows can repress non-native species, inundate important habitats with cold water, flush toxic compounds, and support production of food that juvenile salmon rely upon. Analyses by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, federal agencies, The Bay Institute, and even the State Water Board itself indicate that at least 50 percent of the Tuolumne watershed’s winter-spring runoff must remain in the river to help restore salmon populations to the levels required by state and federal policies.
The city’s water bureaucrats argue that the proposed standards will limit its water supply, but they don’t acknowledge that their demand projections are way above actual need because SFPUC customers have reduced water use by 30 percent over the last decade.
The agency’s “alternative” plan asks ratepayers to subsidize environmental services provided by functioning rivers. For example, the SFPUC proposes that its customers pay to plant and water trees along the Tuolumne’s banks, even though that would happen naturally if the river retained enough of its water.
Too many water weeds? SFPUC thinks its clients should pay to remove those manually rather than having the river flush them aside.
The city even wants to power-wash salmon spawning gravel to rid it of sediments that would be carried away during the spring snowmelt — a pulse the river rarely experiences due to overactive dams and diversions.
What will work is for San Francisco to reduce its demand for water by investing in ratepayer education and modern water management technology and practices. Los Angeles exemplifies what can be accomplished once a city commits to water sustainability — that city uses the same volume of water today as it did in the early 1990s, even after adding 1 million people.
Given San Francisco’s international reputation for progressive environmentalism, it should lead, rather than resist, the state’s efforts to conserve water.