California is reexamining decades-old claims to its water
California’s water resources are distributed in a way that can seem haphazard. The rules governing who gets how much water date back more than a century and are a confusing patchwork across the state.
For all its complexity, the system has worked well for decades and has allowed California to develop a huge agricultural industry that fuels the economy and feeds America. But as tensions rise from climate change and extreme drought, the state is being forced to take a closer look at its water supply. Regulators on Tuesday approved new rules allowing wastewater to be treated into drinking water, making California the second state to do so. (Colorado was the first.)
My colleague Raymond Zhong, a climate reporter, recently investigated California’s water problems, and how the state is reexamining water rights after decades of scant oversight. In some parts of California, officials are asking farmers to provide historical data to support their water claims; in other countries, regulators are considering limiting supplies to ranchers who have been siphoning large quantities from water streams.
I spoke with Raymond about his reporting. Here is our conversation, edited and condensed.
What made you want to focus on water rights in California?
I first became interested during last winter’s violent storms. After three years of drought, billions of liters of water suddenly flowed through the rivers. Yet the irrigation districts that wanted to get a share of it were still struggling. The reason, I learned, was the state’s water rights system: Even when there is far too much to go around, the system sets limits.
At first I thought this meant that the supervisors had a big spreadsheet recording everyone’s allocations in an orderly manner: here’s your name, here’s your place in line, here’s how much you can take and when. I soon discovered that this was not entirely the case: yes, everyone has allotments. But the way they are formulated and enforced can be the opposite of orderly.
What have you learned from your reporting?
One of the big problems is that California actually has two water rights systems. The state water board started issuing permits in 1914. That’s one system. But many large farms and irrigation districts compromised their water claims before 1914, and the board has much more limited authority to regulate them. So in the same watershed, where everyone shares the same supplies, the state effectively has jurisdiction over some users but not others.
For these reasons and many more, it is “shockingly difficult” for the water board to manage supplies by cutting people off during a drought, as Erik Ekdahl, the administration official responsible for the cuts, puts it.
How can such a haphazard system survive for so long in a state with so many water needs?
For most of California’s history, you could probably say the system basically worked. Sure, there were droughts. Sometimes people would fight over water. But the problems were infrequent and so isolated that the system did not require major repairs.
Now the planet is warming and the state has seen what it’s like to go from one prolonged drought to another, with only a few years of respite in between. In addition, the state’s usual reserve resource during droughts, groundwater, is rapidly disappearing. The pressure on supervisors has therefore increased considerably in recent years.
But everything that officials could do is now also much more difficult. Each change affects so many more people and so many more companies than would have been the case decades ago. Resistance to change can be much more powerful.
Where we travel to
Today’s tip comes from David Hayashida, who lives in Greenbrae:
“San Francisco is home to several dazzling public tiled staircases; my favorite are the Tiled stairs of 16th Avenue. Designed and crafted by local artists Aileen Barr and Colette Crutcher, this mosaic-tiled staircase is located in the Golden Gate Heights neighborhood and is maintained by many dedicated volunteers.
There are 163 steps, built with more than 2,000 handmade tiles and 75,000 fragments of mirrors, tiles and stained glass, with a theme developing from under the sea at the bottom to the moon and sun at the top. On either side of the stairs are gardens with native plants and succulents.
For an invigorating experience that combines art viewing and exercise, inspect the 163 steps as you make the 100-foot climb to 15th Avenue. Once there, climb another 28 concrete steps to the top floor of this split-level street and walk to nearby Grandview Park. Then climb another 144 wooden steps to the top of the park. Your reward is stunning views of San Francisco, the Marin Headlands, and the Pacific Ocean. Fortunately, the return journey is much easier!”
Tell us about your favorite places to visit in California. Email your suggestions to CAtoday@nytimes.com. We will share more in future editions of the newsletter.
Tell us
What are you looking forward to in 2024? Graduations, big birthdays, traveling to new places?
Tell us your expectations for the new year at CAtoday@nytimes.com. Please include your full name and the city where you live.
And before you go: good news
Thirteen restaurants in California made Esquire’s list of the 50 best new restaurants in the country, with chefs from across the state earning praise for their exacting technique, stylish seafood and fusion dishes.
Among the vibrant new dining options: Auro, a fine dining destination in Napa Valley; Burdell, an unusual mix of soul food and California cuisine in Oakland; and Dalida, a restaurant in San Francisco whose menu pays tribute to the entire Eastern Mediterranean.
“Honest innovation doesn’t always work in the kitchen, but when it does, it’s like rocket fuel for the soul,” writes Kevin Sintumuang, Esquire’s director of lifestyle and culture, in the list’s foreword, adding: “Consider this your card.”