Water Supply Assured for Decades, State Says : Forecasters See a Population of 36 Million in 20 Years but Are Confident of Meeting Need

SACRAMENTO —  Despite a projected population increase to 36 million over the next two decades, California can meet its expected water needs by careful management and completion of projects already proposed, state officials forecast Wednesday.

In its regular four-year planning update of the California Water Project, the state Department of Water Resources predicted that in three out of four years, California’s water supply is sufficient “to meet all of its water needs for the foreseeable future,” and with proper development and management water rationing “should rarely be necessary” in dry years.

The document also found that in the early 1980s, the steady expansion of agriculture, which has consumed 83% of the state’s developed water, had peaked and leveled off. As a result, growers will require less water than previously anticipated, and this would make more water available for municipal and industrial users.

In reaching the conclusion that no major projects are needed other than those currently on the drawing boards, the document affirmed the Deukmejian Administration’s go-slow policy of water development.

At least one major conservationist organization, the Planning and Conservation League, termed the outlook “fair, cautious and conservative.”

State Water Resources Director David Kennedy, who outlined the report at a press conference, noted that the state’s population is forecast to increase by about 10 million by 2010 and that these new Californians will require 1.4 million acre-feet of water a year. In the mid-1960s, energetic department planners forecast a California population of 54 million by the early 2000s.

Currently, the state’s population totals about 27 million and water users consume 34.2 million acre-feet annually. (An acre-foot usually is enough to meet the demands of a typical family of four for a year.)

Kennedy said that Water Project contractors, such as the Metropolitan Water District, which serves much of Southern California, would find no “surprises” in the newest forecast because they were kept apprised of the study’s findings.

Under the Administration’s go-slow policy, fashioned after Gov. George Deukmejian’s water development plans took a drubbing in the Legislature in his first term, Administration water officials, without the intervention of the lawmakers, pick and choose the programs they want to tackle on a project-by-project basis.

These include proposed construction of Los Banos Grandes Reservoir in Merced County, additional pumps in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to bring water to Southern California, widening and deepening some waterways in the delta and developing the Kern “water bank,” an important ground water storage project.

Costly Projects

Kennedy estimated that these projects would cost up to $800 million and noted that traditional development of reservoirs for storage has become increasingly costly. To help meet the foreseeable needs of Californians, the report noted an increasing shift toward water conservation and salvage, combined with the use of surface and ground water, water banking, sharing and transferring and reclamation of waste water.

The document contained no planning for a revival of the controversial and moribund Peripheral Canal, a waterway that would skirt the delta and ship fresh Sacramento River water into the California Aqueduct for the long journey to farms in the southern San Joaquin Valley and to populous Southern California. Northern California voters defeated the proposal at the polls in 1982.

“We don’t see anything right now that is going to bring it back,” Kennedy said of the canal project.

The report, titled “California Water: Looking to the Future,” said that a water shortage of 1.3 million acre-feet would occur in 2010 if existing facilities of the Water Project were not expanded to meet the projected demands.

With the addition of the projects already on the drawing boards, the report said that the dependable water supply delivery capability would increase from 2.3 million acre-feet to about 3.2 million acre-feet annually. “Projected 2010 requirements of 3.6 million acre-feet could be provided 90% of the time, with permissible deficiencies,” the study said.

Support for Project Foes

Even if there is a reduction in water coming from the Colorado River, sufficient supplies will be available to meet the state’s water needs for the foreseeable future in three out of four years, the study said.

The report seemed to provide fresh ammunition in the Legislature to those who oppose legislation for major new water projects by Sen. Ruben Ayala (D-Chino) and Assemblyman Jim Costa (D-Fresno). The two lawmakers shelved their bills last summer when it became clear that neither had the support to win passage.

Ayala, whose bills are supported by Central and Southern California water contractors, said he had not seen the latest report but warned that “my bills are not going to go anywhere unless (my) water people get their act together.”

Without mentioning names, Ayala said that some of his contractor supporters failed to provide a unified front and “flake off for political reasons.”

Troubled by a changing economy, the report noted, agricultural water demand likely will not expand much beyond the early 1980s peak level of 9.7 million acre-feet per year. Earlier projections forecast a peak of up to 10.5 million acre-feet, the report said.

Bay Project Not in Plans

Kennedy told reporters that the report did not take into consideration the reallocation of water that would occur if the state Water Resources Control Board decides that additional amounts are required for environmental protection reasons to flush out San Francisco Bay. The board is conducting hearings on the issue and is expected to issue a ruling in the early 1990s.

He said that if the board ordered more fresh water poured into the bay, the action would require a reassessment of the report by water officials.

On another subject, Kennedy downplayed a proposal by Interior Secretary Donald P. Hodel to tear down Hetch Hetchy Dam near Yosemite National Park and return the area to its natural state. “The proposal to dismantle Hetch Hetchy, to most water people, does not seem like a wise thing to do,” Kennedy said.