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The Los Angeles Water Crisis
By Julie Szende
Southern California encompasses five metropolitan areas. These are Los Angeles, Oxnard-Thousand Oaks, Riverside-San Bernardino, San Diego, and El Centro. Though there are mountain ranges in Southern California, the majority of its terrain is flat, semi-arid desert. We Angelenos have a climate similar to Middle Eastern nations like Lebanon, Syria, or Israel. If our landscape were left in its natural state, we would be surrounded by dry, cracked earth, lots of chaparral and creosote bushes, cactus plants, Joshua trees, and occasional desert wild flowers.
But we aren’t surrounded by a desert environment. Even though our air is sparkling and dry, our summers searingly hot, and our rainfall minimal, we live in the midst of a lush tropical landscape. Green lawns and trees of every description line our residential streets. Flowers bloom everywhere. Manmade lakes, ponds and fountains abound. It certainly isn’t Mother Nature supplying this tropical landscape for us. The fact is that we owe our green environment entirely to a system of “borrowed” water taken from Central and Northern California, as well as from neighboring states.
Since the days when our city was known as Ciudad de los Angeles, lack of water has been a problem in Southern California. In the early 1700s there were several large streams here, and the first settlements were on the banks of these rivers. When farming began, farmers diverted the water from the rivers to irrigate their crops. Eventually the waterways started to dry up. Farmers put down artesian wells in order to pump water from the sandy rock beds beneath the earth. However, as the population steadily increased, these underground water sources became inadequate for the citizens of Southern California.
By the beginning of the 20th century, the city of Los Angeles was deeply concerned about future water shortages. In the early 1900s some prominent LA citizens—including William Mulholland, head of the LA Department of Water and Power—came up with the idea of bringing water to LA from other parts of California. Their first move was to siphon water from the Owens River Valley in the Eastern Sierra and divert it to Los Angeles by aqueduct. The aqueduct was completed in 1913. The water it brought to our area was used primarily to irrigate crops. Los Angeles still needed drinking water, so the LADWP secured water from the Colorado River, which originates in the Colorado Rocky Mountains and defines the border between California and Arizona. In the mid-1950s, as the population of Los Angeles continued to balloon, Southern California “borrowed” more water from the Mono Lake Basin near Yosemite National Park. At this time the California State Water Project was formed. One of the many purposes of the CSWP was the bring water to Southern California from Northern California. In order to do this, a complicated system of dams, reservoirs, aqueducts, corridors and tunnels was constructed.
In the late 20th century, with the population of Los Angeles hovering at the 3 million, certain areas of California faced extremely serious environmental problems. These problems were caused directly by the Southern California water development projects. The Colorado River was seriously depleted. Owens Valley, once a thriving agricultural community, had become a desert plain covered with sagebrush. Owens Lake in the Sierra had turned into a dustbowl, generating dust storms which caused serious air pollution in nearby areas. Mono Lake, its level dropped by 45 feet, had ended up as a high-salt content pool where no fish could live. Though the elaborate water supply system constructed during the first fifty years of the century to supply Southern California with water was considered a huge success in terms of the needs of citizens and farmers, to environmentalists it was a disaster. They decided to take action.
After a series of lawsuits brought by environmental groups which included the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, and Defenders of Wildlife, Federal water law underwent some major changes. The changes included the mandate that water diversion projects must provide protection for fisheries and for ecosystems. In the l970s and the l980s the Endangered Species Art and the Clean Air and Clean Water Act required changes in the way water projects were constructed so that the least amount of harm to the environment would result. These stringent environmental laws also forced the Southland to return water to environments it had previously depleted.
In the 21st century we are in a crisis mode regarding water in Southern California. A growth spurt puts the present population of our five metropolitan areas at approximately 24 million people. Our water supplies are at an all-time low due to years of drought, depletion of our former water sources, and compliance with environmental rulings which have forced us to return water to wasted areas like Owen Lake. Where can we turn to find water for our citizens and our agriculture? The situation looks a bit grim. However, there are a number of things we can do in the Southland to develop water from the sources available to us:
#1. We can recycle our water. Recycling is re-using chemically treated waste water to water our lawns, irrigate our farmland, provide industry with water, and run our sewage systems. Recycled water can be used to irrigate golf courses and freeway medians. It can provide cooling water for power plants. It can also be used in construction work. Recycled water can even become drinking water after it has been properly purified. This treated water can then be filtered through an aquifer and added to our reservoirs. The idea of “toilet to tap” water is controversial, but it is bound to be part of California’s water future someday.
#2. We can make ocean water drinkable. There are many desalination plants proposed for development on the California coast, since so many people look to the ocean as a water source for Southern Californians. Making salt water potable is an expensive process because it uses huge amounts of electricity. In addition it is unsafe environmentally, since the by- product of the desalination process is salty brine full of chemicals. Desalination technology is not ready for the market today, but it definitely shows promise for the future.
#3. City dwellers can conserve water. Urban dwellers aren’t very efficient about the way they use water. Twelve percent of the water used in Southern California comes from residential water leaks. If leaky faucets and pipes were repaired, if old showerheads and toilets were gotten rid of, and if washing machines and dishwashers were used only when they were full, indoor water use in the Southland could be reduced by 40%. Then there is city landscaping water use. In most cases, grassy lawns in Southern California are overwatered. A typical grass lawn requires twice as much water as a landscape of native plants. More intelligent use of watering controls and cultivation of drought-tolerant native California plants for landscaping would help conserve precious water.
#4. We can capture stormwater and city runoff. In former years stormwater and city runoff (water which flows over the land when soil is saturated with moisture during a rainstorm) went into storm drains which quickly carried the water to the nearest stream or river, and eventually to the ocean. Along the route this runoff picked up dirt, sewage, germs, pesticides, and waste of all kinds. In the past we were anxious to have this contaminated water flow into the ocean; however, now we realize its value. By finding ways to retain and purify the stormwater and runoff, and allowing it to filter down into local aquifers, we can use it as a vital source of water for the future.
#5. We can protect the groundwater. Groundwater is water lying beneath the soil. It presently supplies about 30% of Los Angeles’ water needs. The LA area sits over some very productive groundwater basins. Aquifers (bodies of porous rock through which groundwater passes to the surface) and groundwater basins are refilled by stormwater runoff and snow melt that filters down through the ground. Groundwater is definitely part of future water planning.
#6. Our farmers can conserve water. The agriculture industry makes use of huge amounts of water yearly. By developing more efficient irrigation methods, farmers could save billions of gallons of water. Other means of saving water in agriculture include government tax exemptions and rebates for farmers and, careful water measurement and monitoring, and the elimination of water wastage.
In Southern California, as our population continues to grow, we face the challenge of finding reliable sources of water for ourselves and our children. Our water supply will no longer automatically increase as it did in the past; we must face the fact that water is a precious limited resource. However, we do have many options to become self-sufficient regarding water by aggressively developing our conservation and recycling programs such as those described above. In this way we can satisfactorily meet the needs of our city dwellers, our farmers, and the environment.
The author is grateful to the Aquafornia and Mono Lake Committee websites for some of the data contained in this article.
#1 from dissertation writers on October 31, 2011
It is a common problem of all hot climate cities and countries!