Whe e We Are Where We Are
March 14-15 Water Education Foundation Executive Briefi ng
Rita Schmidt Sudman, coordinator Sacramento, CA
ith the start of a new year, we decided the time was right to check in with a group of people familiar with California’s water issues and get their views and opinions on the hot topics facing the state and the prospects for resolving long-standing confl icts. On Jan. 15, we met with Anthony Saracino, a water resources consultant (and former Water Education Foundation board member), Martha Davis, executive manager of policy development with the Inland Empire Utilities Agency and senior policy advisor to the Delta Steward- ship Council, Stuart Leavenworth, editorial page editor of The Sacramento Bee and Ellen Hanak, co-director of research and senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California. Saracino, who serves on the
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California Water Commission, was a founding member of the board and past president of the Groundwater Resources Association of California. For seven years, he was director of the Nature Conservancy’s California Water Program. Davis’ stint with water policy includes her term as executive director of the Mono Lake Committee, where she oversaw the State Water Resources Control Board’s unanimous 1994 decision to protect Mono Lake by revising the city of Los Angeles’ water rights.
Leavenworth, who took over his duties in 2009, has been a journalist for nearly 30 years, the last 14 with the Bee. In 2003, he was awarded the National Press Foundation prize for his coverage of California water issues.
January/February 2013
Hanak, who is trained as an economist, has written extensively on California water issues, including California Water: Planning for a Better Future, Where the Wild Things Aren’t: Making the Delta a Better Place for Native Species and Managing California’s Water: From Confl ict to Reconciliation.
Gary Pitzer: This state has many needs and a projected population increase. Do we have enough water right now to meet our current needs?
Anthony Saracino: If the question is do we have enough water to sustain- ably meet our current level of demand, I think clearly the answer is no because we’re over drafting our ground water basins between 1 and 2 million acre- feet per year and we generally don’t account for that when considering our overall water budget. So until we start doing water budgeting on a statewide and regional basis, we’re not really living within our means. But it’s a very diffi cult thing to get a handle on because the political pressures to not bring groundwater under the same kind of regulation as surface water are so great that we’re pretty much at a stalemate with respect to managing water on a budgeted basis statewide. So while many districts are doing a good job of managing their ground- water at the local level, which is what we should be doing, statewide we’re running a defi cit every year and it’s adding up. At some point we’re not going to be able to do that because groundwater levels or water quality are going to have degraded to the extent
March 20-22 Water Education Foundation Lower Colorado River Tour Renée Cashmere, tour coordinator Las Vegas, NV
March 30
“Best Practices in Environmental Education” Institute
Santa Clara County Offi ce of Education Brian Brown, California Project WET Coordinator San Jose, CA
April 3 Integrated Water Management Summit California Department of Water Resources and Water Education Foundation, cosponsors Sacramento, CA
April 4-5
Integrated Regional Water Management Conference
California Department of Water Resources and Water Education Foundation, cosponsors Sacramento, CA
April 4-5 Water Education Foundation Sea to Sierra Water Tour
Rita Schmidt Sudman and Renée Cashmere, tour coordinators Emeryville, CA
April 11
Santa Ana River Watershed Conference Water Education Foundation, coordinator Costa Mesa, CA
April 17-19 Water Education Foundation Central Valley Tour
Renée Cashmere, tour coordinator Sacramento, CA
April 19 Project WET Training, Regional Water Authority Education Committee
Brian Brown, California Project WET Coordinator Folsom, CA
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