Viewpoint: Innovate Toward a Water Solution

Governor Jerry Brown’s recently issued executive order to address the disastrous drought and the California Water Board’s imposition of water rationing and fines for water wasters are insufficient to bolster desperately needed water supplies. The executive order ever-so-slightly slowed the rate of digging a deeper water supply hole. Now Gov. Brown has punted to the Legislature to help ease government contracting requirements and to further streamline environmental law. This can be read as: Meet all the requirements, but try to do it faster.

Meanwhile, reservoir supplies are still dwindling, fields are going dry and, at double-digit levels of urban water rationing, already severe economic impacts will multiply. Recent economic studies disclose that water rationing at 25 percent in a community of fewer than 500,000 people is likely to result in at least $2 billion in economic damages per year. Now the governor and the state water board want rationing of up to 35 percent, but this does not include a calculation of economic impacts or an effort to develop viable alternatives.