California is in a water crisis. It is in its second dry year.

At the beginning of June 2008, for the first time in more than 15 years, the governor’s office proclaimed a statewide drought.

Reasons for the drought proclamation:

• Below-average rainfall
• Court-ordered water restrictions aimed at protecting fish in the San Joaquin Delta.

• Odd weather patterns, perhaps related to global warming, are creating water supply problems.
• Rapid snowmelt from the Sierra Nevada caused much of the water to evaporate in-stead of running downstream into reservoirs (Snowpack went from 97 percent of normal in March to 67 percent of normal by May).
• Increasing demand for water
• Dry winters
• Water levels are very low

The state’s second largest storage reservoir is at 40 percent capacity, and by the end of the year, it is expected to fall to 20 percent capacity, its low-est amount of water in more than 30 years.

The largest reservoir is at just 48 percent capacity.

• Colorado River water could go dry by 2021

Conservation measures are being implemented.

• Schwarzenegger called for a 20 percent reduction in urban per capita water use by 2020.

• Residents are being asked to cut back their use, although they are unlikely to face sever water rationing this year.
• Long Beach and Oakland asked residential customers to cut back use by 10 to 20 percent.

The governor is currently pushing a $9.3 billion water bond to build reservoirs and dams to address the state's water crisis. The legislature must approve it before it can go to voters on the Nov. ballot. 

Funding for expensive construction projects that could harm the environment.

Little money for conservation measures, which if implemented properly could better ad-dress the water supply problem.

• Meanwhile, billions of dollars of water bond money that was approved years ago is going unspent because this money is only approved for flood control, local water projects and conservation -- not the massive storage projects the governor wants.
• The governor vetoed a bill last year that would have appropriated this money.

There is a great deal of talk about the peripheral canal around the Sacra-mento-San Joaquin Delta.

•    The delta is where the major rivers join together before the state water project sends water to Southern California.

•    Last year a judge ordered that withdrawals from the delta be reduced because of ecological damage and diminishing fish populations.

•    The peripheral canal proposal has been around for decades. Voters rejected the idea in the early 1980s, but it keeps coming back.

•    Many groups -- including fisherfolk, farmers and environmentalists -- are opposed to the canal because it would divert more water from the delta and further harm fish populations.

•    A recently released report -- "Comparing Futures for the Sacrament-San Joaquin Delta" -- said that the only solution to restore the delta would be a peripheral canal, but this report was funding in part by Bechtel, one of the world's largest engineering and construction firms. Perhaps, that was more than a little conflict of interest.

Across the state, municipalities are seeing their water systems age and fall apart.

Pollution, including wastewater, contaminates the state’s waterways and beaches.

• 93 percent of the state’s assessed river miles and lakes suffer from impaired water quality
• 78 percent of waters do not support fish consumption
• Nearly all of the state’s bays and estuaries are seriously hampered
• 4,644 beach closure or advisory events lasing six weeks or fewer occurred in 2006

In a time of drought, leaks are wasting a great amount of water.

• California loses 222 million gallons of water a day due to leaking pipes

Cities and towns need to make expensive repairs and upgrades to rejuvenate their vital water infrastructure.

691 projects at a total cost of $10.5 billion are planned over the next five years.  $18.17 billion is needed for wastewater projects, according to EPA’s latest assessment.

While costs skyrocket, federal funding crashes.

• Federal contributions to the state’s clean water funding efforts have decreased by 47.8 percent since fiscal 1991 – nearly 66 percent when adjusted for inflation. 
• In 2007, the state received $76.5 million in federal funding – enough to finance just 1/137th of its needs.  

As California faces a flood of water infrastructure needs and evaporating federal funding, Governor Schwarzenegger is using the crisis to push forward his privatization scheme.

•    Schwarzenegger wants greater corporate control of California’s infrastructure. In his 2008 budget proposal and update to the State’s Strategic Growth Plan, Schwarzenegger calls for the broad use of “Performance-Based Infrastructure.”  Performance-Based Infra-structure (PBI) is a misleading way of phrasing Public Private Partnerships, which is already a euphemism for privatization.

•    Schwarzenegger hopes to have the private sector finance 15 to 20 percent of the costs for new public works projects.  He has also called for the creation of PBI California to oversee P3 contracts for state infrastructure and to promote P3s among local governments.

•    Fortunately, thanks in part to lobbying by Food and Water Watch, the two state legislative bills seeking to create privatization offices never even reached the Assembly floor. They failed to pass their first committee hearing.

There is a bill in the state legislature that would re-quire bottled water companies to publicly disclosure how much water they are taking and where they are taking it from.

•    Governor’s opposition. The State Department of Public Health, presumably on the advisement of the Governor’s office, issued a letter in opposition of the bill, saying that the requested data constitute trade secrets and are not public information. The Department of Public Health is putting corporate profits above consumer knowledge about water, some-thing vital for public health. Meanwhile, as the Governor asks residents to cut their water use by 20 percent, he is shielding the public from knowledge about how much water is being taken for corporate profit.
 

In 2003, the town government, with little public input, approved a 100-year deal allowing Nestle to take, bottle and sell the icy waters of the Mt. Shasta springs. The corporation intends to pump up to 200 million gallons annually, enough water for 614 typical U.S. families. While still substantial, this amount is less than half of what Nestle originally proposed. The company had to scale back its aspiration of building the country’s largest water bottling plant because of public opposition.

Many community members worry the plant will drain their local water supply, damage their renowned trout streams, hurt fisher-folk and increase costs for the town’s public water and sewer utilities, among other concerns. Hoping to stop the project, community groups took the company to court for failing to conduct an environmental review. A district judge initially sided with the community, but Nestle won an appeal that overturned the previous ruling. The community is still fighting for control over their water resources.
 

Stockton, Calif. After five years of corporate control, in March 2008, the public regained public control over Stockton’s drinking water and wastewater systems, successfully kicking out OMI and Thames Water.

• In 2002, Mayor Gary Podesto triggered widespread public protest when he proposed awarding a $600 million, 20-year contract, to OMI-Thames to manage and operate the municipal water utilities.
• Forming Concerned Citizens Coalition of Stockton, the community quickly organized and passed an initiative that required any privatization contract to be approved (or rejected) by voters. Yet before the initiative passed, the mayor successfully rushed through the privatization contract.
• Left with no other alternative, Concerned Citizens Coalition of Stockton sued the City of Stockton for not conducting an environmental review of the contract as required by California law.

• As the case was argued in court, the residents experienced rate hikes, service delays and sewage spills.
• What may be the most notorious water privatization deal in the United States came to a close July 17, 2007 when the Stockton city council decided against appealing a judge’s ruling that its contract with OMI-Thames Water had violated California environmental law.

Felton, Calif. At the end of May 2008, the people of Felton, Calif., successfully wrested control of their water system from the clutches of corporate giant RWE and its local subsidiary California American Water. 

• Grassroots organization Felton Friends of Locally Owned Water (Felton FLOW) led the community to victory.
• In 2005, FLOW convinced the community to pass an $11 million bond to buy the water system after California-American attempted to hike rates by 74 percent.
• RWE/Cal-Am rejected the offer and shortly thereafter attempted to raise rates by over 100 percent.
• In late 2005, RWE announced it would instead sell its stake in American Water citing poor financial returns, community opposition to privatization and American Water’s mismanagement of its infrastructure.
• Facing the corporation’s rejection of their purchase offer, the city had to initiate eminent domain proceedings to force the company to sell. In 2008, the company dropped its legal opposition and agreed to sell the system.