[Sosfbay-discuss] Latest MH Times Column. - Climate change highlights importance of water conservation

[Wes Rolley]

*Climate change highlights importance of water conservation*
May 27, 2008
 By Wes Rolley <mailto:editor at morganhilltimes.com>

My wife and I have just started to eliminate all grass in my front yard 
with the intention of replacing it with permeable landscaping. By that I 
mean a mixture of walking paths and mulch, decorative as it can be, but 
natural material to prevent evaporative loss of the water that nature 
gives us. The reasons for doing this are simple.

Since November, I have served as co-chairman of an EcoAction Committee, 
Green Party US. While that fact may shape how you interpret what I 
write, I mention it because being in that role has caused me to spend 
more time trying to understand just what is really happening with global 
warming. The conclusions that global warming is real and that we have 
caused it are inescapable. The current CO2 accumulation in the 
atmosphere is significantly greater than at any time in the last 625 
thousand years and increasing at an unprecedented rate.

More importantly, I have had to take what I have learned and try to 
figure out how my new understandings should be used to governing what I 
do as an individual as well as what we collectively should be doing asa 
political, economic society. Some may welcome a general warming of the 
planet. It might mean that you could start producing extraordinary 
zinfandels in British Columbia, goodness if you are Canadian, but not if 
you are in California. If there is one segment of our economy that needs 
pay special attention to what really is happening, it is agriculture. 
Specifically, the type of crops that are economically viable on any 
given property will change. The mix of temperature, direct rainfall and 
availability of water for irrigation are going to change and with it 
agriculture must change if it wants to remain economically competitive.

Dr. Jonathan Overpeck is the director of the Institute for the Study of 
Planet Earth at the University of Arizona. He testified May 14 before 
the House Committee on Science and Technology that "The outlook for 
climate-related changes in U.S. water supply is not positive, 
particularly in the West, Southwest, Texas and into the Southeast."

We have experienced two years of below normal rainfall. If Overpeck is 
correct, we need to be acting as if these past two years are, at best, 
the new normal, or may even represent above normal rainfall. The 
implications of this may be profound. While I don't profess to be able 
to outline all of them, a few things are obvious. We need to make water 
conservation a habit of life, beginning now. That is the reason we are 
making the changes to our landscaping. There is not going to be a 
single, big thing that government can do to save us from ourselves. It 
will be the cumulative effect of millions of little decisions coalesced 
into habits that will save us from ourselves.

The timing of our change is fortuitous in that the Santa Clara Valley 
Water District is providing a rebate of up to $1,000 to defray the costs 
of these changes and the City of Morgan Hill will presently match that.

According to the formula, $75 will be paid for each 100 square feet of 
lawn that is converted up to $1,000 ($15 up to $2,000 in Morgan Hill.)

The Morgan Hill contribution to this program is up for renewal, and 
tentatively scheduled for action by the council in June. They should 
renew it as not doing so at this time would signal that water 
conservation is not longer a high priority. A seemingly small decision 
with costly consequences.

A second obvious fact is that the impacts of climate change need to 
become part of the long range planning for every water agency in the 
West. At least that effort is beginning on the California state level 
with a meeting recently of a state Water Plan Climate Change Technical 
Advisory Group. I will provide more on this as it becomes public.

Finally, we should have an expectation of higher water rates. I know 
that much of the opposition rhetoric in the last election focused on 
water rates and the fact that challengers to water district director 
Rosemary Kamei did not think that the district adequately controlled 
costs. I am not referring to that. It is a fact that the funding of 
public infrastructure, such as water systems, will have to change as 
individual usage drops. The infrastructure costs will continue to rise 
and have to be recovered from those who are using it less. We see the 
same thing with transportation where bridge costs remain flat or 
continue to rise while usage is declining due to gasoline prices.

While we have the right to expect the district to be managed 
effectively, we should not conclude that all rate increases are the 
result of poor cost management. It may be difficult for the public to 
sort this out. We need our newspapers, the Times, the Dispatch and the 
Mercury News to keep us adequately informed. But most of all, we need to 
be water wise.

-- 
"Anytime you have an opportunity to make things better and you don't, then you are wasting your time on this Earth" Roberto Clemente

Wes Rolley
17211 Quail Court, Morgan Hill, CA 95037
http://www.refpub.com/ -- Tel: 408.778.3024