“According to BDCP, the benefits of the tunnels are 34 percent to 40 per- cent greater than the costs to the water users that will fund them,” the report said. “However, two factors could affect whether the project has net benefits. First, the cost of the project could be higher from cost overruns. Second, the benefits could be lower than estimated because of lower-than-anticipated water demand or costs of alternative supplies.” The LAO says that while others have put the BDCP’s likely cost “much higher,” in the neighborhood of $1,000 per acre-foot, “for most urban water users, Delta exports in this price range would remain competitive with most other new sources of supplies.” However, the price increase “could be prohibitive for many agricultural activities [and] among the many open questions is whether water users could agree to a cost-sharing formula with lower payments by agriculture, poten- tially in exchange for lower reliability, or to a smaller project.”


A Paradigm Shift?


The history of water management is marked by what some refer to as “silos,” water supply, wastewater disposal and stormwater drainage. That structure has changed through the years as the value of water is recognized but remains in place to a large extent. A wide pool of funding takes care of drinking water and sewer services but “orphans,” those outside the traditional realm of receiving pay for services ren- dered, struggle for consistent fi nancing. Celeste Cantú, general manager of the Santa Ana Watershed Project Authority, advocates “following the drop,” a comprehensive approach to water management that transcends the political boundaries that she says arti- fi cially binds the process. “We need to blow up the silos,” she said at the PPIC conference.


The existing stratifi ed vision of water management fails to incorporate the benefi ts associated with proactive measures that protect and preserve water supply and water quality, said Cantú, noting “we don’t have good


May/June 2014


protocol to give value to intangibles.” Nonetheless, “people get it,” and are willing to chip in to help, as long as they aren’t hit with a string of extra charges, Cantú said.


Stormwater runoff exhibits the tragedy of the commons in that it is the collective waste on the ground from numerous sources that degrades water quality. Mercury, PCBs, trash and pesticides are just some of the contaminants that fl ow through the drainage system into rivers, creeks and the ocean. Agencies do what they can to limit the pollution, but the effort “is very challenging,” said Fabry with San Mateo County.


Existing drainage systems need to be reinvented in a manner that refl ects an “integrated vision” of stormwater that treats it as a resource and uses more sustainable systems that slow the fl ow and treat it via percolation into the ground, which has the added benefi ts of groundwater recharge and fl ood control, Fabry said. Doing that means going to the people to get the money, a tough sell. “We need $30 million to $40


million a year,” Fabry said. “We will be lucky to get a third of that from the voters.”


Stormwater runoff is intimately connected to transportation infrastruc- ture, both as a conveyance system of curbs and gutters, but also as a major source of pollutants. And integrated approaches to managing stormwater with other transportation investments is a potentially cost-effective way to reach water quality goals, Fabry said. “Active transportation solutions that reduce greenhouse gas emissions through bicycle and pedestrian projects are a prime opportunity for integrating stormwater management, given that those types of projects will be tearing up and transforming transportation infrastructure over time,” he said. One source of potential funds exists through the cap and trade provisions of the California Global Warming Solutions Act. The money could be used to support multi-benefi t transportation projects that support


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Learn more about water rates and aff ordability from the Pacifi c Institute


Read the LAO report “Financing the BDCP”


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